Chapter Text
All I did was try my best
This the kind of thanks I get?
Unrelentlessly upset
They say these are the golden years
But I wish I could disappear
Ego crush is so severe
God, it's brutal out here
- brutal, olivia rodrigo
Belly hates waking up in an empty apartment. Moving had become one of her favorite pastimes over the past half decade. Starting over, reintroducing herself. Building a new home for herself, over and over again. She didn’t need a lot. She could find a home anywhere. But she hates the part just before the move, when everything’s cleared out and empty. When all you see is empty floor space, empty walls. It all feels so much lonelier when all her stuff has been disassembled and packed away. The temporary nature of the space becomes glaringly obvious in a way that always feels taunting to Belly. A rude reminder that this place was never actually her home. She always made sure to decorate her space; get a couple (cat-safe) plants, settle in, make it her own, no matter how long she’d have it for. And her cat, Daeyang, always helped her feel at home.
Belly stretched, settling back into her plush covers for a minute before groaning and rolling out of bed. Moving days always left her sore and she’d spent the last week selling off her bigger furniture to prepare for the move. She went to her kitchen and poured some food into Daeyang’s bowl. Without even looking she knew there was nothing left in the fridge to make breakfast for herself.
“Daeyang,” she called into the now cavernous apartment.
She heard the jingling of his collar before his furry face peaked around the door jamb. She scooped up her cat, nuzzling him for a second before delicately placing him down next to his bowls.
“Eat up,” Belly instructed.
After high school, when Susannah passed, her mom shut down. Laurel had started drinking more after they’d lost Susannah. Like she wanted to numb everything. It seemed like the lights turned out in her world. Each week the glass came out earlier. So Belly retreated to her room and made herself smaller and smaller, as unobtrusive as possible. She wasn’t going to be another voice her mother needed to quiet. Laurel seemed like she was already drowning in guilt and sadness that Belly didn’t know how to solve, and couldn’t bear to add to. Laurel didn’t know how to let time pass in a world without her best friend, she wanted to press pause on a life Belly was just starting. So Belly packed up her car and journeyed seven hours away to the middle of nowhere Indiana for college.
So Belly painted. She let her thoughts and feelings and anger out in her paintings. Belly's voice lived in her art. She got comfortable spending more time alone, taking care of herself and retreating into her mind. When even the space inside her head became hostile, she imagined herself in other places. Beautiful vistas dotted with buildings locked up tight. Sometimes home is just a feeling you seek.
She couldn’t make it all the way across the country, but she pushed herself far enough away that visits were sparse and help rarely came. Belly got used to moving. In and out of her dorm each summer (they didn’t go to Cousins anymore). Into her own apartment after she finished school. To a new city every six to eight months after.
She sold small canvases and hand painted tchotchkes at craft fairs, and set up an online shop to make extra money. She saw new places constantly and told herself that it kept her mind engaged, helped her creativity. She traveled endlessly, down the curves of countless country roads. She got really comfortable driving. Slowly accustomed to packing up and taking apart her life, over and over again. Goodbyes became so very familiar to Belly.
Her painting supplies were always one of the last things she packed up, preferring to leave them out in case any final inspiration struck. She packed them carefully now, rolling her brushes into a cloth bundle before laying them in the wooden box she used for transport.
She always told herself she wasn’t running from anything. She dragged so many pieces of everywhere around with her, there’s no way she could be running.
Belly opened her front door and took in a heady breath of putrid sweet Brooklyn summer air. She fiddled with her silver infinity necklace and tucked a strand of hair that had slipped out of her short ponytail behind her ear, stepping out into the humid August morning. She hadn’t talked to Conrad or Jeremiah in years but she still wore that momento of their summers in Cousins; she kept it as a reminder that nothing is ever truly lost, there is no start or end, everything comes back around in time.
Belly wandered through the park to get over to her favorite bodega and pick up a morning muffin before she got on the road.
She’d liked it here. She liked painting in the city parks. She loved taking the subway to a random stop and finding a secluded spot to set up her easel. She liked the energy of the city, but sometimes she got tired of being surrounded by strangers. She had friends here, she always made an effort to find a rec volleyball league in her new cities, and Taylor still kept in touch, but it wasn’t enough. She still missed her small town summers, she missed the familiar faces. She hadn’t known many people in Cousins when she was younger but she still loved the community. And nowhere she’d been since had ever felt quite right. Not without them.
There was a fountain in the center of the park filled with sparrows swimming in it to stay cool. Belly walked over, looking down into the shimmering water and noticing all the coins people had thrown in. She was about to embark on a journey, she needed all the luck she could get. She fished a penny out of her pocket and turned it over in her fingers a few times. Throughout her childhood she never had to think about what she would wish for, it was decided, set. But she didn’t wish for people anymore, people leave too easily. So Belly closed her eyes hard, tossed the penny and wished that Daeyang would stay quiet for the drive.
After the isolation she'd felt in New York, Belly decided to try out a small town in Arizona. See if the desert couldn’t calm her wandering heart or whatever. The change of scenery was sure to spark something in her stagnant artistic career.
She’d make this little town her own, states and states from anyone who knew her. A place full of people she could get to know, still new enough to her story that she could mold the narrative, obscure some of the uglier parts.
Belly loaded up her Subaru, sliding her storage boxes into the trunk with a practiced ease. She buckled her cat carrier into the passenger seat and set off to find her new life in Benson, Arizona.