SPRING

It’s too cold for spring. It’s not winter anymore, but it feels like it, she says as she comes up to me in the park and hands me a hot chocolate, which I haven’t had since, oh God, when? Junior year? I sip the frothy whipped cream, the only part I can actually stand now. I’m not a junior anymore. This stranger I have only just met might have liked me when we were in high school, but I know before our first date, our first kiss, the first time I meet her parents, that she will not like me now.

WINTER

I’m graduating high school in five months but still am in no way prepared for art school, the art school I didn’t tell either of my parents I was accepted into early decision. I’ve been working on drawing people, which is crucial to my survival, in the words of my 9th-grade art teacher. The only person I’m able to draw, though, is a woman I’ve never even met and don’t know the name of, all amber-colored hair and sage green eyes and a Cupid’s bow mouth. Bridgette jokes that I’m in love with her. I think I am.

SUMMER

The summer after I leave college, I have my first solo show. People sip blood wine, nibble on cheese, meander around the gallery, and ask me questions about my inspiration that I answer with a slight laugh and some vague, rehearsed, completely dishonest answer. Sometimes, I tell them that they’re inspired by real people, if I’m especially tipsy. By now, I’ve packed up the drawings of the girl in a brown paper portfolio, buried her under my bed, and forgotten entirely about her. Now, I draw haunted men: empty, hollow eyes, mouths slightly agape, staring into the distance. I draw myself. 

FALL

On the first of October, I draw her. I brush the hair away from her face, ink her onto the page, take my watercolor set and brush auburn onto her hair and green onto her eyes. Suddenly, I’m hit with an intense wave of deja vu. A memory resurfaces. I leave the room, look under the bed, and there is the brown portfolio and I open it and that’s when I know I need to leave her. Because in every drawing I am standing just outside of frame, and she is holding my bleeding heart in her hand and laughing.