Bea & the Broken Record

Chapter 30: Dreams are Lost Thoughts

The night air was chilly when we left the restaurant. I didn't have a jacket to give Bea since I didn't wear one, so I held her close to me as we walked down the sidewalks lit up by all the lights. Her thin jacket-thing that I had yet to find a name for wasn't much of a help to keep her from freezing.

"I wish I could make everything better for you, Bea," I suddenly said. I hadn't meant to, it just slipped out.

"It's okay - that's life. Parents get divorced and move on with their lives all the time, leaving their kids in the dust," she muttered. I knew she wasn't happy, but that was how she really felt? A few more tears dripped down her cheeks and she furiously swiped them away.

"And now your career is taking off and oh my gosh -" She stopped and pulled the two of us against a building and out of the way of the crowd. "You have no idea how proud I am of you. You were so great on stage tonight. You are going to rock this world."

Her cheeks turned pink from blushing and I grinned, holding her in a hug against my chest.

"You have no idea how nice that is to hear," I said quietly. "But Bea, your parents love you. Even if they don't say it, they do."

I took her hand and pulled her down the sidewalk. We dodged people and made our way towards a more secluded area of the city, near the park.
I found a red painted bench sitting along the grass line and sat down with Bea right against me.

"I'd really like to hear that news of yours now," I told her, kissing her temple. She snuggled up to me and rested her head on my shoulder.

There was nothing better than that, I could tell you.

"I'm not going to be an artist." She sucked in a deep breath and sighed like she had just let off a lot of steam.

"Bea," I stressed. "If that's your dream, them why don't you go after it?"

"Dreams are just lost thoughts, Asher. Besides, I figured out what I want to do," she explained. "I'm not going to say that my parents didn't help me figure that out because without them, I probably wouldn't even know I wanted to do it."

She was confusing me and I needed to know more, but I waited patiently for her to finish her story. A few questions popped up in my head that I had to ask.

"You're going to stop drawing?" I asked, shocked. A world without Bea drawing what she felt and the people she loved was a world I didn't want to live in. She hadn't been showing me many of her drawings the past few months, but I had a feeling she was still doing it. She always had her sketch book with whether it was in her arms or in her backpack. Her drawings were amazing - she couldn't give that up.

"Of course I'm not going to stop." She smiled. "I want to be a therapist. I want to help people the way... The way you helped me. Not the way my therapists helped me. They were too professional - I want to become friends with these troubled people and help them feel better."

Hearing her talk so passionately about doing the thing she loved so much made me warm inside. It never dawned on me that she would want to be anything other than an artist. How long had she withheld that dream of hers?

"When... how? Where are you going to school for it?" I asked all at once.

"I'm going to start here, at NYU in the Fall," she said proudly, smiling to herself. I could see that for once she was finally proud of herself. And I realized I never told her that enough.

"How did you get in so late?" I asked her. She leaned away and stared forward with a happy expression on her face.

"It's amazing what having money can do..." She trailed off, not so proudly. "A long time ago, my parents set up a college fund for me. It was for Law school, but I declined my acceptance letter from Harvard and I applied for New York University in May. I was accepted late and I have the money to pay for it. If my parents don't like it, they can't change it. It's my future."