Chapter 33
I ate dinner at Josh's place, after texting my Mom and telling her not to worry about my not coming home.
Josh made a point of not talking about Kendall again, and making sure I wasn't going to think about this any more.
I'd done enough of it for today.
Now, I needed to change my mind.
We ate pizza and Josh talked about his trip and how his project with Todd was going.
I joked about him liking Todd more than me, and it felt good to feel slightly more light hearted for a moment.
It made it easier for me not to think about the whole Kendall stuff.
After dinner, Josh cleaned up and I went on the second floor of his place and looked around his records, wanting to play something up beat.
There was a big desk where his turntable was and one it there was a box with a pile of drawing in it.
I picked up one sheet, curious.
It was a black cat, but it wasn't in Josh' s usual style. I liked it. I kinda looked like a sketch, with something, almost abstract about it.
I rummage through the box, finding more drawings and paintings. There was a lot of aquarelles, all with this light, almost sketch like quality to them.
They were all signed J. Josh never signed any of his art, so I wondered if this was a box of old stuff.
He came up the stairs at the moment, with a cup in his hand.
"Did you make these? They're not your usual style. They're really nice," I asked.
"Huh?" Josh just mumbled, sipping on his tea.
"These?" I asked again, taking one of the drawings and shaking it at him.
Josh' eyes widened, and he kind of froze. "Oh."
"What?" I asked, frowning and a little confused.
"Fuck," he just said and sat down on the ground.
Yeah, that didn't look suspicious at all.
"What?" I pressed. Why was he reacting like this? Had he stole art from someone and now I was going to be an accomplice to his crime?
He looked like he was debating on what he was going to say, and I was getting more and more worried by the second. "I didn't do these," Josh finally admitted softly, looking up at me from sitting on the ground.
"Isn't this your signature?" I asked, pointing to the J.
"It's Jay's," he whispered.
I kinda froze. He'd spoken too softly. I had misheard him. I had to. "What?"
"Those drawing are Jayden's." Josh said more clearly.
"What?" I just said again, because... well because this made no fucking sense.
"Jayden made these," Josh repeated.
I felt like my heart had stopped beating. Like something huge had been dropped on me and I was just crushed under it.
This couldn't be true.
"Wait? Are you serious?" I looked at him, waiting for him to say it as a joke and he was messing around with me.
"Very serious," Josh replied, getting up.
I blinked slowly, feeling like I might cry suddenly. "It's not a funny joke Josh."
"I'm not joking. They're all Jayden's. I've been keeping them," Josh replied, taking the sheets of paper and putting them into a neat little pile.
It felt like such a blow to my heart. For so many reasons.
Why was I just learning this now? Why had no one ever told me before, that my brother was also an artist?
I really couldn't catch a break. Couldn't I just deal with one thing at a time? I didn't need this right now.
"I'm sorry Blake. I didn't want to hurt you with this," Josh said, looking in my eyes, worried.
So he had preferred never telling me? Keeping this from me forever?
"If I hadn't found this box, you never would have told me?" I asked softly, blinking away the tears.
"I don't know," he replied honestly.
"So I could have died without ever knowing this?" I asked, feeling anger bottling up in my chest.
"Blake, I'm so sorry," my supposed best friend told me. "Jayden wanted you to feel like art was your thing. He didn't want you to compare yourself to him. You always saw him as so much better than you at everything he did. He wanted you to have this for yourself. He knew how much art meant to you."
My eyes were filled with tears. I wished people didn't assume what it was I needed and let me decide for myself, my brother and my best friend of all people, two of the people I thought I was the closest with.
This felt like a completely different kind of betrayal.
"I wish he would have known that I would have wanted to know. I would have loved to be able to share art with him without feeling like I was boring him to death. I thought he hated art, and I kept so much of myself from him because of it," I said, while fighting the sobs in my throat.
"I'm so sorry Blake," he said again, a little uselessly, honestly.
"You don't need to apologize. Jayden does," I said deadpan and left.
Once I got to my car, I took my phone and called the only person I wanted to see right now.
"Hey," I said after Lexi answered.
"Hey," she repeated, and I felt unbelievable comforted just by the sound of her voice.
"Is it too late if I come over," I asked.
"It's never too late. Just use the front door this time and not the gutter," my girlfriend replied teasingly.
I smiled a little. "No promises."
"I'll be waiting."
I drove to her place directly, wanting this day to be over already.
I'd barely been able to process the whole Kendall thing and I now I had to deal with the fact that apparently my brother loved art and I never had any idea.
