Summer Forever by Amy Sparling Read Free Book Online

parents had some massive house expenses to fix last summer and couldn’t afford to pay for more classes. Not that I minded. I hate college.
    I know I need to get it over with, rip off the proverbial bandage and see what kind of grades I’m making so I’ll know if I need to drop a class. Or two. When I click the link and see my grades load, I’m not exactly sure how I feel.
    I’m passing both classes, but barely. As I’m contemplating how pissed my parents would be if I dropped out of school forever, my phone gets a new email message. I have another sale on Etsy.
    A familiar feeling falls over me as I read through the email, noticing that the buyer has purchased two canvasses. It’s the same feeling, the same nagging idea that’s been bothering me every single time I make a new sale. The idea that maybe I should just quit school, cut back my hours at C&C and focus on painting full time.
    It’s crazy, right? I can’t possibly think this is a smart idea.
    But it feels like a smart idea. My inspirational quote canvases have been selling almost as quickly as I can list them, and it’s been steady since day one. This could be a thing. This could be my thing. I scroll back through my emails to the one that displays my class grades. Community college isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Maybe some people do well in these stupid mandatory classes and then go on to be super successful business people who sit in a cubicle all day and stare at a computer and so business work.
    That’s never going to be me. I’ll never survive a cubicle job. I need to be creative, to keep moving, keep dreaming, keep making beautiful things.
    Scowling at the grades email, I swipe back to the new sale email. On the bottom of the invoice, the buyer has written me a message in the notes section.
    I’m so excited to get these for my office wall! PS – do you do custom work? I’d love to have my company’s slogan painted on a canvas. The girls in my office are going nuts for #BeccasInspirations!
    I frown. Are people so obsessed with using hashtags that they now use them in random conversations? She does know this is an email and I can’t actually click on it, right? My stomach fills up with butterflies as an insane idea comes to me. Maybe the hashtag symbol wasn’t some kind of mistake. Maybe…
    I find the Instagram app on my phone and open it, going straight to the search feature. I type in #BeccasInspirations and gasp. There are already forty-two images with that tag, all of them are of my artwork. One has a picture of a girl holding up her canvas and smiling. The caption reads: This quote motivates me so much! I LOVE IT #BeccasInspirations
    Another user has posted a screenshot of a canvas on my Etsy page, saying they want to buy that canvas for their sister’s wedding gift. I look at every single picture and read the comments, finding that all of them are positive and sweet. Not a single person has said anything like: These canvases are dumb and pointless. I hope the artist doesn’t quit her day job. #BeccasInspirations
    My cell phone screen gets blurry and I realize I’m shaking with the buildup of emotions inside of me right now. Not only are random strangers buying my art, they are talking about it on social media.
    Maybe my dream isn’t so stupid after all.
     
     
    When Park calls me in the afternoon, he sounds exhausted. “Hey there, beautiful,” he breathes into the phone as if he’d just finished a hundred yard dash.
    “What’s wrong?” I ask.
    I hear the beeping sound of his truck’s door being opened while the keys are in the ignition. “Just worn out,” he says, pausing to take a drink. “Jace and I have been looking at some land and I just walked like a thousand miles through knee-high grass.”
    “Why are you looking at land? You just bought and house.”
    He hesitates for a moment and I can almost picture the face he makes as he contemplates telling me the truth or making up a lie. So I beat him to the punch.