Artistry

Cheers filled the air, echoing off the walls of the hall, ricocheting off the edges of my best friend’s flashy smile. I was silent as I watched her spin and twirl in her sky blue dress, dancing and grinning and laughing in mock sheepishness as the crowd took so many pictures that my head began to spin from the flash. Her eyes twinkled as she spotted me. I was too dazzled to return the glance. The music floated through my ears, the bass shaking my heart as the world slowed down around me, the look on her face making my stomach flutter. 

Someone nudged me. “Come on, man, cheer for her!” 

The scene came back into focus far too quickly for my liking. “Welcome!” she called to the horde around her, a princess reaching out to her subjects. “Thank you all so much for coming! I can’t tell you how much it means to me to have you here on such a special night. I’m sixteen! Can you believe it?” 

I listened to her words, their sweet melody resonating deep within me. The lights seemed to dim. Her smile illuminated the hall, brighter and more entrancing than all the other decorations of the night. I watched her lips move, each syllable pronounced so deliberately, every sweeping gesture perfectly choreographed. 

“I’d like to start by thanking those who helped me get this far. I really owe all of them a lot. After all, I’m such a pain to deal with in my uncertain teenage years, it’s the least I could do.” 

An excited chuckle rippled through the flock, the dry joke intensified by the electricity in the air. 

I didn’t hear most of what she said, but I couldn’t stop myself from swaying to the mesmerizing lilt of her voice. People kept walking up to her and giving her hugs, short speeches trailing behind them like shadows, applause following with a halfhearted authenticity. 

Someone tapped my shoulder, pushing me forwards and out of my chair. 

“Go, dude, she’s saying your name!” 

I stood with a start, the dreamscape wavering around me. I forced a smile onto my face as she took me by the shoulders and hugged me. 

I shivered as she whispered in my ear, “Let’s talk tonight, okay? During dinner, after I take some pictures, meet me by the fountain outside. You seem a little dazed, so do you want to give a speech or not?” 

I laughed, my breath falling from my paralyzed lips like blocks of ice. 

“So, that’s a no. It’s fine. You can tell me how much you love me outside.” 

And the eternities stopped in an instant. She sent me back to my seat. 

The numbness crept up my legs as everyone else stood to get dinner once she finished. I shrunk away in the corner of the room, my dark clothes hiding me from the attention, anxiety bubbling in my chest. I could see her standing in the center, each of the guests approaching her to capture a fleeting moment of pure finery, solid gold placed in a safe where it would never be lost. 

My eyes flitted around the room to make sure I was as invisible as I thought I was. I snuck a plate of food by my side and hurried out the door. 

The evening air hit me in icy swirls of mist, gusts so strong that I could almost see the sky's textured brush strokes in the wind. The fountain stood resolutely beside me, perfection in every icy dagger that dangled tantalizingly from its edge, glittering in the moonlight. 

She walked out. I couldn't hide my grin. 

"You brought food!" she exclaimed. "Oh, thank god! I really am lucky to have such a good friend. You know how these things are, the birthday girl planning everything and then getting to enjoy nothing but a thousand eyes on her in a single night. I felt so exposed up there while I gave all those speeches, but I did it! All that's left is to go back in there and dance when we're ready." She took the plate from my hands, stuffing as much into her mouth as she could before tugging the skirt of her dress down. 

"You look amazing," I said to her at last, my every muscle relaxing as the memory of the crowd faded away. 

She laughed, putting a hand over her mouth as she finished chewing. "What, because I'm in a pretty dress and I've got all this makeup? God, I won't be able to play any instruments again until my parents decide I've worn these acrylic nails long enough to justify the cost." 

I lifted a hand and wiped the slightest bit of sauce from her porcelain cheek. "Not because of the dress." 

"You're so funny." She set the plate down on the ledge by the fountain, motioning for me to join her. "I got my sister to distract everyone inside for a little bit, so I have some time before anyone realizes I’m gone. How come you've been so out of it all night? It's my sweet sixteen! We've been looking forward to this for months!" 

My shoulders slipped upwards, the gesture almost accidental. "I don't know. It kind of just freaked me out to be around all those people. Also, I totally idolize you, and I think it’s so unfair that everyone else wants your attention tonight as badly as I always want it.” 

I was bursting with pride when I saw her beaming through mouthfuls. 

“And I’m absolutely awed by your composure and the fact that you were able to plan this party and give those speeches with those people hanging onto your every word.” 

“They weren’t hanging onto my every word!” she objected, giggling freely. “I know I’m the special birthday girl and all, but I’m not that important, even tonight. But it’s more than that, and you know it. You were totally starstruck! What’s going on?” 

I stealthily avoided her gaze. “I guess I still can't really believe that you're sixteen." 

Her laugh was like stars. "What, do I not look the part? Or do I still act too childish?" 

"It's none of that." I stood, folding my arms over my chest, pacing listlessly around the fountain. "It's a feeling. To be looking forward to a day for so long, and now it's just...gone. A year ago, you were turning sixteen in a year, and now it's been a year. You don't find it a little hard to believe?" 

“Of course I do. The passage of time is such a strange concept, isn’t it? But the thing that makes it easier to stomach is that today, tonight, this party, doesn’t really mean a lot. I’m not a different person now, am I?” 

She set down the plate and stepped up on the ledge, holding her arms out to either side, following me as I circled the frozen fountain. She wobbled on her heels and used my shoulder as a support until she was steady. 

“But you are a different person. You’re smarter, more confident, more mature. In what ways haven’t you changed?” 

I found myself hypnotized by the rhythmic clicking of her shoes. “Yeah, after a whole year, but it didn’t happen overnight. I’m the same person I was yesterday, and that me was the same me from the day before, and the me from two days ago was the same me from three days ago, and I can go back and back and back. But the me of today is not the me of a year ago. And that’s okay, isn’t it?” 

