Chapter 9
Drew, 1990
I threw myself into my schoolwork and my art after Wes left, and my focus was paying off. My art teacher, Ms. Santos, was helping me submit scholarship applications to art schools across the country. With her encouragement, I carefully curated a portfolio of my artwork to accompany my college essays. Once she convinced me to stop drawing and painting Wes’ face on everything, and branch out to different subjects, I had a wide range of pieces to choose from.
The loss of Wes left an emptiness in my heart that seemed to grow bigger and wider as the days passed without a word from him. I convinced myself that I would never find someone to replace him, especially not here.
While the possibility of moving far away from my mom made me apprehensive, the thought of branching
