As I Am (11 page)

I smile, thinking about the time I had
with Cal tonight, despite the bump in the road when he put his foot in his mouth. I thought for sure I’d be all a flutter being that close to Cal Harper, having him want to be that close to be. And then that kiss? Cal would be a viable option for a real relationship in any girl’s book. So why is my heart not doing flips?

“Hey
, Kinley! Where have you been?” Bridget asks as I stroll into the kitchen for a soda.

“Cal and I took a walk,” I tell her.

“Again?” she says with a sideways look. For some reason my friends don’t like him very much. His confidence can make him come across like a jerk, but I know he’s nothing like that.

“I’m dismissing that look and going upstairs if you want to hang out!” I call to her as I walk away and continue to mull over the night’s events. Still unsure of myself, I decide I’ll leave a note for Addy to come see me when she’s back in her room so I can debrief.

I approach her and Mia’s room and hear them laughing with some other girls. I thought for sure she’d be outside making Miller feel uncomfortable. I guess she decided on a little girl time.

“Holy crap, these are huge!” I hear
one of the girls say.

“I know, right? She must have thrown these in my suitcase by mistake,” I hear Addy reply.

“What size are they? Oh my God! They’re a size twelve!”

“
At least they’re not a fourteen. She can thank me for that. I do my best to keep her on track. Once you get up into those teen sizes I think you’re considered morbidly obese! I have to stay on top of her all the time. I’m afraid what will happen if I don’t!” Addy’s voice rings out like a gong and my heart feels like I’ve just been stabbed a thousand times. I’ve had personal conversations with her about my weight, but I never thought she’d talk like this about me with other people.

“
Are you sure you two are twins? I’m pretty sure two of us could fit in these shorts! At least one and a half! Thank God she didn’t eat you in the womb!” I hear another girl say.

I walk into the room and find two girls I don’t know holding up a pair of my shorts and looking at them with astonishment. Apparently the idea of not being a size four is beyond their comprehension. I look at Addy and she looks at
me, surprised and uncertain of what to do. She doesn’t say anything, doesn’t even try to make an excuse for what they’re doing. She doesn’t pretend they were just joking around, or even feign an attempt to stick up for me.

I snatch the
article of clothing from the girls holding it against themselves, showing how close to right they were about more than one of them fitting into my shorts. “I’ll just take my one-size-away-from-morbidly-obese shorts and waddle over to my room.” I turn and leave, not looking at Addy. At this point, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to look her in the eye again.

Just when I thought things were going to suck more than they ever
have, the reality of having real, genuine friends sunk in. Last night, after I threw my shorts into a drawer and my crying self on the bed, Amy slammed her book closed and came to my side while I mumbled the short version of Addison’s harsh words. I wasn’t going to say anything, but there was no hiding my tears and Amy was not going to give up until I told her what had crushed me so terribly. I thought that saying the words in any form would be humiliating, but I somehow found release in doing so.

Carrie and Bridget came when Amy called, and it didn’t take long for Matthew to become the icing on what
resulted in a beautifully made, last-minute cake.

Addy eventually tried to
come into my room. I guess she thought she was giving me time to get over her cruel words and bandwagoning first. I didn’t talk to her or even look up. Amy and Bridget wouldn’t let me. As Carrie stayed by my side, all I heard was Bridget telling Addy that she needed to step out before she did any more damage, and Amy saying that she didn’t want to see Addy and her “skinny bitches” within five feet of me. Addison argued for a minute, claiming some rights as my sister, but Amy made it clear she didn’t care who she was. After a few one-line exchanges, Addy left.

My four friends
spent the next few hours helping me calm down from the hurtful betrayal it was to hear Addison say what she said about me, and reminding me of all the reasons they think I’m great. They said things like smart, funny, talented, caring; saying that those were the things that made me attractive. They also spent about five minutes going over how they didn’t care that Addison had a body that could kill, her heart was dirty and nasty and there was nothing more disgusting than that. It was hard for me to hear everything they said, even the nice things about me. I wanted to counter everything with the antithesis, which really equates to me constantly telling myself I’ll never be enough. I’ll never be smart enough, funny enough, talented or caring enough. I’ll never be Addison enough.

It was also strange having hours of time spent being focused on me, but my friends did just that. They set aside their own lives and with no other agenda but to lift me up, they took the time to speak life into me. For four solid hours
my and Amy’s bedroom was a retreat where everything I am was good enough.

Matthew made me put my own outfits together and declared that what I did was perfect, which means a lot coming from the guy who puts the window display outfits together for one of the city’s biggest retailers. His marketing degree is just a formality so the company can make him director of that
whole department.

