Chapter 1
Professor Haynes stared at everyone in the classroom until we all shut up. This class has only 6 other students but that is just because it is an art class.
This is the lovely art department of Oakland University, but that is the only school that my foster parents could afford.
“Everly.” Professor Haynes stated, taking me out of my dream-like state. “Would you like to present your project to the class?”
“Not really but I don’t really have a choice,” I responded grabbing the canvas that was in a garbage bag- it was raining this morning and I would have died if this was damaged.
“Let me remind the class of what the assignment was: create a portrait of how you believe everyone else sees you,” he paused, “Now let’s see what Everly created.”
I took a deep breath before walking toward the front of the class. I turned my canvas around and watch as everyone’s smiles turned into confused looks.
I painted a regular picture of myself but I covered it with the word useless written all across the canvas. The words were in bright red and if you didn’t know what the assignment was you would be utterly confused, which is how most people in this room looked.
“That’s how you think we see you?” Veronica, she has ivory-colored skin and luscious blond hair that goes down to the middle of her back, questioned. She has always been nice to me but she doesn’t talk to me often, no one really does.
That question seemed to paralyze me, I didn’t know how to answer it. It wasn’t until Professor Hayes told everyone to clap for me.
He then bent down to my ear and tells me: “Meet with me after class to talk about this.”
“Okay,” I whispered as I walked back to my seat ashamed of myself. I didn’t think it would have gotten that reaction, but then again, I don’t know what I was expecting.
The rest of the class consisted of me having an anxiety attack about what Hayes wanted to talk to me about. I already know that this is going to be reported, but I don’t see why. That is how I think people see me: useless.
I was staring off into the distance when Professor Hayes stated, in his monotone voice, “Everly, let’s go to my office.” “Okay,” I responded, grabbing my backpack and putting it over one of my shoulders.
The walk to his office was extremely awkward being that neither of us wanted to say anything.
I felt something boiling up in my chest and had to stop walking to go into a coughing fit. I grabbed my water bottle from the side of my backpack and took a big sip.
“Are you okay?” Hayes asked me, I nodded my head in response and continued to follow him towards his office.
His office was the only door opened and he gestured for me to walk inside. I sighed and walked past him to walk into the office.
I took off my back and put it next to the chair that I sat in. I put my hands on my lap and started to play with the bracelets on my wrist- an anxiety tick that I tend to do.
“Do you know why I asked you to my office?” Hayes asked, in a tone that I didn’t recognize.
“Because of my portrait,” I responded, almost ashamed.
“When we worked on them in class your portrait was beautiful, why did you decide to write useless all over it?”
“That’s how I think others see me.”
“Why?”
“I’m hardly in class and when I am, I barely even speak. How can I be an artist if I can’t even speak out about my work?”
“That’s why you’re in an art school. You have to learn to be confident about your work, Everly.”
“I know.”
“And you’re out because of your disease which you cannot control. You can’t use that as a reason why you are useless because you are not.”
“Thank you, Professor Hayes.”
“That is all I wanted to talk to you about.”
“Are you not going to report me to a counselor?”
“Do you think you need to be?”
“No, I just followed the assignment, and that was how I thought others saw me,” I responded. “I didn’t think anyone would really care how I felt.”
“Everyone in our class cares about you, Everly, you just have to start believing that.” “I’ll try,” I replied, getting up from my chair and putting my backpack over my shoulder. “Thank you for saying all of that. I appreciate that.”
“Of course.”
I walked back towards my dorm room: I have a single room due to my respiratory issues and my doctors thought that it would be better if I had a single.
Plus I don’t always feel comfortable with doing my treatments in front of other people.
Once I got to my door, I spent another few minutes fighting with the door trying to get it open:
“Why do you always give me trouble!” I yelled at my key, too loud apparently because someone appeared at my door.
“Your door giving you problems?” The person asked.
“Yeah, my key has decided that it doesn’t want to pull out,” I paused and laughed at myself.
“Is something funny?”
“No. Sorry, I tend to laugh at myself a lot.” I replied, finally getting my key out of the keyhole. I did a victory dance, which was basically me jumping up and down like an idiot and turning to face the person that made themselves known to me.
But when I turned around the person was gone.
I laughed at myself while closing the door.
“I guess they didn’t like me jumping up and down,” I started thinking of all of the reasons why they could have left, “Did my boobs jiggle? Could they even see that from their angle?”
“Just forget it, Ev. It’s their loss.”
“Continue being the girl boss that you are!” I exclaimed to myself while walking over ot
my bed and collapsing.
I started to close my eyes when I felt a buzzing in my back pocket, I sighed and turned my body to get my phone.
A picture of me and my mother popped up on my phone with the bold letters reading MOM.
I slid open my phone and put it up towards my ear:
“Is there a reason why we got billed for a chest x-ray?” My mom questioned me as soon as I answered.
“My day was pretty shitty, thank you so much for asking!” I exclaimed.
“Everly.”
“What?”
“Why did we get billed?”
“I had a flair-up. My doctors wanted me to get an X-ray. I thought that my insurance would cover it.”
“I guess I will have to call them tomorrow to ask why they didn’t insure that.” She replied, “Why didn’t you tell me that you were sick?”
“Because I didn’t want to worry you. I’m feeling better now, they put me on Augmentin, which has already helped. My chest doesn’t feel as congested.”
“Next time, please let me know before you just go and get a chest X-ray.”
“What would you have done? I already missed so much school and I can’t afford to go home for weeks again.”
“I know. I just hate that you had to go through all of that by yourself.”
“I’m sorry. I will let you know next time, you just have to promise that you won’t just up and leave work to come and get me. I don’t want you to lose your job again.”
“That won’t happen. This job understands what I have going on at home and they know that I always put my family first.”
“Okay.”
“Oh, and, Everly?”
“Yes.”
“Your bio parents tried reaching out to you again. They attempted to send you money to pay some of your medical bills. They want to be a part of your life again.”
“I don’t want their money.”
“I know.”
“They never wanted to help before so why do they want to now?”
“You can ask them. They gave you their number if you wanted to contact them.”
“Throw it away.”
“Ev, come on.”
“No! Can we just drop this?”
“Yes, sorry.”
“Thank you,” I replied.
We talked for another 30 minutes about her job and I filled her in on what happened in class today.
Because of my illness, I don’t have a big course load so I don’t get stressed out, which is why I only had one class today.
Tomorrow is one of my busier days, I have three classes and two of them are back to back, so it always exhausts me.
That’s just my life, and I have had to learn how to live through it.
AN!
I hope you guys like the first chapter. Let me know if this is actually interesting or not.
