Miles Away from You by A. B. Rutledge

Author:A. B. Rutledge
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Chapter Twelve

Miles Away to Vivian Girl

June 10 7:19 PM

I woke up this morning full of wants. No, desires. I was full of longing for things beyond my usual morning ritual of shower, self-stimulation, and breakfast buffet. It’s funny how need works, isn’t it? You’re full and empty all at once. Full of this aching, itching, longing—and empty in a way that can only be remedied by forward motion.

My black eye is healing. It’s gone from violet to a hideous sickly yellow color. Ugly, but less noticeable from a distance. The gash is nicely scabbed up and is mostly concealed by my hair. Despite my messy face, the new clothes are doing wonders for my self-esteem. I couldn’t wait to put them on. Today I went with the jeans, the beanie, the red flannel shirt. I tucked my pants legs into your boots and rolled up my sleeves. The reds and yellows and blues of my tattoos sync up nicely with the primary colors in the shirt. I messed with my hair and stared at myself in the mirror for a bit.

It’s incredible how resilient the body is. After all I’ve been through—what a wreck I am on the inside—I somehow manage to look halfway decent. Some might say that, except for the black eye, I look better than before. I wonder what you’d say about me now, skinny and expertly dressed?

Aside from the desire to look nice, the thing that I want most that I haven’t even been able to fully acknowledge until today, is to get my hands dirty. It’s the sex I’m not having, yeah, but also the art I’m not making and the music I’m not listening to and photos I’m not taking and this beautiful country that I haven’t even been looking at. A year and a half ago when my heart splattered on the floor, all this good shit fell out, and I haven’t bothered putting it back in yet.

It took a literal ass kicking for me to realize that I deserve better things than I’ve been allowing myself.

And with that knowledge comes the desire to grab all that stuff up and load it back in. My head is still a swirl of ideas, and I’m not even sure where to begin.

That click of the camera yesterday felt good. Twisting the focus ring, manipulating light. It felt like a good first step, so this morning I tried it again. I draped my camera strap over a lamp, set the focus and self-timer. Then I crouched up on the windowsill and waited for the seconds to pass.

The light’s shining from behind me in the photo. Me, in your red boots framed by blue curtains and sky. The sunshine was warm on my scalp, and all at once I couldn’t stand my hotel room.

At breakfast, two more desires clambered up my shoulder blades and down my arms. I found myself desperately aching to capture the mountain view from my favorite table on the patio. I opened my iPad and brought up Sketch Club.

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