We looked through my entire digital portfolio and all everyone could do was comment on how amazing they thought everything was. Then I pulled out my camera and took pictures of all of us. I didn’t worry about how my body looked as I leaned in or sat down. I didn’t remind myself that I can always
Photoshop the rolls or the flab on my arms. For a few short hours I was perfect in every way.

A
fter YouTube surfing, and finding a video that left us chanting, “I feel happy of myself,” Carrie pulled up a video that her dad showed her from when he was a teenager. He claims there was a time MTV only showed music videos and not train wreck reality shows. Who would have thought a music video with a guy singing into a microphone with serious models dressed in all black, hair slicked back, and red lipstick would be so entertaining? Carrie pulled out a black tank top and biker shorts, slicked
her
hair back, and acted out the video as we replayed it. Eventually all the girls donned the red lipstick, slicked our hair back, and danced while we lip-synced about being addicted to love.

By the time we crashed it was almost two in the morning and I was no longer in a state of despair. Not only did
my friends do so much to take my mind off my broken heart, but they actually mended most of it.

A tap on my shoulder nudges me awake
after only a few hours’ sleep. At first I think it’s Addy sneaking in to talk to me. I’m not ready to talk to her so I shoe her away with a “Go away, Addy. I don’t want to talk to you.”

“Kinley,” the hushed voice says. “C’mon. I want to show you something.” I look up and rub my eyes, now seeing clearly that it’s not
Addy, but Miller. “Grab your camera. C’mon!”

I sit up and
give him a groggy smile. What a wonderful way to wake up after the night I had with Addy. I do as Miller says, throwing on a hoodie over my pajamas and slipping on my Toms.

“What time is it?” I ask as we creep down the stairs.

“A little after six,” he answers. He’s got his notebook and a sketch pad under his arm and a pencil in his hand. “C’mon. We have to hurry.”

I follow Miller and his flashlight outside and down to the rocks at the far end of the lake. He takes me by the shoulders and moves me to a particular rock, and instructs me to sit.

“What are we doing here?” I ask him with a curious giggle. He smiles at me and my heart starts pounding inside my chest. It’s that same excited pounding that also beats thoughts of betrayal in me. I don’t want to stop feeling this way, but I’m sure it’s not right for me to, especially since I know my body didn’t respond this way last night when Cal kissed me.

“Just watch,” he says with a bright
smile. I stare at his smile a second too long and he has to turn my head back toward the direction I’m supposed to be looking. “And … there it is.”

“Wow.” The sun is just starting to rise over the trees and it’s everything I’ve ever dreamed it would be. I always told myself that one day I was going to get up early like this and watch an actual sunrise.

“I thought you might want to take pictures?” Miller laughs, noticing me being so distracted by the sight that I haven’t moved my camera from my lap.

“Oh! Right!” I laugh. I snap a few shots, checking them on the screen of the camera, and then adjusting my lens. “It really is sp
ectacular,” I say with the camera to my face.

“I thought you’d think so.” Miller opens his sketch pad to a page that he’s already be
en drawing on. It looks like this same scene.

“Is that this sunrise?” I ask.

“Yeah.”

“How many mornings have you been coming out here?” I ask, already amazed at his commitment.

“Every morning for about a week,” he answers. “It’s taking me forever to finish this piece because I keep finding myself staring at it and not drawing.”

“I can understand that,” I laugh.

We spend the next thirty minutes or so, just drawing and taking pictures. I move around the rocks and get different angles of the bright yellow sun and its beams through the trees, on rocks … and on Miller. I begin to take pictures of him with total abandon. Shots of just his hair and the way the light filters through the short, dirty blond locks. I walk behind him and capture the most amazing shot of him sitting there, his sketch pad propped up on his bent knees, and the almost complete sunrise in the distance.

At some point I lose my mind and get right up to him, focusing the lens on his tattoos. Not the tribal looking ones on his right arm, but the ones that seem like they would have deeper meaning. His arm is bent at his side as he holds the sketch pad, so I can’t see the tattoo of the girl on his inner arm. I want to ask him to move his arm, but
I should draw a line somewhere.

Frame after frame I digitally capture the things Miller has determined are so important to him that he has to keep them with him forever.
I suppose there could be a few drunken-mistake tattoos, but they all seem so purposeful.

“I told you that you could ask any time, Kinley,” he says, not looking up from the page.

Biting my lip, I scan his arm, looking at the intricacy of each mark: the lines, the color, the shading. I’ve never really considered it before, but … they’re beautiful.

“I can ask you about any of them, and you’ll tell me?” I ask, my ulterior m
otive in the back of my mind.

