Hello August, Please Be Good To Me

Chapter 48: Deadlines

Between papers scattered all over the floor, my dirty clothes in a pile to be washed, and a box of cereal behind the door of my closet, my room is a mess and a reflection of the inside of my head. The deadline for all my things to be uploaded online? I week from today, Sunday. What I thought would be an easy task has called for,

1. frantic scribbles

2. searching,

3. denial,

and now that I've found out that my old portfolio is basically crap,

4. recreating fourteen new pieces

Except for the trips to the washing room, maybe a trip or two to the bathroom, and a new bowl to replace the plastic cracked one in my room all ready, I don't have much memory of being more than two feet away from my bed the entire week. Justin texts me, and I begin to realize that it's distracting more than helping. With a groan, tell him I can't talk for the next week, and turning my phone off, I stay holed up in my room. Mariana and Cat have me covered at work, and I can only pray our shift manager stays out the loop. I look over the requirements for the portfolio and realize that there's not a lot of guidelines, which means mostly free range. Yay. My first brilliant idea, hold the sarcasm, is to just redo the old pieces, but it isn't until I get to the fifth piece, that I literally hate where my artwork is going. I've already lost two days, but if I try to continue from here, I'll never finish anyway.

I ignore the squeeze on my heart, wipe away at the wetness on my face, and grip my charcoal even harder in my hand. Eventually my absence from the outside world doesn't go unnoticed, and one day on the road to the deadline, I hear a loud succession of thumps on my door. It works to wake me up from my dozing, and I quickly get back to work, my computer on but asleep in the background for when I ready to quickly scan my stuff and be done with it all. I'm so focused on not breaking my concentration and working as fast as I can, I don't notice the knocking and now my dad's voice on top. "Lyric! The washing machine!" I stop everything I'm doing and rush out the door to the washing room, nearly knocking over my dad, an impossible feat in itself.

Our washing machine is new but old enough for the warrantee to have expired not to long ago. It's also a weird machine. If the clothes aren't put in a certain way or if one side of the machine is uneven from the other, it starts to spin and bounce out of control until someone comes and puts it out of its misery. I don't even have time to fight with finding the perfect balance to get the stupid machine to work, so I lift the top of the machine up, and when it slows down to a stop I quickly head back into my room and close the door. I can lock it later, right now my hands are the only things that should be moving and getting things done.

It's not often that I work under pressure. Sometime it does wonders...and sometimes it all comes crashing in on my face. Now is one of those times where it could possible go either way. I've been wearing the same clothes since I volunteer, Danté obviously points out. I don't even acknowledge him, keeping my head bent down at an angle I will surely regret in a couple of days. "Well dad got pizza, and it's on the table." Without breaking stride, I reach my free hand to grab my nearly empty box of cereal and give it a hearty shake. I don't know if or when my brother leaves the room, but I do notice a couple hours later when the house is dark and my room door has been left open. I look over at the pieces I've done so far, totaling to eight. My writing hand is cramped up, along with my neck, the side of my back, and the leg most of my body pressure has been pushed against. I stretch and yawn, and look at my calendar to see how much time I have left. What day is it again? I search for my phone, and turn it on when I find it. Dear God I have two days left! And six more pieces to boot. Tense and breathing heavily, I toss my phone aside and settle down back to the floor on all fours. No more funny business. My stomach grumbles loudly, and I stick my hand in the box, pulling out a fist full of dry cereal, and accidentally dropping a few pieces on the floor. I clean my room (again) when this is all over.

My dad and brother take turns lecturing me on how unhealthy it is to stay holed up in my room...smelly, hungry, without any interaction. Well, actually my dad does the lecturing, I'm not sure why Danté keeps coming into my room. My sole focus is to finish, and when I notice I'm by myself once more, I get up to close and lock my room door. I'm not answering it any more. The house would have to be on fire for me to even consider it. Even then I probably wouldn't move. Ughhhh, this is what I get for blowing off my work. I haven't cut a responsibility this close since studying for my mid-terms back in my junior year.

The adrenaline keeps me going until the day of, when I'm starting to feel more than weary, and I still have one more piece left. I officially don't know what to do, and the panic sets in quickly. My knee is bouncing up and down like a rabbit, and I close my eyes so I can think better. Big fat mistake. When I open my eyes, the time is four thirty-eight, and I have until eleven fifty-nine! I let out a sharp screech before I pull myself together and scramble into a better sketching position. "I'm fine" I yell, when I hear the concerned shouts of my dad and his pounding on my bedroom door. I think I still have to download the software on my laptop to get it online...oy. An hour passes by and I still have nothing but a blank sheet of paper and an equally blank mind. I sniff the air and scrunch up my nose wondering what the hell smells so bad. Oh wait. Right. Ladies and gentlemen, sweat and body odor, who'd have thought? Seeing how I'm distracted enough, I go and open my room window to let my own stink out and some fresher air in, when I turn around and my eyes settle on my sketch book.

I start flipping through the pages, not really looking at any of it until I get to the page I did of the master bedroom plan.I read the words 'Cheetos Puff', and swipe my finger across the little doodle of the cat on the bed. I think I Justin, and my lips easily tug into a grin. My eyes slide over to my portfolio pages, and just like that I go back to work.