Grey Street // H.S.

Chapter 21: Deep Throating Sausage

"What the hell is this?"

I turn around to see Harry holding up a medium sized canvas with a painting I did about two years ago. There is a large tree filled with kittens on the branches. The lower part of the tree is on fire and the kittens have no way down. There is a fireman at the bottom with a ladder, prepared to save the kittens. Only in the world of this painting the fireman has a wooden latter that has also caught on fire. So the kittens are screwed.

I can't help but laugh at Harry's face as he asks me the question. He looks absolutely horrified. Not that I can blame him considering his obvious love for cats. It is a pretty depressing picture and honestly I can't even remember why I made it. I only remember feeling extremely sad at the moment and I guess I had to take it out on kittens to feel better.

"Umm," I try to think of a way to explain it someone who talked about cats for an hour straight when we were drunk a few days ago. But between my fits of laughter and Harry looking at me like he's about to cry, I find it impossible. "It's art, Harry."

He doesn't seem to agree with me as he continues to grip the painting and shake it around a little, "This is not art, Ellison," he tries to look genuinely upset and I can't keep a straight face as he gets so worked about a painting of kittens. "I mean it's beautifully painted, but Elle, this is concerning."

I'll admit it's a slightly disturbing picture. Harry's right though, it is beautiful.

"What?" I glare back at him. "Are you trying to say I should start going to therapy? Maybe we can go together since you're such an expert in that realm."

Shit. Did I just say that? There isn't anything wrong with going to therapy. I mean my parents forced me to go for months and the only thing that was embarrassing about it was how terrible my therapist was. Harry goes or went, or whatever, for a much different reason than I did. His reason seems a lot more legitimate. And while what I just said was supposed to be a joke more than anything I worry that it's going to hit him somewhere harder than I anticipated. Fuck, I probably shouldn't ever speak.

I'm expecting Harry to yell, go completely silent or at least walk out of the room. He doesn't. Instead he does something I wasn't anticipating in the slightest. He laughs. Not a nervous uncomfortable one. Not a soft giggle. It's a loud, head thrown back, belly laugh.

"Wouldn't that be fun," he manages to say through his loud laughter. I'm surprised he hasn't fallen over yet. "I think it'd be quite the bonding experience. Maybe then I would finally understand you and your kitten killing mind."

The thing is Harry already understands me and my kitten killing mind better than anyone else I know. He doesn't need a thousand dollar shrink and an hour a week of bullshit talking for that.

I watch him set down the painting back in its place on the wall in the corner of the studio above the garage where we've been for the last hour. He came over this morning and ate almost a whole box of cereal, even though it was the gross health stuff my mom is still set on. Then we sat in the kitchen for about twenty minutes trying to decide what to do. I didn't feel like venturing outside with it being even hotter than normal and I was feeling kind of lazy because my body has been having a difficult time trying to recover from a few nights ago. So I decided to show him the studio, plus I wanted to work on my welcome to hell sign.

Harry has been walking around the room for the last ten minutes and besides questioning my cat picture he's gawked at everything else. It's nice to feel like someone actually enjoys what I make since half of it I refuse to show. He was even so caught up in looking at this watercolor that he knocked over a huge shelf of paint brushes. After yelling at him about it and him saying sorry about a thousand times we put everything back and he even organized the brushes which is something I hadn't bothered to do in months. Luckily nothing else was knocked over in the process.