“Of course. We’re just growing up. But you’re already sixteen!” 

The edge of her heel caught on one of the uneven rocks, sending her careening forwards. She was barely able to slip her foot out of it and take my hands to regain her balance. The shoe clattered to the stone pavement. 

“Yeah, I’m already sixteen, but I’m only sixteen!” 

“Aren’t you scared? Everything feels so fast. We’ll be out of school soon, and everything has been leading up to that, but what’s going to happen next?” 

She started examining her feet, suddenly enthralled by the unevenness, her smile giddy and drunk with night.  “I’m absolutely terrified. It’s so much fun, isn’t it?” 

I laughed, the confusion in my eyes flickering in the ice coating the fountain. “You’re insane.” 

“Come on, think about it!” 

I reached down for her shoe, holding it while she placed her delicately arched foot in. 

“You’ll turn sixteen soon, too. And then we’ll be seventeen, and eighteen, and nineteen, and so on. That part is scary, sure, having to get into college and get jobs and live on our own. But it’ll be such an adventure! Besides, I’m not scared to mess up a day or two or even a year in my life because I’m only sixteen. There’s so much more coming for us!” 

I could see the sky in her eyes. 

“And things aren’t going as fast as you think they are. Hindsight can do that to you, but a month can be endless while you’re waiting for it, and a year can be infinities away! There are so many different ways to measure the time that it’s impossible to put the distance into perspective. You can talk about the seconds, the minutes, the hours.” She turned towards the fountain, its glassy surface amplifying her effulgence. 

“The days, the weeks, the months,” I added. 

“Or,” she said very slowly, picking each word out, imagining it in the air, considering its aesthetic among the others. “Or you can measure it in the practice, the accomplishments, the people. We’re not just a year older. We’re thousands of hours of practice older, we’re hundred of achievements older, we’re each a few relationships older. And we don’t have to stop here. Every year, every month, every second of every day, we can keep learning and adding to the list of what makes us older.” 

I could see our reflections in the frosty mirror. “And you really aren’t afraid to mess it up?” 

“Can we afford to be?” Something in her voice grew tired, reminiscent. “We have so much time left. There’s so much ahead of us. We still have to get jobs, settle down somewhere, maybe have families and learn how to never be alone again. Why does it matter if we mess up such a miniscule fraction of our lives if we can take something away from it? Experimenting and making mistakes is how we can eventually get it right. Things will seem so fast once you start looking backwards, and they’ll seem scary when you look too far ahead. Isn’t it better to take what you need from the past and keep the future a little blurry and just take what we are now at face value?” 

I nodded uncertainly. “I guess. It’s hard to be okay with it, though. I can't get over the fact that we're running out of time." 

"Don't say that!" she scolded, tapping my head pointedly. "We have plenty of time! Didn't you just hear me? Jobs, settling, families! We've got it all! We're not done living yet. Sixteen is barely a milestone. Think about hitting thirty! Fifty! Eighty! This is barely half of our lives at the worst, a sixth of it at best, and that whole growing and developing thing made it so difficult to do things at first. If we've gotten this far in this much time, imagine everything that's to come! We've been so obsessed with constantly doing things and making things that we keep forgetting what's already here, and what's the point of art if no one is going to appreciate it? Why should we have to fear not doing enough? Why should we worry about each chord, each little brush stroke, every intricate grammar nuance to please the critics when there can be so much love in every action, when we can make music, paintings, poetry that we treasure?" 

The current in her voice made my skin tingle. 

She turned towards me, taking my help to step down from the fountain and sitting on the ledge. “I’ve been doing a lot of talking tonight,” she sighed. “You owe me a speech, don’t you? I want to know what my best friend has to say to me on this first of many upcoming important dates in my life. Oh, wait a second." She twisted to look at the fountain, scooping up some snow from its base and packing it together until it vaguely resembled two wine glasses. She handed one to me. "A toast!" she cried. 

I stared into the glass. The snow was blinding in the faint starlight. 

She started chanting, "Speech, speech, speech!" 

"Hey, hold on," I laughed. "I have to think for a minute." The clouds in my head shadowed the path from my mind to my mouth, but her light eventually cleared away the mist. "I'm not afraid to grow up," I started slowly. "I'm not afraid to leave things from my past behind. But I am afraid to let those things hold me back. Thinking about everything we've done, everything we are, is terrifying because it all seems like so much. I should be grateful, looking at what I've had the opportunity to do so far, but I keep scaring myself with the idea that I won't be able to do much more." 

"That's kind of dark for a birthday speech," she interrupted, tilting the snowy glass like it had something in it, observing the way the illusory liquid flowed from side to side. 

I smiled. "And I know that these years of our lives are important. This is where we learn the basics. These years are where we start becoming who we are. But it doesn't stop here. We don't stop becoming who we are. As important as this time is, it's also just that. Time. And we have so much of it. We can spend it doing things and going places, or we can let leisure take a turn to handle the picture. And it's okay to not do things. It's okay to make mistakes. In the grand scheme of things, isn't it all so small anyway?" 

Her smile was as radiant as the moon. 

"I'm looking ahead now. Sure, I'm not afraid to leave things from my past behind. I don't have to be afraid because you will always be a part of my present. Whatever happens, we have to be able to take the old colors from our palettes and use them to make something new moving forward. We're already sixteen, and we're just finishing the creation of our backgrounds. We're only sixteen, and we're just beginning to paint the rest. We're not ahead or behind. We can never truly stray from our paths. So, to a lifetime of mistakes and music, to the art and appreciation, to the poetry and the paintings." 

We both lifted our icy glasses. 

"Cheers."