Aquarelle [h.s]

twenty-five

He hummed, not seeming to care that much. "That's interesting" he stated, his eyes still on the screen of his laptop.

I nodded, taking an hesitant step into the living room, feeling more and more nervous as each second went by. "Are you listening to me?" I asked, not really appreciating his apparent carelessness.

Nicholas hummed again, typing something on the laptop, not paying attention to me again.

I reached the couch and put my hands on it, giving him a severe glance, starting to get a bit annoyed. "Can you look at me?" I asked him. "Nicholas?"

He suddenly slammed the laptop shut. "What is it, you only remember you have a boyfriend when it's convenient for you?"

I furrowed my eyebrows. "What are you talking about?" I couldn't remember a single situation in which I'd acted as if he didn't exist, so I truly couldn't understand why he'd said that. It was an odd statement, especially coming from him.

"It's half past ten, Sierra" he said, "and where were you?"

"I was out with friends" I replied. "I told you, and I also asked you if you wanted to come along. You said no." Did he really want to make a huge deal out of nothing in that moment? I'd told him about it and I'd asked him if he wanted to join us. Was there something else I could've done?

He scoffed. "You were wasting time." He let out a short sarcastic laugh. "That's all you seem to do, isn't it? Just keep wasting time."

I frowned. "What are you talking about?" I had no idea of what he was referring to, but I already knew that I wouldn't have liked the direction in which that conversation was going.

"You're never at home anymore" he stated accusingly, putting the laptop down and standing up. "You're always in that studio wasting time."

"I'm not wasting time!" I replied, feeling a bit shocked that he'd say something like that. Out of all people, he should've been one of the ones that understood what I was doing and how important it was to me.

"Sierra, wake up!" He exclaimed. "It isn't a job! It will never be a job! Is it paying your bills?!"

I opened my mouth to reply, but he beat me to it.

"I know it isn't! We're practically living off of my salary because you keep wasting time on useless things!" He said loudly. "You're twenty-three, for fuck's sake. When are you going to understand that you'll never make a job out of it? Time to join the real world! They're literally only childish dreams at this point."

"That isn't true!" I replied, feeling outraged by his words. How could he say something like that? Was it how he truly felt about my passions and goals? "I have a primary job, and you know that as well! I have more than enough to pay-"

"Oh wow, you work four hours per day" Nicholas said, interrupting me. "You literally have no idea of what it means to work hard, like I and everyone else do!"

I was too shocked to process the things that had left his mouth. "I truly hope you're joking right now" I replied.

I had two jobs - sure, I was lucky enough to have one of my favourite things to do for one, but it was still a job. I worked almost every day of the week, for way more than the four hours he'd talked about, and when I was done I went to the studio, where I stayed for some more hours and sometimes during weekends if I had things to finish. I could've agreed if he'd said that my job wasn't one of the hardest, because I perfectly knew that it wasn't - but it was still a job, something I put a lot of time and effort in, and to have him belittle it as nothing more than a hobby and a waste of time was maddening.