Page 21 of My Unscripted Life

He holds the sketchbook up so he can eye it in line with the reality of the house in front of us. “You did this?”

All of a sudden I feel shy, an emotion I hardly recognize. I’ve never been precious about my artwork before. My parents used to have to negotiate with me over how much time I could spend showing my artwork to their dinner-party guests. Otherwise I’d have been like the kid at the piano, banging out tunes over the conversation while the guests tried not to roll their eyes.

“Dee, these are incredible.”

He flips through similar sketches of the house from various angles, even one of the oak tree we’re standing under. It’s the only part of the property that’s flourished over all these years. The branches have expanded out as if they’re attempting to hug the yard, and they’re positively dripping with gray Spanish moss, giving the tree the appearance of an aged lady looking after the place. I could draw that tree until the sun goes down, and then capture it by the moonlight. And suddenly, it’s all I want to do. My fingers twitch at my side, longing to reach for a pencil for the first time in weeks.

Milo turns the sketchbook back around so I can look at my own work. “You’re really talented,” he says.

And just as fast as it arrived, that need, thatdriveto draw is gone, replaced by the doubt that has been my constant companion for weeks.

“I’m okay,” I say, but I’m not talking about my talent, nor am I telling the truth.

The snap of the covers on my sketchbook brings me back. Milo offers it to me like it’s an act of mercy. I take it and stuff it back into my bag.

“You always do that, you know?”

“Do what?”

“When you get compliments on your work, you shrug or act all whatever about it, like you don’t believe it. Is it justme?”

“No,” I say. “It’s not just you.”

“Then what’s going on? Because what’s in that book doesn’t look like it came from someone who lacks confidence.”

Confidence. There’s a thing I’ve always taken for granted. Not that I’m full of myself, but when you grow up with your parents, your teachers, and your friends all telling you how great you are at something, you tend to just believe them. I never really stopped to look at my own work, to try to decide if they were right. And that was why the rejection felt so much like a punch to the chest. It took all the air out of me, and ever since then I’ve felt like I’m walking around gasping.

“Complicated question?”

I sigh. “You have no idea.”

“Oh, but I do,” he says, his sigh matching mine. He wanders across the half-grass, half-dust front yard, a cloud kicking up around his boots with each step. He stops at a massive tree stump, sits, and pats a spot next to him. “I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours.”

The excuse is on the tip of my tongue. The brush off. But it hangs around for only a fraction of a second before the truth rushes past it with the urgency of a tsunami. I tell him about Governor’s School and the paragraph critique that accompanied my rejection. The words that have lived on the page and in my brain feel strange in my mouth, but they still come: “lacks focus and perspective,” “underdeveloped,” “clichéd.” I spit them out like watermelon seeds on hot pavement, and when I’m done I gulp in a breath of the thick summer air. The words taste sour on my tongue, but it feels good to get them out. I never told my parents about the critique. I didn’t even show Naz. I just told everyone I got the dreaded “no” letter and shoved the words of the critique through the shredder. But they’ve been living in the pit of my stomach ever since, like a pesky file I can’t delete.

Milo doesn’t say anything at first.

“Dee, I’m so sorry. That sounds like a real shit sandwich.”

The burst of laughter explodes out of me like a cannonball, and it feels good to release more of the pressure that’s built up since that letter arrived. It must have been how he felt when I told him about Pee Pants (again, so sorry Bryce Johnson).

“Can I tell you something?”

“Okay,” I say, the laughter calming.

“That critique? That has nothing to do with this,” he says. He taps the center of the sketchbook that’s balancing on my knees.

“Yeah, but the plan—”

He holds up a hand to silence me. “You’ve got to quit confusing the plan and the dream. Plans change. They fall apart. Sometimes outside forces even blow them to smithereens. But the dream is what you always come back to. It’s your lighthouse in the fog. In the freakingstorm.”

I think about that for a minute, my brain catching on the image of my sketchbook on a tiny island, pelted from all directions by rain and wind and waves while a red-and-white-striped lighthouse stands over it, small but sturdy, like the ones I’d seen and sketched on our family’s summer trips to Cape Cod. My poor sketchbook is getting beaten and battered, and I want to grab it and hug it to my chest. Like the house, it too feels like an old friend I’ve been neglecting. I feel the lump rising in my throat, the burn in my eyes telling me the tears are coming. But I don’t want to cry. Not about this, and not in front of him.

“It occurs to me that you never told me yours,” I say.

Milo lets out a laugh, but there’s no joy in it. “Do I even need to? My angry critiques are everywhere.Milo Ritter has nothing left to say. Milo Ritter needs to find a new career. Milo Ritter is coasting on teen pop stardom.I honestly can’t tell you which hurts worse, the evisceration I got fromRolling Stoneor the comment below it that simply said,This album sucks.That’s a pretty damning review right there.”

I wonder how I would’ve reacted if my rejection letter had only said,This art sucks.Would it have hurt more, or less? What if it had been public, splashed online for the world to see? The thought makes me feel like my stomach is filled withdirt.

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