Yeah, going early to get some shots in

Dang, I u

Ha! I’m trying!

Below Cole’s conversation is a conversation with Danny. He texted to invite me to a party he’s having tonight. Said his parents were out of town for the weekend and he was getting kegs. Been to enough white-boy wasted parties (one) to know it’s not my thing, but I plan to go anyway. Can’t pass up the opportunity to try to smooth things over with the team.

Below the conversation with Danny, Carli’s message of thanks still sits, staring at me like a hand up in my face. I swear every time I see it, all the air rushes out my lungs.

This can’t be the end of us.

I type, Miss you, and erase it. Miss you again and press Send before I can lose my nerve. Maybe she’s done with me, maybe she’s not. But how will I ever know if I don’t start trying to fix what I’ve messed up.

CARLI

I’m driving back to Daddy’s from my Photoshop class at HCC. Missed the first class of the session last Saturday, but I still killed it. And I was afraid I was going to be too far behind . . . afraid I wasn’t going to be as good as those college kids. Chile, please! The teacher even said he was impressed by me.

Let me back up. After basically spending all last week filling up my notebook with sketches and quotes and facts and magazine clippings—each page with a totally different look, giving a completely different feel—I realized I was pretty good at collage.

Sounds crazy, I know. I’ve basically been doing it on my walls since I was a kid. But I always thought putting random things together in interesting ways would eventually tell me what I really wanted to do with my life. I never considered the possibility that it could actually be the thing I do. Duh!

And even when the possibility first popped in my head, I was still like, A collage artist? Me? Nooo. But I am. Not to say that it’s all I’ll ever be. Maybe it will be, and I’ll just keep getting better and better. Or maybe it will lead to something else I love. Or maybe I’ll end up doing something completely different with my life.

All I know is that right now, I want to take my collage skills to the next level. I want to learn how to do it digitally. Where it takes me, who knows? But getting better at something I love feels like a step in the right direction. And that’s all I can ask for.