Cass Was Right

Cass was right.

I didn’t deserve any of this. The endless amounts of praise and pats on the back. All of the fluttering lights and confetti-stuffed balloons. My name being advertised all over Thistle Park High’s beige, concrete walls. The polished mahogany stage, patiently waiting for me to walk up and accept my ten-thousand-dollar scholarship. And yet there I was, sitting in a dressing room backstage; about to rob hundreds of artists who are far more deserving than me.

I’ve been entering the Southwest Community’s Upcoming Artist scholarship since I was in sixth grade. The winner always receives ten thousand dollars for their higher education, while five runner-ups get smaller monetary prizes. If you didn’t make the top five and the judges still found something to like about your piece, it would still be displayed at the art museum in our city for the whole summer. And every year, my work always failed to even make it to the museum.

Each year always stung worse than the last, because even as I climbed closer to the best of my abilities, it still wasn’t even good enough for the bottom-of-the-barrel pity prize by the judges. I wondered if perhaps my teachers were just being kind to me, and didn’t want me to give up even though they knew the truth. Maybe my art has always been broken, and all I had ever done is just slap prettier colors on it and call it an improvement. I’d started to wonder whether or not it would always be broken or if there was a way to salvage it before I got to college.

I almost didn’t enter anything this year, as it was starting to hurt too much. I wanted to quit before I decided to give up on art altogether. But Mrs. Greenwood, my senior art teacher, encouraged me to give it one last go before I graduated. She told me that I had every last drop of talent in the bottle, and she would hate to see me lose an opportunity just because I was sore from years prior. She told me this time to try making something that I felt, as opposed to making something I thought other people would like. She said that even if I didn’t win, I would have made something that made me feel more whole not just as an artist, but as a person.

I figured I’d tasted failure six times over, what was one more time?

I stared at that canvas for hours. That blank surface burned into my eyes, and all I could see when I looked away was the blinding white reflection of nothing. Mrs. Greenwood told me to draw something that I felt, but all I could feel was emptiness.

That’s when I remembered all of the things Cass had told me over the years as I lost the contest time and time again.

“Well, what did you expect? Your art doesn’t even belong on your parents’ fridge, let alone in a museum!”

“You seriously think you deserve to have your work in the same room as these people? I mean, I guess putting your garbage next to there’s will help show just how good their creations are!”

All of Cass’s comments poured out onto the canvas, with wet droplets of my mascara slinking across my washed-out umber underpainting. What ended up staring back at me after twenty-seven total hours of work was an image of a girl staring into a mirror with a monstrous beast looking back at her, smearing the makeup on her face and painting her to look like the monster itself.

It was a cathartic feeling, having finished the piece. But it had also been painful, and incredibly uncomfortable having to relive everything Cass had said to me. I’d been so upset while creating it, that I didn’t want to submit it to the contest. I wanted to keep these feelings to myself. I didn’t want to slice open my wounds in front of all of those people.

I didn’t even want to show it to Mrs. Greenwood. But since she encouraged me to make it in the first place, I thought I at least owed her that much. She had told me it was one of the best pieces I had ever made. She said she knew if the judges wouldn’t love it, there would be an audience out there who would. I brushed off what I believed to be her filling my head with misplaced confidence, and submitted the painting anyway. What was there to lose at this point? My record hadn’t been the best to begin with, so might as well expose myself to a few judges just to say I had tried every opportunity I had.

Sure enough, I got a letter in the mail a few months later telling me that I had won the ultimate prize.

At first, I felt a wave of relief crash over me. People out there actually did like my art. There were people out there who liked it so much, that they thought it was worth ten thousand dollars. But almost as instantly as the tide of happiness rushed over me, a typhoon of dread swept me into a sea of troubled thoughts.

I found myself choking on pebbles of rage. I didn’t find this piece to be particularly good technically, and even the subject matter had been selfishly applied. I had submitted so many other pieces that I was rather proud of, that I had thought outshined this painting. What made this one stand out? It was just me moping over all of Cass’s harsh words.

But as the pebbles slid down my throat and into my stomach, fear began to sink into my gut. Dozens of people would have to see me, naked on a canvas, and internally decide whether or not my pain and the way I had shown it was worth ten thousand dollars.

I was drowning.

Knock! Knock! Knock!

“Cassidy, you’re on in five minutes!” a stagehand told me from outside my dressing room.

Showtime. It was time to spruce myself up and receive my daily berating from Cass.

