Page 50 of Don't Be in Love

I couldn’t tell him now. If I told him I took her to Poppy’s, then he’d know Adelaide meant something.

He knew no one saw me paint. It wasn’t supposed to be for anyone. The moment you created art and shared it, everyone took it as an invitation to tell you how to make it better. More interesting. To critique and commoditize it. To make assumptions about it that weren’t supposed to be made.

Art was meant to be enjoyed. To provoke. Not to be pulled apart and judged stroke by stroke.

But Adelaide just watched. The same way I watched her run her finger over her computer screen to breakdown definitions and explain analytics.

“Nothing much,” I told him.

17

Don’t Ask About His Relationship Status — Adelaide

November was only a week away. Which meant that I had to switch out my red gingham duvet for a heavier cotton blend. A fun seasonal change.

November, unfortunately, also meant one month until final exams and the semester-long projects were due.

Right when I needed time to slow down so I could catch my breath, it was running away and dragging me with it. It was even changing the view outside my window to a late, wet October filled with vibrant orange leaves, dark concrete sidewalks, and a commitment to slip its cool air through the seams of my window.

Lately, time had trotted away just as quickly as when I was with Dorian. After visiting the art studio, the silent space that usually passed between us during tutoring sessions had dwindled.

We discussed weekend plans, late-night thoughts, childhood memories, and embarrassments, like the time he and James went on their first annual Italy Christmas trip where Dorian ended up with his first tattoo. Neither of them knew any Italian, but that didn’t stop him.

“I thought I could understand enough,” he had said. “But one thing led to another, and I ended up in a tattoo shop, telling the artist he could tattoo whatever he’d like. I swore up and down toJames that I knew what the artist was saying. But an hour later, I had a tomato tattooed on my upper thigh.”

I laughed at both the story and his pronunciation oftoe-mah-toe.

For a split second, I almost asked him to show me. But the logical half of my brain kicked in before he could unzip his pants to show me his upper thigh.

“Non parli Italiano?” I asked with surprise. Wasn’t there some requirement for all rich kids to grow up knowing every European language?

His eyes had lit up. “Parlo dieci lingue. Italian just happened to be the last.” My heart lurched. I pushed my hand against my chest as if I could calm the beat. “How do you know Italian?”

Then my heart stilled. Like a hummingbird trapped behind a window.

Two words I avoided for over a decade: my dad.

But his face was so calm, and he was so close. His hand splayed out on the desk like he was reaching for me. That pocket of energy in my chest surged again. Suddenly, the words were out. I was an open book, and my pages were losing ink.

“My dad loved to listen to Italian music whenever he was home. It was on so much that I had memorized the lyrics but had no clue what they meant. When he got home from job sites, he’d go over the words with me, until one day, I could translate everything in the Italian dictionary back to English,” I shared.

I didn’t say where he was now. Or how he’d stolen the life my mother imagined. Or how he made her someone I despised and uprooted my life.

There was something cruel about your parents deciding to bring you into the world, and just choosing not to be with you in it.

It was easier to talk about it as if I was telling a story, rather than recalling my life. Like how Dad would cut my peanut butterjelly sandwiches into star shapes. Or how he’d sing to Mom in Italian when she cooked his favorite panko-crusted chicken, picking me up to dance in the kitchen.

I had stopped there. Dorian didn’t push.

He opened his phone and showed me pictures of paintings he was working on.

They were beautiful. Delicate. A series of watercolor and oil paintings. Corners of living rooms. Windowsill flower boxes. Men drinking coffee at the cornerstone cafes. Hands pulling books off of shelves.

“These are beautiful, Dorian,” I said, imagining what they looked like in person if they were already this beautiful through a screen. “You should sell these. They should be in people’s homes.”

“Oh, I don’t know.”

“I would cover my entire room in them,” I gushed.