Art & Soul

She wore wind pants each day with an old sweatshirt that had a picture of Pink Floyd on it. Her feet were always in a pair of high heels that looked very painful. Whenever she walked, she walked hastily, which led to her making a swishing sound as her wind pants rubbed against one another. Her high heels clicked, her swishy pants swished. If she wasn’t speed walking through the hallways in a hurry to get to her next class, she was quoting some random person. Her eyebrows and hair looked bleached blond, and she was awfully pale, too. She didn’t believe in personal space, and I knew this firsthand because she was currently helping me take the condoms off of my locker, pretty much breathing down my neck.

“Yeah,” I agreed. “It does.”

“Don’t let them get to you, though. It’s not a forever thing. ‘Dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars, and see yourself running with them.’ You know who said that? Marcus Aurelius said that.”

“I don’t know who that is.”

“Google, Aria. The internet is swirling with people just telling you stuff that you didn’t know. Don’t take it all in, though. A lot of it is just government propaganda trying to scare you shitless so they can steal your money.” And with that she was off, swishing away.

I didn’t know Awkward Abigail cursed.

* * *

Thursday afternoons were my new least favorite thing. Mom wanted to know that I was okay, but she wasn’t sure how to get me to open up to her. I wasn’t planning to open up to her, so maybe that was part of the problem. Since I wouldn’t talk to her about the incident that led to the pregnancy, she believed I should at least talk to someone.

Dad was more into the pretend-Aria-doesn’t-exist parenting tactic.

I wished Mom was a little more like him.

Dr. Ward’s name reminded me of an asylum ward. Three of the walls in his office were bright white and the last one, baby blue. His furniture was all made out of polished dark wood, except for the powder blue couch against one of the walls, the blue candy bowl filled with jelly beans, and the blue pens that lay perfectly straight on his desk. I bet he learned that in psychology 101, the use of colors. Blue was supposedly a calming color that many often used to make people feel at peace, comfortable.

Personally, it reminded me of Picasso’s Blue Period, which was a pretty depressing time period for him, though some of his greatest masterpieces came from that dark place.

Another oxymoron: Picasso’s Blue Period of Brilliance.

“What’s on your mind, Aria?” Dr. Ward asked in his very therapist-toned voice. He was old, yet somehow still young, probably in his early thirties. Old enough to be a therapist, but young enough to still seem unworthy. I didn’t have a clue why Mom had picked him to try to crack into my brain. Dr. Ward didn’t talk much, but when he did, he was always asking me about my thoughts, my feelings, and my current state of being.

“Picasso,” I said, reaching for the jelly beans in his blue bowl.

“Picasso?” he questioned, a hitch in his voice.

“During 1901, Picasso went through a blue phase. He only used blues and a few shades of green in his paintings. It’s said that during those times he was highly depressed, but he also made some of his best work during that period. The Old Guitarist, for example, is one of my all time favorite paintings. It’s strange that during the darkest times of his life he created some of his best masterpieces.”

“Hmm,” he hummed, tapping one of the many blue pens against his lips. “And what made you think of Picasso right now?”

“Your office.”

“My office?”

“Yes. It’s depressing and stuffy.”

“Do you think it’s because of the actual room, or because of your current state of mind?”

I didn’t answer; I wasn’t sure what the answer was.

Maybe I was going through my own blue period.

“Do you feel depressed, Aria?”

I didn’t reply. I played the angsty teenager role. He didn’t seem to mind.

* * *

“How was the meeting?” Mom asked me, driving away from Dr. Ward’s office.

“Great,” I lied. “He’s really great.”

“Good.” She smiled, nodding. “Good, good, good. I’m glad you have someone to talk to.”

Yeah, totally.

* * *

After my therapy appointment, Mom had to go back to the hospital and Dad was working late, so it was my responsibility to grab Grace and KitKat from our neighbor’s house and make sure they had dinner. Boiled hotdogs and fries were as fancy as I was getting tonight, and the two of them didn’t seem to mind at all. There was nothing my two sisters loved more than fries and whatever the heck a hotdog was made of.

We sat at the table eating together, and Grace kept staring down at my stomach. “You’re really getting fat,” she said, stuffing her mouth with her hotdog, which was drowning in ketchup.

“Shut up, Grace.”

“You should think about going on a diet. Otherwise you’ll have a two hundred pound baby. Mrs. Thompson’s baby was pretty fat.”

“No one cares about Mrs. Thompson’s baby.”

“That’s not nice,” she hollered, ketchup landing on her colorful shirt. Grace’s outfits always looked like she’d walked through a Skittles factory and swum in rainbows. From colored bracelets to rainbow socks, you would think she would be as sweet and bright as her clothing. Not so much. “You’re not really nice anymore.”