The Beauty of the End Read Online Free PDF

hung on the wall. Trying to find something to like about it.
    She watches my gaze. “Are you interested in art?”
    â€œI don’t really know anything about it,” I say.
    â€œI think what matters is knowing what you like.” She glances at the canvas. “You like that?”
    I look her straight in the eye. “Not really my thing.”
    She bites her lip, says conspiratorially, “Not really mine, either.”
    I feel us connect, briefly, kind of like a needle prick, before I get it. She’s smart. She hangs the ugliest painting she can find to give her common ground with everyone but the guy who painted it.
    Then she really does surprise me. She puts down her pen and notebook.
    â€œCan I say something, Ella? I get the feeling you’ve done this before. Am I right?”
    By “this” I’m guessing she means therapy. So the dancing thing’s over already. I raise my eyebrows. “Quite a few times, actually.”
    She looks puzzled. “Can I ask you why you think you need to come here?”
    She says “you.” I sit back, hearing breath drawn out in a long sigh, wonder why she’s doing that. Then realize it’s mine.
    â€œWell . . . It’s complicated.”
    â€œI have time.”
    â€œYeah . . .”
    I know she has time. They’re paid by the minute or something.
    â€œIt’s like this. I don’t personally think I need to be here. My mother does. We don’t really get on. Mothers and daughters don’t always, do they?” I glance at her, but she doesn’t respond. “She thinks that a bit of psych-washing and I’ll turn into the daughter she wants me to be. No offense, by the way. But that’s about it.”
    Skipping the part about how my mother doesn’t get me because I don’t slot into her neat and tidy life; how her plans for my future take no account of what I want, how nothing I say interests her. How that is the measure of my worth. There’s more, like how even when I’m so tired my eyes close on their own, I can’t sleep, and when I do, I have these dreams. Dreams so vivid, when I wake up, it’s like they’re real. Like I said, it’s complicated.
    â€œI see.”
    She really doesn’t, but then I haven’t told the half of it. It’ll take more than a crap painting before I do that.
    â€œI ought to explain about my mother,” I add. Breaking the unwritten rule, answering questions she hasn’t asked. Deflecting her while I still can. “Because everything she and my father do is, like, a-maz-ing.”
    Giving it the full benefit of its three syllables, then rolling my eyes to make sure she gets it. “They have their amazing jobs, incredibly expensive clothes, and they’re always traveling. . . .”
    Only the problem is, I’m supposed to be amazing too and I’m not allowed to cut my hair and buy cool T-shirts from the market stall with Guns N’ Roses on them.
    â€œReally? Where do you go?”
    â€œI said they ,” I point out, frowning. “They don’t take me with them. Half the time I’m in school, anyway. It kind of makes sense.”
    Wondering if she’ll work out the real reason, because it’s obvious. They don’t want me with them.
    She looks faintly shocked.
    â€œIt’s fine,” I tell her. “It really is,” I add, because she looks as though she doesn’t believe me. “Anyway, they’re probably not the kind of holidays you’re picturing.”
    â€œOh,” she says, like a question. Oh?
    â€œThey go to cities, mostly. They like boutique hotels and shopping and art galleries and opera.” I add, shaking my head, “Boutique hotels . . .not my thing,” because if you’ve seen one of them, you’ve seen them all and because I’d rather be lying in our garden reading a book.
    â€œSo who looks after you?”
    â€œGabriela, our