Page 28 of Last Letters to Ara
“Yeah, me too.”
“Cool.” I deserve an Oscar for keeping it together right now.
He pauses. “Any big plans at school today?”
“Just the usual.”
Here it comes.
“Okay, did Chuck and Blair finally get together orwhat!?”
I howl with laughter and almost drop the milk in the process of grabbing my stomach.
“Come on, Ara! Just put me out of my misery and tell me what happened!”
Last night, Dad got bored of whatever National Geographic show he had on, coming into my room to bother me instead. I hadGossip Girlrolling on season four, where Chuck proposes, and then the thing with Jenny happens...you know the one. Dad couldn’t stand the angst any longer and bailed…and now he’s paying the price.
My laughter becomes greedy. “You’ll just have to come watch the rest to find out.”
He grabs his bowl of Cheerios in frustration and walks out.
“I didn’t raise you to be so cruel!” he calls from the other room, indignant.
I collapse on the floor, laughing until tears break free and I’m late for school.
Present - Ara
THE LATE MORNINGsun warms my face, rousing me from sleep and with the way the light is falling, I realize that I might be glowing as much on the outside as I am on the inside. Last night was magical. Grabbing a pillow to shove over my face, the stupid grin feels permanently etched onto my face, too embarrassing for even the ceiling to see.
This funny feeling starts up again like I’m back at the top of the roller coaster. My room looks different, feels brighter. The colors stand out more, and for the first time in months, I feel like I could bring myself to create something today.
When I was six years old, I fell in love with textiles. My art teacher had the great idea of making Mother’s Day gifts, not thinking there could be a few of us who didn’t have one. She let me pick whatever art project I wanted, so I spent the entire class feeling the different materials in her collection, too enraptured to try and make anything. When she saw how fond I was of this particular pink lace, she cut me a big square and let me take it home.
I glued it to a piece of paper, doing the best job a small child is capable of to cut it into the shape of a dress, taping it around one of the Barbies I’d never bothered playing with until then. When I showed Dad, he looked at me with such love and adoration, and told me that one day if I wanted to, I could go to a special school to learn how to make clothes for all the women of the world.
As I got older, I started experimenting with different patterns and stitching, learning very quickly that I did not have the patience for embroidery, so I stuck with making clothing, watching videos on YouTube until I could create something on my own. Dad saw how much time I was spending on stitching, so for my sixteenth birthday he bought me my very own sewing machine. It became my favorite way to spend my free time.
It’s something I’ve kept secret, strictly reserved for whenever the feeling strikes, like today. Dad is the only one who ever knew how much my designs meant to me, besides Cameron, the last person I told and instantly regretted doing so. Any time I’ve mentioned loving fashion, people take one look at my leggings and ignore the rest of what I have to say, as if it was a pipe dream. So one day, that’s all it became.
Of course, I never stopped making clothes, I just stopped sharing it with others, not wanting their opinions to change how I felt. Thus, why I keep them nice and safe in their own little room. Most of what I’ve made are outfits you’d have to leave the house for something other than work to wear anyway, so there they remain, untouched.
It’s not like I grew up a social pariah or something, I was bullied the standard amount, nothing too overboard. I even had “friends,” I just didn’t particularly enjoy hanging out with them since we had nothing in common. Birthday parties were even more awkward, with all the moms sitting together to talk about “mom things,” while Dad stood on his own until one of the ladies took pity on him and left the hub to keep him company.
Dad never complained, but I hated seeing him look like he didn’t belong. Pretty soon, the kids got meaner and the invitations stopped coming anyway. So instead, Dad and I would kick back and watch movies, new and old. Sometimes we’d go on adventures, driving to see race cars and horse shows. We even tried water skiing, neither of us managing to stand up a single time, so we opted to spend the day eating two-dollar grilled cheese sandwiches while watching the pros instead.
We developed our own unspoken language, never bothering to gush about our emotions, knowing each other so well we didn’t need to. Personally, I kept it all to myself, good and bad, regardless. By the time I got out into the world, I realized that most people aren’t like that. If someone made them mad, they would scream with rage. If they loved, they would yell it from the rooftops.
Cameron was one of those people. He used to say it was love at first sight, something out of a movie, the way fate intervened placing us both at the library that day. I never told him it was because I was at the library almost every day, and it would have been hard for him to miss me.
I liked that he accepted me for who I was, never forcing me to go to the parties he went to or on double dates with his friends, content with coming over to my house or meeting at the library. It was...nice. Companionable. We never disagreed on anything, and it was easy.
Until senior year, when the time came to apply for college. I’d recently told him about my designs, and he didn’t understand the big deal I’d made it into. I made clothes? So what? I could follow him to New York and take some “sewing classes” while he attended NYU’s art program.
Full disclosure? It had terrified me, following him to another state, which seemed like more than a decision on where to go to college. In a way, I was choosing who to spend the rest of my life with, and I wasn’t prepared to make that decision at seventeen years old. Plus, if I ever did find the courage to move to New York and pursue fashion, I’d want it to be forme, not because I was following someone else.
Dad saw these thoughts written all over my face for months. Cameron would come over with his applications and I would sit there, motion sick. Dad didn’t say anything about it for a while, but I think eventually he got worried that I would follow another person’s path just to avoid the confrontation.
Finally, he sat me down and said, “Ara, sometimes I think I might have let you become a bit too much like me.”
