Page 87 of None Of Your Business

I brought a bottle of wine into my studio, hung my mother’s canvas on the wall, and waited for the art to come. I waited for anything that might transform the dark, suffocating weight of her painting into something I could understand.

Nothing came except the fog and my father’s voice, ringing through the silence.

Divert the attention.

I’ve worked hard over the years to unlearn old habits. I know my pain is real. I know there are medical words for the things my body does, names and diagnoses and test results that prove I didn’t invent any of it.

But sitting in the studio earlier with alcohol warm in my veins, I punished myself with thoughts I haven’t let anywhere near me in years.

Is that what I’ve been doing my whole life? Playing sick to steal the spotlight from a mother who was already struggling to hold herself together, or siblings who actually deserved to be seen?

The longer I stared at Mom’s canvas, the worse it got.

I remember looking at you in your crib and knowing I was supposed to feel something enormous. Knowing I loved you because you were mine, but feeling like I was looking at my own baby through a thick sheet of glass.

Then the memories started coming.

Me at fourteen, crying in my bedroom because my knees hurt so badly I couldn’t walk down the stairs, only to be told I was having a bad day because Mom was having one too.

Me lying there afterward, wondering whether I’d somehow made the pain happen because I needed somebody to notice me.

Even as a kid, I always wondered whether what I felt was real. That it was an inconvenient little performance happening at the worst possible time.

I don’t remember sliding off the stool. At some point I was just sitting on the cold studio floor, crying hard enough that I could barely catch my breath.

Only when I wiped my nose on my sleeve and caught sight of myself in the full-length mirror across the room did I stop.

I looked like the version of myself I’ve spent years trying to prove doesn’t exist.

I scrambled up, abandoned the open bottle of wine, and walked out.

So here I am. Walking.

I can’t remember how long I’ve been out here, or how many blocks I’ve covered, but I keep moving, forcing one foot in front of the other.

I need something to hold onto. Something real.

Before I can think better of it, I’m dialing Hudson.

He picks up on the second ring.

“Rowan?” His voice cuts through the quiet street, already alert.

The sound of him breaks something loose, and the tears spill over.

“Hudson.” It comes out cracked in half.

“Hey, talk to me. What happened?”

I ignore the question and wipe my face with my sleeve. “You’re a psychiatrist. Maybe you can tell me.”

A beat of silence. “What can I tell you, Ro?”

“Is it normal,” I say, the words already spilling too fast, “for siblings to grow up in the same house, raised by the same people, and end up having completely different relationships with their parents?”

“Rowan—”

“Is it?” My voice climbs as the alcohol loosens everything I usually keep locked away. “Madison and my dad have had huge arguments over the years, but there’s always love there. Noah’s his only son, so he can’t do anything wrong. Dad sat on a bathroom floor with Piper the morning she was supposed to get married and just listened. Told her to do whatever felt right.”