Say Yes (Nostalgic Summer Romance)

I used it as a shield to hide me from Liam Benson as I pushed past him and out into the night.

I didn’t know why I ended up in the classroom.

I didn’t know why, when I left the bar and stepped out into the warm summer evening, my feet decided to walk me in a straight line toward campus.

Maybe I wasn’t ready to go home. Maybe I didn’t feel like sleeping yet. Maybe I was still worked up from the day and needed to walk it off.

Maybe I wanted to see what Liam Benson had painted.

Whatever the case, I found myself alone in the classroom — one Professor Beneventi gave each of us the combination to unlock so that we could work whenever inspiration struck us. Last night, the room had been filled with students finishing up their projects. Tonight, it was empty and quiet, the atmosphere a little haunting in its aloneness.

I let out an audible sigh as I walked over to my painting first, dropping my purse on the barstool and staring at the canvas. An image that had brought me such joy just twenty-four hours ago now made me want to rip it all to shreds. I no longer saw the bright and beautiful yellows and oranges and reds. I no longer saw some of my best brush work in the river, or the clarity of the people walking the streets even when using thick oil. I no longer saw a landscape I’d be proud to hang in my home or to see displayed in a gallery.

I only saw mediocrity.

And suddenly I understood what the professor had said.

It was predictable.

Shaking my head, I turned my back on the painting and walked along the edge of the room, eyes glancing at the other works as I did. Some students had taken theirs when they left, but most of them remained, and I saw some that were far worse than mine and just as many that were better.

I painted my first picture when I was three years old using a watercolor set my grandmother had given me. To this day, I swear that was my first memory. The first little snapshot of time my brain held onto was the splashes of blue and purple watercolor on that white sheet of paper.

It was the first time I’d shown promising use of my small hand.

My parents had celebrated the victory, hoping it would mean more activity from my underdeveloped hand. And sure enough, I started using it to play, to hold things, and to explore the world as a three-year-old does.

Painting was the first thing to ever inspire me.

It had been the only thing to ever inspire me.

And if I were being honest, it was the only thing I had that made me feel worthwhile.

It was a strange thing, to be born with a deformity, because I didn’t know anything else. Sure, it was easy enough to imagine what it would be like to have a fully developed right hand. But I never felt like I was lacking. As a kid, I never knew I had something wrong with me, that I had fallen short in some way. I did everything I wanted to. I did everything other kids did.

But as I aged, as I became the impressionable child we all become, I began to adopt thoughts from those around me.

I heard kids call me weird, saw them point at my hand with disgusted faces, and felt the shame of being purposely avoided in group projects. I heard their parents soften their voices and explain to their child how I was different, special, and that they shouldn’t point at my hand or talk about it. I heard my own parents whispering to each other in the kitchen, worrying over how I would type, or if I’d play sports, or if I’d ever be in pain as I grew older. I watched TV shows and movies in search of someone like me, but came up empty handed every time. I couldn’t even find a book that had someone like me in it.

Slowly, bit by bit, those realizations stacked on top of each other like a bad game of Tetris in my heart.

And I woke up one day and saw it — that I was less than, that I was different, that I fell short.

I was never able to unsee it after that.

Still, it never hindered me. If anything, I felt even more determined to live life despite my disability, and that determination quadrupled when it came to painting.

I didn’t just want to be an artist.

I wanted to be one of the best artists.

And I didn’t want my hand to have anything to do with my story.

Of course, that was nearly impossible. Every time I won an award at an art festival, or secured a medal for my school at the state competitions, my hand was just as famous in the news coverage as the art I created.