Maybe this is who I am, right here where this pencil meets the page, where my eyes meet these glowing squares. So basic, I know, but the lightness, the wholeness, I feel right now is telling me there’s something to it. Not the sketching itself, but me totally doing it, this one small thing. Giving all of my attention to it is letting me be.

REX

I’m in the living room, on the opposite end of the sofa from my dad, trading cool home design pictures via IG. I didn’t even have to sign him up. He already had an account. One of those zero posts, no profile pic accounts, but still. Who knew?

“Look at this one,” he says from the other end of the sofa, his big feet in white socks almost reaching mine.

“Okay, give me a sec,” I say, eyeing the image of a black heart with a jagged line going down the middle that just popped up on my feed. Another post from Cole. I swear Cole has posted over twenty times today.

Not his usual portraits, which always seem to reveal the unseen parts of people. Nah, it’s a whole bunch of I’m-going-through-some-shit-type posts like, Don’t trust anyone or I remember when life was good or How can one person tell so many lies or The saddest thing about betrayal is that it never comes from your enemies.

That girl with the slick-back ponytail and the wide-open eyes must’ve done him real dirty. He’s been posting about her like crazy the last few weeks. And now this. I thought about texting him earlier, but I was scared he wouldn’t want to hear from me after what I did to Carli. But this public breakup stuff has been going on for way too long. I’m not only worried about him, I’m starting to feel embarrassed for him.

You alright? I DM him on IG.

He hits me right back. My dad is a fraud

I look at my dad on the other end of the sofa. He’s nowhere near perfect, but he’s trying his best. I message back, He’s probably doing his best

“Did you see the last one I sent?” my dad asks.

I click on the chat with my dad and see a picture of an all-white living room with a long, gray sofa and sleek, dark wood furniture. “Nah, this is basically the same look we have now. Not comfortable enough. And not enough color,” I say, and look around.

I pause on the wall of windows that extend all the way from the kitchen into the living room. Outside a darkening orange-pink sky hovers over the pines. I was trippin’ before. Our house is sick. It’s this cool modern house with these huge windows that bring all the trees it’s surrounded by in. But we still need help making it feel like a home.