Chapter 114 Disaster

Chapter 114 Disaster
Jasmine’s POV

I stand in front of the art building, waving at my boyfriend’s departing car.

Xavier had dropped me here before rushing to practice, after several futile attempts to convince me not to come here.

But it’s not within my control, I can’t help the excitement and anxiety of how near the exhibition is, so, just like other days, I’ve come to check on my painting.

As I approach the entrance of the hall, the sudden image of Chloe flashes through my mind, and my elation is instantly replaced by an odd feeling of dread that punches at my gut.

Is it really her that I saw the other day?

I shake it off before entering the hall where everyone’s paintings are, my eyes instantly going to mine.

And I freeze.

My blood runs cold.

Something shifts inside me, and I suddenly forget how to breathe.

This has to be another nightmare.

The worst of them all, the one that had to come after several days of sleeping peacefully.

I shut my eyes tightly, too tight that it stings, before letting out a long exhale.

When I open them, everything will be back to normal, and I’ll probably just laugh at how stupid this dream is.

But when I lift my lids, it’s still there.

My knees go weak, before giving in.

Crumbling to the ground, my body hits the cold, hard floor, but I feel nothing.

I can’t even feel anything.

I must have been so excited that my mind is playing games with me.

That has to be the only possible reason.

Several minutes pass with me on the ground.

No one comes in, but it doesn’t relieve me either.

Then suddenly, like my brain has finally processed everything, I jump up and run to stand before my painting.

Firstly, the cloth that was used to cover it has been shredded to pieces.

Then there’s a huge hole in the middle of the canvas, while some parts have been torn.

Another part has chaotic scribbles painted onto it, while the bigger part is smeared with a huge swath of black paint.

This brings me to a calculated conclusion that whoever did this took their time, and it was far from an accident.

Several types of damage on just one painting prove an obvious point.

It was deliberate.

After coming to this heavy conclusion, I start to feel lightheaded, so I hold onto something.

“Oh my God! Who did that?”

Someone says behind me, before rushing out, probably trying to avoid being seen as a suspect.

This is where it finally dawns on me.

All my hard work, my hopes, my tears, my fears, and my dreams are being crushed.

The life I promised to give my foster mom after being recognized would no longer be possible.

I’ve spent years working on this particular piece, and in just a few minutes, it was destroyed.

Worse, it’s only three days to the exhibition.

How could I possibly repaint this?

And even if I tried, it wouldn’t carry half as much emotion as this one did.

This is the end.

The very worst has happened, and I just want the building to collapse and crush me, cause I don’t think I can process this pain.

I cannot handle what is to come.

I drop to my knees again in front of the wreckage, my hands hovering over the torn canvas like I could somehow press it back together by will alone.

I don’t even know what I’m crying for first.

The painting. My mom. The months I spent thinking I was finally getting somewhere.

A strangled sound rips out of my throat, something between a sob and a scream, and I press my palm against my mouth to stop it, but it doesn’t work. It just keeps coming.

She’s dead.

The thought slams into me out of nowhere, completely unrelated and yet exactly related, my real mother, gone, no goodbye, no apology that actually counted, and I never even got to decide if I wanted one.

And now this. The one thing I built out of the wreckage of all of that, gone too.

What’s the point?

What was ever the point of any of it?

I survived him. I survived the wardrobe, the silence, years of being told I was nothing, and I turned it into something. I turned the worst thing that ever happened to me into proof that I was still here, still standing, still worth something. And someone walked in here and decided that wasn’t allowed to exist either.

My fingers find the black smear across the canvas, still slightly wet, and I press them into it without thinking, smearing it further, like I’m trying to feel something solid in the middle of all this static.

Don’t be a burden.

She’s all I have in this fucked up world.

You’ll always be the weak one.

The voices come back, all of them at once, my father’s, the dream-voice, the girls in the lecture hall calling me a whore, Bella’s careful, sorrowful face handing me an envelope I didn’t want, my own voice from years ago, small and locked in a wardrobe, certain that no one was ever coming back for her.

Maybe they were right.

Maybe I’m not someone things are supposed to work out for. Maybe every time I think I’ve climbed somewhere solid, it’s only because the ground hasn’t finished giving way yet.

I think of Timothy’s voice on the phone, soft and hopeful, I can’t wait to meet you, sis, and even that memory turns sharp in my chest, because what if I bring this into every room I walk into?

What if I am, after everything, still just the thing that breaks?

I don’t know how long I stay there, slumped against the ruined frame, my hands black with paint, my whole body shaking with something too big to be called crying anymore.

I don’t even have it in me to wonder who did this.

I don’t have it in me to wonder anything.

I just want the floor to keep holding me down, because I don’t think I have the strength left to stand back up on my own.