I marched over to the vanity mirror adorned in orbs of plastic light. For a split moment, I saw myself. I saw my glitter-laced lavender dress hugging my thin, bony form. I saw my warm, brown gaze flicker across the reflective surface. I saw my face decorated with a gentle layer of makeup. I saw my auburn curls gently falling over my delicate shoulders. I saw a pretty girl ready to share herself with the world, but only for a heartbeat as Cass’s lumpy, grotesque face fogged over the mirror.

“So, this is what a winner looks like,” she scoffed at me. “A ravaged bucket of KFC tossed into a sparkly, purple trash bag!”

“Yeah…” I mumbled back.

“You’re pathetic, you know that?” she lashed at me. “All of those beautiful sculptures and drawings and paintings…made by people with real talent who know what they’re doing. And they give you the ten grand. What a waste.”

“Yeah,” I replied to the beast. “I worked really hard on it, and it was a challenge for me to make.”

“You won, and for what?” Cass snapped, slapping her hands against the glass. “Because you’re a whiny little brat with a brush and people felt sorry for you.”

“The judges thought I was good…” I tried to argue. “I finally won, why aren’t you happy?”

“There’s no reason to feel happy over a charity case,” Cass sneered. “They know you’re a senior this year and never got the chance to even have your art hung in the museum. You’re just an ant they chose not to step on to make themselves feel better.”

“Maybe there is something good about the painting!” I snapped at the mirror.

“Good enough to wipe my ass with!” Cass chortled. “You’re a fraud and a thief. Those poor artists, robbed blind by a lowlife insect with no real talent.”

“Mrs. Greenwood s-said it was one of my b-best pieces.” I stammered, fighting to keep the tears back in my eyes.

“Oh, here come the tears! I stole ten grand from hundreds of talented people, and I’m sitting back here feeling sorry for myself! Cry-me-a-frickin’ river!” Cass exclaimed. “You disgust me.”

“What do you want from me?” I sobbed into the mirror. “I accomplished something great, and you’re even angrier with me than you were when I lost all six years!”

“I want you to actually be good,” she snarled. “If you’re ever gonna be taken seriously as an artist, you need to be good.”

For a heartbeat, Cass allowed me to see myself again. My foundation was clumping against my cheeks and tear trails of mascara raced down to the ground. My eyes had begun to glow bright red, and the curls in my hair had started to fall. I was starting to look like Cass.

“You made me smear my makeup…” I muttered miserably to Cass.

“It’s an improvement,” she hissed. “Now you’re starting to look more like your true self.”

Cass’s face grew obscured through the droplets pouring from my eyes. All I could see was the painted beast I’d done in my winning submission. I thought about the way it looked at me as I brought it to life. Curiosity spiked through me as I recalled how it had such disappointment in its gaze, rather than spite. Come to think of it, it was the very same look that Cass frequently looked upon me with. I was suddenly arrested by intrigue. Never had it occurred to me to ask why Cass constantly berated me.

“You know something, Cass?” I growled. “If anything, you’re the thief here. You stole my image, and I should have done this the first time you stole my reflection way back in sixth grade.”

I reached a hand out and slammed it firmly against the mirror. Cass flinched and stuck her own hand up to stop mine.

“Why?” I whispered, pressing my forehead against the glass. “Why did you take it?”

Cass was quiet for a long moment, her red-brown eyes staring deep into mine.

“I never took it…” she trailed off. “You handed it to me.”

“Huh?”

“There was one day I got particularly upset with you,” Cass answered. “And you just stopped arguing with me. All you said was that I was right. I still have it.”

“Okay, and how do I get it back?” I sighed, frustrated. “I finally won this stupid contest, and you’re angrier than ever!”

“Because you were still hurt that it took you this long with an entry that was about me. About us,” she replied.

“But why are you punishing me?” I cried. “All I ever do is try and nothing ever pleases you. Who hurt you?!”

Cass’s face suddenly grew pale and still. “I…I” she stammered “You did, I guess.”

“What?”

“I care about you, ya know. Without you, I wouldn’t exist, after all,” she stated. “And I knew how badly you wanted to show the world that your art was worth something. It made me excited for you.”

Cass’s face fell to the floor. “And every time you failed, you just got so upset. I hated seeing you that way, so I thought being hard on you would get you back on your feet to try and succeed. But it just kept happening, and I kept getting angrier the more discouraged you got after each failure.”

“So…” I mumbled. “What do I need to be a success in your eyes? How do I get my reflection back from you?”

“All I’ve ever wanted is for you to prove me wrong,” she said with a small grin. Her lumpy cheeks had started to smooth over and a lavender dress appeared on her bony figure. “I’m sorry. I should have just said all of this from the start. I’ll try to be nicer from now on.”

“And I shouldn’t have given up on myself…or you…so easily,” I said. “I’m glad we could finally talk through this.”