Did the universe have something against me today?
I felt relief when I finally parked in front of Lexi's house.
I walked up to the front door and it opened before I could even knock.
My Pumpkin had been waiting for me.
"Hi," Lexi greeted me with a big smile, and suddenly I felt a weird surge of relief looking at her, like I'd been holding my breath for a long time and I was finally breathing again.
I walked up right to her and smothered her into a hug.
She let out a little surprised squeal and then automatically wrapped her arms around me while I buried my face in the crook of her neck.
"Do you want to talk about it?" she asked softly, running a gentle hand through my hair.
"Tonight, I'm the little spoon," I just replied, closing my eyes and hugging her more tightly.
"Whatever you want Blakey-Boy."
Finally, I stopped hugging her, and Lexi took my hand in hers, dragging me back to her room.
Lexi clearly had already been ready to get to bed, so I took a quick shower, trying not to break down, and then brushed my teeth.
Lexi stood beside the door of the bathroom while I brushed my teeth, studying me.
I was trying to figure out what I should be telling her.
Here I had been, thinking I'd talked about everything unpleasant or sad in my life with her already.
Obviously, I was wrong.
Finally, when I was all clean and in sleepwear, I snuggled in bed with my girlfriend.
She hugged me against her chest, while I pressed my head where her throat was.
She wasn't saying anything, probably knowing she needed to let me open up on my own time. She was just running a comforting hand on my back, and stroking my hair with the other.
I snuggled against her more.
"We talked about something unpleasant today in therapy," I finally whispered.
"I gathered as much," she replied just as softly.
"And then I went to Josh's place and..." I trailed, feeling like I might cry again.
"What is it?" she asked.
"Jayden used to do art."
I said it. It felt so weird to tell someone else, out loud. It made no sense.
She kinda froze, surprise by this revelation too. "What?"
"My brother. He liked art. He never told me. He wanted me to feel like I was better than him at something. He didn't want me to compare myself with him, so he hid the fact that he loved art."
"Oh Blake..." Lexi said, her voice catching a little, and she hugged me more tightly.
"I thought I knew him so well. I really didn't know him," I said, trying not to cry.
It hurt to know that I knew so little about him. He'd been my whole life when I was younger. But apparently, I hadn't meant as much. Not enough to tell me the truth.
Lexi pressed her cheek against the top of my head and the kissed it. "He loved you so so much, it doesn't matter what you knew or didn't know. You were so young when you lost him. And you were his little brother. Of course he was going to protect you and take care of you."
"I really really miss him," I admitted, silent tears spilling out of my eyes.
"It's okay Blake, it's going to be okay," she repeated, stroking my hair comfortingly.
In her arms, I couldn't help thinking about other unpleasant things now.
I was thinking about Kendall's arms around me and about that night and how it had felt, and I had to admit it to myself.
It had felt nothing like this. And not just because I wasn't in love with Kendall. It had felt... wrong. So so wrong.
This felt right. But thinking about being with Kendall made me feel like I didn't deserve to be here. Like I was going to dirty Lexi.
I felt cheap. And worthless.
Used by Kendall. Untrusted by my brother.
What a catch I was...
I cried in my girlfriend's arms, trying not to let all my dark thoughts completely take over.
I was going to let myself cry. I was going to let myself feel all these things I felt like I needed to feel right now.
But I wasn't going to let any of it consume me.
I was going to let myself cry, and then I was going to make myself feel better again.
I was going to be stronger.
I owed it to myself.
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Happy Monday my little Pumpkins! :D
So! One cat is finally out of the bag for Blake. This is something I know a lot of people were looking forward to, having Blake figure out Jayden liked art. If any of you haven't read Weird and Weirder, you'll know Jayden was keeping a couple of things from Blake. Now one of the secrets is out. Only one more to share. ;P
In other news... so like Saturday? Arguably one of the worst days of my life. I woke up at 4AM and was monstrously sick. Like, I've never been sick like that in my life. I'll spare you the gory details, but yeah. Awful, awful, AWFUL. And it sucks because I had all these nice weekend plans of writing. I was going to go to a different café every day to get some writing done, and I had specific stories I wanted to work on, and notes and stuff and yeah, all these plans were ruined. Anyway. I've barely been able to eat today, but at least I feel a little bit more like myself and I was able to go over this chapter again before uploading it, so yeah, maybe tomorrow I'll be slightly productive.
But in the meantime, I'm going back to bed. And I'm never eating frozen pizza again. Never, ever again.
Byyyyye! See y'all next week. (it's a good one next week ;P) <3