Miller puts his pencil down, closes his sketch pad, and turns to face me. “Yes.”

I swallow hard as the intensity of Miller’s eyes boring into mine catches me off-guard.

“Ok
ay. Maybe I will … one day,” I tell him, unsure of how to even ask. There are so many to choose from, but all I want to do is ask about the girl he’s hiding on the other side of his arm. Miller gives a breathy laugh at my lack of bravery and picks up his notebook. “Have you abandoned your drawing?” I ask.

“I’m finished for the most part. You want to see it?” he says, picking up the large sketch pad. I nod and smile and Miller flips through a few pages to the one of the sunrise. I catch a glimpse of several other drawings and wish he would slow down. He finds the sunrise drawing and holds it up for me.

“It’s beautiful. I’m in total awe of your talent.” The drawing is in pencil but he’s made it so easy to be able to picture the yellow and orange glow of the sun and the green of the trees.

“Thanks,” he says confidently as he closes the pad up and sets it aside. His notebook slides off his leg and I pick it up to hand it to him, but not before thumbing through it quickly. There are more drawings in here, and what look like poems. Lots and lots of poems. “Hey!” he says as he snatches the book from me.

“Oh, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that,” I apologize, embarrassed.

“No, it’s
alright. I actually don’t mind you reading some of them. Just not all of them. But the one I really want you to read isn’t finished yet.” Miller sighs and I wonder what poetic treasure he has hidden in there. I would love to see it. “We should get back. Some of us actually have somewhere to be at a certain time,” he jokes.

“Jealous much?” I laugh.

Miller helps me navigate down the rocks back to the forest floor and we walk slowly back to The Lodge.

“So,
now that I’ve spent a little time with your sister, I’m seriously thinking you two are not really twins and that you were left on the doorstep by genius gypsies,” Miller says with a cute laugh. If only he knew just how terrible his timing is. Two days ago I would have reiterated how Addison may be focused on the material things of this world, but she’s really got a great heart. Today, all that has changed.

“I’m not
really sure what to say to that anymore. We had an argument last night. She said some things that I never dreamed would ever leave her lips,” I tell him.

“Do you want to talk about it?”
Miller touches my arm gently, opening himself up to receive all the trash I have built up in me from my sister’s harshness.

“No. I’m sure we’ll get past it. We always do.” I can’t talk to Miller about this. I mean, I may be comfortable with him, but no girl is comfortable enough with any guy to talk about how fat her sister thinks she is.
“I don’t know. You may be right about the gypsies. Addy’s here to work on her tan and I’m here to add funds to my ‘traveling the world with my mom’ account. She’s a photographer for National Geographic,” I tell him with a smile. Thinking of the day I meet Mom halfway around the world always makes me smile.

“So it runs in your blood! That’s really cool, Kinley,” he says.

“Yeah. It makes me feel like Mom and I are connected, even though she’s been gone for years and I hardly get to hear from her. Addy doesn’t understand the connection I have with Mom. It was really hard for me when she took the job with National Geographic. I cried for days. We were thirteen. Addy thought I needed to grow up and move on. ‘Mom’s not coming back, Kinley! Deal with it!’ she’d say. Addy didn’t get it though. Mom was the only person who never compared me to Addy. More often than anything she tried to protect me from those comparisons. Addy? She has never been close with Mom … probably because Mom was grounded in reality and Addy’s head has always been in the clouds.”

Miller stops and looks at me for a moment, like he’s trying to figure something out.

“What?” I ask, completely aware of my rising nervousness. “I’m sorry. Am I talking too much? Sometimes I talk too muc
h
‒
‒
”

“I understand
,” Miller says, cutting me off. “… the connection you’re talking about. When you have that kind of connection with someone, other people just don’t understand it. That’s actually, kind of why I’m here,” he tells me.

“Really?”

“Yeah … um … My sister killed herself,” he says with just a bit of hesitancy.

“Oh my G
od, Miller. I am so, so sorry!” Something comes over me and I have this intense need to hug him. So I do. I wrap my arms around him and hold him like our lives depend on it. I squeeze my eyes shut, somehow overwhelmed with his pain. Sadness fills me and my eyes fill with tears. I didn’t even know this girl, but her horrific death is making my heart hurt. I pull away and look at Miller, not exactly sure what I’m reading on his face. I hope I haven’t freaked him out by my emotional response.

“Why are you crying?” he asks, wiping the tears from my face.

“I’m just so sad for you. I’m so sorry that you had to experience that. It breaks my heart,” I tell him. This connection he keeps telling me we have … it feels so real right now, like I’ve known Miller forever, like we’re old souls, connecting again in this life. His pain is my pain and I can’t stand it.