I smiled at the mirror as Cass stood back and allowed me to fix my makeup.

“Cassidy?” Cass whispered.

“Hmm?”

“Do you think maybe I could hold onto your reflection?” she asked. “I wanna try making it beautiful. I’m not super great with makeup yet, so it won’t be the prettiest at first. But when I get good, you’ll have the most damned beautiful image in the world. Deal?”

“Deal,” I laughed. “But if you start up with your harassment again, I’ll break every mirror I find.”

“You got it,” Cass chuckled.

My dressing room door squeaked open.

“Cassidy?” the stagehand called. “We’re ready for you!”

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“And here she is, your 2022 Southwest Community Upcoming Artist, Cassidy Jackson!”

The announcer dramatically motioned to where I was walking out into the spotlight. My painting dangled on a wall behind him on a massive projector. Applause roared through the theatre, as people leaped from their seats to gift me a standing ovation for my win. I marched up to the balloon arch at center stage, where the head of the scholarship committee handed me a certificate and roughly shook my hand. In my other hand, I had a speech prepared weeks prior scribbled on a couple of orange notecards.

The head stepped back, allowing me to the microphone stand.

“Thank you all so much!” I began with a shaky smile. I glanced down at my notecards and cleared my throat.

“I started drawing over ten years ago in kindergarten. Every day after school, my mother would have to take me to her work and I would wait there with her and doodle on printer paper until she had finished her work.”

My hands began to wobble, making it difficult to read the scratched lines on the paper.

“I-I…” The crowd’s heads began to tilt with concern as my forehead grew sweaty. “I practiced every day, hoping one day I’d be able to stand in front of an audience like this one accepting an award for my work. It took a long time, but finally I have achieved that goal. And…”

I wouldn’t do it. I wouldn’t lie to these people.

I tossed my notecards down to my feet.

“You know, I’m going to be honest with you here, folks,” I told the audience. “I didn’t think I deserved this distinction, let alone the scholarship.”

I watched as dozens of eyes popped open and glanced around at one another under the receding light.

“Really, that’s what my painting is all about,” I explained. “Every time I went through the cycle of self-hatred after every failure for six years in a row, my image of myself became more beastly and distorted until it eventually swallowed my reflection and became its own entity.”

I sucked in a deep breath.

“I know why I won,” I stated. “Many of you probably have also had your reflections stolen by the bully in your mirror.”

I watched as hands began to fidget in laps.

“We’re always told to think more positively and forgive ourselves for our mistakes,” I continued. “But treating ourselves nicer doesn’t get rid of the darkness in our reflections. In fact, with each mistake or failure, we feed it. And it grows stronger and more powerful until;” I pointed back at my painting. “It bursts through the mirror and tries to destroy the you that even you can’t see.”

Nervous murmurs started skittering across the rows of heads.

“And let me be the one to tell you,” I announced. “There is no making it go away. We can try all we might, but every time we look into our own eyes, the bully will be looking back.”

The anxious whispering halted in its tracks.

“But that’s okay,” I assured. “In creating the painting you see behind me, I’ve learned that they are nothing to be afraid of.”

I glanced down at the polished ground, where I could vaguely make out Cass’s face in the pristine stage floor.

“They’re just as upset and embarrassed as we are because they care about us,” I stated. “They want us to thrive and be everything we want to be; but when we don’t reach their expectations, their knee-jerk reaction is to say hateful and hurtful things to try to get us to do better.”

I straightened myself up, gazing into the rows of wide eyes in the crowd.

“And just like with any bully, whether they care about you or not, their comments can wear you out,” I explained. “They can wear you out until you’re just as nasty as they are.”

Cass’s reflection in the floor beneath my feet started to glow with embarrassment.

“And every time you agree with their remarks, you frustrate them even more,” I continued. “They want you to succeed! They don’t want to be correct in their judgment of you!”

I slammed my hand on the podium. “But every single time you say the words “you are right,” you disappoint them, in which they will only come down harder on you in a desperate attempt to make you succeed.”

I gazed down into the rows of people.

“I ask you from the bottom of my heart, don’t give in to them, don’t ignore them, and don’t fight with them,” I begged. “Just talk to them. Ask them why they say those hurtful things. Why they smudge your makeup. Tell them what will help instead of getting upset. And hopefully, the two of you can become a team so every time you look in the mirror, you just see your beautiful reflection.”

The crowd soared to their feet and roared applause.

I winked at Cass, who was beaming at me from the ground.

“I was wrong, Cassidy,” she whispered. “You did earn the scholarship. I’m proud of you.”

“For once Cass,” I replied with a grin. “You’re right.”