Page 21 of Take This Heart
Noah
Sorry to make you carry that alone for a while, Golds. Grayson and I will come often too, until I can wrap up all my projects and be there more.
Camden
I hate doing that to you too, Goldie.
It’s okay. None of us saw this coming, but we’ll get through it together.
I stand in the middle of my tiny studio, hands on my hips, a paintbrush clamped between my teeth. My heart hammers against my ribs, a wild, uneven rhythm that mirrors the chaos around me. Canvas scraps, wood frames, jars of paint, and too many half-drunk mugs of coffee scatter the room.
“You have to be done,” I mumble around the brush.
The installation is called “Fractured Light” and is a tribute to survival, to piecing yourself together when life shatters you. I didn’t realize I’d be shattered more before it was even completed. Hidden faces are woven through the artwork—some clearer than others—representing the trauma I endured after my car accident and the concussion that left me feeling so unlike myself.
I don’t even like to think about the accident. I was in the hospital for a couple of weeks and my dad and brothers didn’t leave my side during that time. For months after I went home, I still didn’t feel like myself. Honestly, I still don’t, but I’m getting better all the time. Working on these pieces helped.
The paintings are delicate. Heartbreaking and beautiful.
And they’re due at MIA insix days.
Six days to pull this off. Six days to outrun impostor syndrome.
Each day blurs into the next.
Monday, I wake up on the studio couch with paint streaked across my face and my back aching.
Tuesday, Tully stops by, juggling coffees and yelling, “You need sunlight, Golds! You’re starting to look like one of those pasty art school kids!”
Wednesday, Camden calls from Denver to remind me, “No matter what happens, we’re proud of you.” I cry in the middle of shading a hidden face into a panel.
Thursday, Dylan FaceTimes me from his surf shop in California. He’s wearing a wet suit and holding a mini Dachshund.
“How are you holding up?” he asks.
“I’m not. How about you?”
“Nope. I’m not either. You look a little loopy. Are you keeping your windows open so the air can circulate?”
“You’re the loopy one. Whose dog is that?”
He shrugs. “I don’t know. He turned up at my shop and hasn’t left.”
On Friday, I haul the finished pieces into the back of my dad’s truck. We swapped vehicles over the weekend so I could take everything in one trip. I drive to the museum for the setup process, heart in my throat.
Saturday morning, I’m still tweaking. Adjusting lighting angles. Swapping paintings to other spots. My hands shake when I finally step back and survey it all.
It’s done.
Hidden faces glint in the light, half-seen, half-felt, like memories that refuse to stay buried.
That night I stare at myself in the mirror, surprised that I look human. For all the tears I’ve cried this week, all the junk I’ve eaten, all the sleep I’ve lost, it’s a shock that I look good. My black dress hugs my waist and flows out like a waterfall toward my feet. My hair is down so I can hide behind it. My makeup is covering the splotches and looks flawless. I look ethereal and somewhat haunted, like one of the faces in my paintings.
“You ready?” Tully asks, poking his head in.
I turn, swallowing hard. “Ready.”
The Minneapolis Institute of Art is all lit up. Fairy lightsthread the trees outside. Everything has an extra shine, and inside, voices and laughter spill across the space. It’s unbelievable to think that my work, my heart, is tucked inside these walls tonight.
