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My eyes drift right again and land on the open window. At night it’s a blank canvas where I could paint anything my mind wanted. Without the limitations of earthly trappings like gravity and physics my mind could paint things on that night sky my hands couldn’t replicate. I used to sit there all night, listening to him play and letting my mind do whatever it wanted.
And during the day, I’d sit at my drafting table and try to capture some of what I’d drawn in my head the night before. And then, I’d move to my easel.
That’s when Carter would go out to the private water hole passing as a lake and take off all his clothes and swim while I watched. He floated and back stroked, and when he was tired, he’d climb out, drop into the lounge chair we placed right outside my window so he’d be sitting facing me while taking a nap. Or scribble in his notebook, or masturbate, but most days, he’d just stare at the sky.
I look back at the box. My heart is racing. My heart is in my throat, and my hands tremble while I rip the tape off and open it. The box is empty but for two things. An envelope and my sketchbook.
What is this doing here? Did Jude leave this here? And why didn’t she tell me it was in here? I might have never come in here.
I lift the envelope up as I recognize Bethany’s handwriting. My hands are shaking as I tear the tape off and start reading.
Dearest Sister,
Happy Birthday. I hope it’s one for the record books. I know you’re afraid you’re missing out on your dream life in New York. I know your eye is on that prize. And I hope it’s everything you want it to be. But promise me, you won’t miss your real life trying to get there. Cause everything you really need to be happy is already inside you. When you’re ready to embrace your greatness and learn to love who you are, right now, you’ll be unstoppable. You’re the most talented person I’ve ever met. And the bravest. I know I’m a big deal in Winsome, but you’re something really special. And if you get stuck, remember that inheritance is a parachute chord. Pull it and do whatever you can to stay alive. Because the world needs you and your art. I had some of your favorite drawings photographed and made into a photobook. Look at that and tell me you weren’t born to make the world a more beautiful place.
Love you, Bethany.
I grab the box and notebook and run out of the room so fast I almost trip and fall. I rush up the stairs into my old room and shut the door.
Instead of the sadness I thought I’d feel in this room, my breaths come a little easier. What had I been so afraid of? I sit on the unmade four poster bed where Carter and I made magic. It was real, even if it was only for a little while. I thumb the edge of the glossy book before I take a deep breath and dive in headfirst.
A part of my heart I’d forgotten existed bursts back to life as I look through the pages of the world I built on paper. I run a reverent fingertip over the one-dimensional contours of the friends, parents, powers, and conquests I didn’t have in my real life.
My world was a patchwork of diverse ecosystems all bound together under a dark blue sky set ablaze by suns made of glittering amber and fiery citrine. Rivers cut through the land in a rush of clear water that tasted of honey.
And overseeing it all was a dark-haired girl with stars for eyes and wings of azure glass, ruling the world from astride a dragon who hunted and feasted on wolves.
My drawings weren’t created to entertain people, that was purely coincidental. They were, at their heart, mini journal entries. Looking at them all together was like reading a part of my autobiography, written in a language only I, and a handful of others, seemed to truly understand.
When I was younger, I liked that. It gave me the courage to express myself with an honesty I didn’t dare let pass my lips.
Now though, looking back at my work I’m overwhelmed by how lonely and frustrated I used to be. But it was better than whatever I am now. I never figured out another way to express myself, and so on top of the isolation I’m also stifled. I don’t know what’s more heartbreaking—my naiveté then or my cynicism.
When I turn the final page of the book a loose sheet of paper, tucked into the back and previously unnoticed, slips out and lands on the bed beside me. My heart skips a beat because even though it’s folded in half I know, with an unexplainable certainty, exactly what it is.
A sticky note dangles, and I smile when I recognize Jude’s elegant scrawl.
“Found the gift and this drawing when I was clearing out. Left it in here ‘cause I figured by the time you found your way back to this room you’d be ready to see it. I hope by now you’ve started celebrating your birthday again. Fuck the patriarchy, Love, Jude.
With trembling fingers and a heart that feels like it’s skipping every other beat, I unfold the yellowed, heavy paper that still has the perforations from the sketchbook it was torn from.
Unlike the rest of my sketches from that summer, drawn in front of that sunlit window, this picture was born in the dark in this very bed on our last night together. I woke up panting from a dream that replayed the intimate moment we shared right before bed. For reasons I didn’t understand, I hadn’t drawn us together once. And as the dawn that would take him from me approached, I was desperate to capture us.
In all my imaginings of us I built with my mind’s eye, I didn’t have wings —I was just a woman, yet I could still fly.
Because Carter wasn’t just a man—he was a dark-haired god with emerald-colored eyes, pillow soft lips, and a diamond hard body that was as warm as the sun’s rays. But it was his voice that made me climb off my dragon and lay down my sword and gave her the power to soar.
I trace the dark pencil marks that form the crown of his dark head from the vantage point of my perch on the bathroom counter. He’s on his knees, his face buried between my bare thighs, eating me out one last time.
> His well-muscled, lightly veined arms are wrapped around my hips, and his hands hold me open while his talented mouth feeds and stokes my hunger at the same time.
When my eyes drift closed, I can still smell the magnolia scented, sultry summer evening all those years ago.
I can taste the salt and mint of his kisses when I run the tip of my tongue over my lips. I shudder to recall the rough scrape of his tongue moving up the seam of my pussy, and the sharp nip of his teeth on my clit.
My fingers clench, but not for my pencil. They’re imagining slipping into his thick, stupidly soft hair to hold his head against me, to try give and take as much as I can.
God, I wish I’d touched his hair today.
