《 WATTY'S SHORTLIST 2021 》━ ❝WELCOME TO HART'S BAY.❞ where opposites attract. featuring » » » an ex-varsity swimmer and a hockey player. a once-wealthy server and a surfer on exchange. a daytime cashier and her nighttime counterpart. | presenting...
Day by day, the skies lighten. Translucent gray fading into pale blue.
Finally, the first rays of light. The town has been enveloped in darkness for longer than ever before. The sun is glaring. Unfamiliar. The people of Hart's aren't quite sure what to do with themselves. If they can trust this good fortune, or themselves, worried they might be let down again.
It will be many more days before they can trust again. Even longer for trust to become faith.
But day by day, they learn to trust. The sun. The people.
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There's a sliver of pale light in the sky when Aiko wakes up.
Painting at the crack of dawn has always been the summertime dream, but she could never bring herself to wake up that early to do something just for fun, for herself. Having the twins' shouts about marshmallow charms for breakfast or the backyard squirrels as an alarm is bad enough in the morning.
There's no way around her family—but it isn't all bad. Hiro has started to come home from work a few minutes earlier every night in time for dinner prep, prying vegetables or knives out of Aiko's hands after dropping his bag in the foyer and peeling the twins off his legs.
"You can go and paint for a bit," he tells her one night.
She grumbles, peering over his shoulder. "Do you just not want me around?"
"Never." After dodging a punch, he jerks his head to the door. "Seriously."
That only makes Aiko stick around. Hiro isn't the serious type. She busies herself with grabbing plates and cutlery.
"You know," he pipes up, "maybe the 'rents would understand it if they saw it."
"Show the resident art critics?" Aiko shakes her head. She's always hidden in her room for peace and quiet? Figuring, "They won't get it. And I'm not exactly compelled to only paint things that they would get."
"I'm just saying," he continues, "how can you expect other people to take your dreams seriously when you don't show them that side of you? Because I know it's there."
"I do take things seriously," she declares, quieting as she realizes that he's concurred with her.
Now she's waking up at the crack of dawn. Let the sliver of light be proof that she's a serious artist—although that thought makes her cringe. She just wants to be taken seriously, and not just as an artist. Being the middle child means being taken less seriously than Hiro, but more seriously than the twins. Yet feeling like she's not at all.
It also means there's never enough time. "Make time," her dad has always said, and he might have a point there. It's a wonder what you can do when you go to bed at a reasonable hour.
She's brushing her teeth when a shadow emerges in the hall before her mom does.She pauses at the top of the staircase, facing Aiko, holding a hand to her chest, smaller and paler in the dim morning light. She's woken up at the crack of dawn since before Aiko was born, and the weariness shows.
