Black Hearts (Sins Duet #1)

But that didn’t mean they didn’t fight, and when they did it tended to be about things I wasn’t privy to. It was never about me not doing my homework or Ben staying out too late or even that dad forgot to do the dishes. It was always over something whispered in the dark. Something that had my parents checking the corners of every room they entered. Something that sat above them like a dusty cobweb on the ceiling, always there, holding something ugly in its depths, ready to drop.

When I saw my mom go outside that day, I’d never seen her so upset. Usually she kept everything bottled up inside, swallowed it down with a stiff smile. My mom is pretty hardened and cynical, for reasons I don’t always understand. But that time she was sitting on the ground by the side of the house, half-hidden by a manzanita tree, her knees up to her chest. Tears were streaming down her face, leaving black trails down her cheeks.

I tried to hug her but she shooed me away, told me to leave her. But I couldn’t. I’d always sensed my mother’s vulnerability, even at that age, but had never seen it. To be honest, I felt nothing but awe.

So I stood there, watching her crumble inward. I was struck with the thought that I was terrible because I wished that she could be like this more often. I felt like I was finally seeing something real and true, a glimpse at a hidden self.

“I’m a bad mother,” she said, and I remember it so clearly because the words sounded painful. “I’m nothing but a fraud.” She said this a few times between sobs, shaking her head until finally she began to calm down.

Then she looked at me, warily, like a caged animal. Like she was afraid of me. The whole time I hadn’t said a word.

“Why don’t you go inside?” she said with a forced smile. “I’m not quite myself right now.”

And so I did. My dad asked me where she was and he immediately went outside after me. They talked out there for a long time. I wanted so badly to listen to what they were saying but Ben told me to mind my own business.

A few days later I told my mom she wasn’t a bad mother. That she was the best there ever was.

She flinched at that, and when I brought up the part about being a fraud, she said she didn’t remember saying that. Then she gave me a hug, smoothed my hair, and told me she loved me. There was such a strange desperation in her eyes that I dropped the subject and never asked her again.

But it didn’t mean I never thought about it.

A fraud.

A fake.

A liar.

Then again, I’m starting to personally relate.

It’s the end of September and school started a few weeks ago and already I feel over my head, that I’m in a program I don’t belong in, that I’m just pretending. It’s the second year of my photography degree at the Academy of Art University San Francisco and so far it’s a million times harder than I thought it would be. Maybe because the first year of anything is usually the testing period where the weak are weeded out, and I’m starting to think I should have been weeded out in the spring along with the mint in our tiny back garden.

It probably has a lot to do with not measuring up to my mother. She’s a well-respected photographer with a small gallery of artsy portraits in the Mission district. Her work is heavy on depth and shadow, always in black and white, and she manages to get the truth out of the subject. She can be a chameleon sometimes, adjusting her personality to suit the person she’s talking to. I’ve seen it work on me, which is why it’s no surprise that she’s able to get the truth out of her subjects. You can see it in their eyes. She can capture their true selves like no one else can.

And while I think I’ve majorly improved over the years, especially after starting school (I mean they don’t just take anyone), I feel like I’m faking my way through my assignments.

Like this one. My friend Ginny (who is also in my class) and I are supposed to roam the city and take pictures of “absolution.” I know, it’s like total high school photography class bullshit, but it is what it is.

But Ginny is somewhat of a genius, and she’s already snapped a million photos just standing in one spot at Union Square. It’s hot, sunny, and busy as hell, filled with tourists and shoppers alike. There’s nothing even close to absolution here.

She peers at me out of the corner of her eye, not even taking her face away from the camera, her purple winged eyeliner glittering in the sun. “Vi, stop staring at me and take some goddamn pictures.”

I sigh and look around again, the sun making me squint. My over-the-knee boots already feel too hot. I never learn. I live up in the Haight, by Golden Gate Park, and the row house is perpetually shrouded in fog. Every morning I dress like I’m heading out into a frozen cloud, and every afternoon I end up downtown and sweating buckets, hot and itchy. There are a dozen different microclimates in the city and I’m never dressed for the right one.

“Tell me where the absolution is,” I challenge her. “It’s a city of greed.”

Ginny lowers the camera and gives me her driest look. I can feel my soul shrinking away from it. She gives good glare, this one. “And you don’t think greed can lead to absolution?” She motions to the department stores. “Many people are finding their salvation right in there, among the shoes and the jewelry and the buy-one-get-one-free underwear.” She pauses and her withering look turns to an impish one. “Which reminds me, I should stock up. I’ve got another date tonight.”

I take advantage of the distraction and haul Ginny into the store right away. I hate malls and department stores as a rule but the heat is killing me and I’m feeling all kinds of restless and distracted.

Ginny notices. “Are you even listening to me?” she says, holding up a zebra-printed bra. “I told you that Tamara’s favorite print is zebra and you just ignored me like this bra won’t make all the difference in the world.”