The Hidden Sketchbooks
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Yummy smells slam into me the instant I turn the handle on the front door. Dad's cooking again. Pot roast, I think. He's been baking, too. Fresh bread. Anticipating that first warm bite sends my stomach into a growl-fest.
"Hey, Jemma." Mom glances up from her desk as I hang my coat on the hook by the door. She's piled neat stacks of papers on either side of her—she must be grading a class assignment. "How was B&B's?"
"Cool. Pumpkin lattés, today."
"I'm jealous." Mom grins.
I send her a smile over my shoulder before heading into the hall bathroom to snag a box of Band-Aids from the medicine cabinet. Taking one out, I check my hand for splinters—there aren't any—before affixing the Band-Aid. If Mom asks me how I cut myself, it’ll compel me to share my story about the eyes in the tree trunk and the boy in the coffee shop. Those two things would definitely make her worry. She does that enough.
I stick the Band-Aid box inside cabinet and shove my damaged hand into my pocket, before returning to the living room.
"How was school?" Mom asks
I shake my head. "Brutal. You're going to be getting a call about this." I reach into my bag with my free hand, and pull out Milford's likeness. I drop the assignment on her desk.
Mom's eyebrows shoot up as she surveys the drawing. "I take it you aren't really supposed to be sketching nudes in your high school art class?" Leaning forward, she runs a finger along the single blue stripe of highlights Shaz gave me last week. "You like to push the envelope, don't you?"
"But, Mom." I blow my bangs to the side. "They pick guys from the swim team because they're basically Adonises, but as a subject, this guy was so boring. Even his outfit was boring. He was a clone of all the others. I had to spice it up somehow."
"Mmmm. This seems fairly accurate to me." Her eyes twinkle.
"Health class, Mom. Seriously. It's not like I want to start dating some guy named Milf anyway." I cringe. "You aren't mad?"
She shakes her head. "As long as you're not drawing him, it's fine."
I know exactly who she means by ‘him’. Mom frowns, handing back my interpretation of Milford in all his glory.
I take the drawing, resting my arms on top of the hutch. "My sketches of the boy scared you, didn't they?"
"Yes, Jemma they scared us. Imagine how you'd feel if your daughter started sketching the same boy over and over again and you know she's never met him." Mom softens her words with a smile.
A rush of guilt chokes me. "I'm gonna get started on my homework, okay?"
"K." Mom winks, lifts up a paper from the stack to her right, then circles something on it with a red pen.
The spot where I pricked my hand on the Hawthorne tree throbs as I leave for the solitude of my bedroom. Shutting the door behind me, I turn the lock. Something I don’t normally do.
I should start my homework. Instead, I pull open the top drawer of the small file cabinet next to my desk. The one I've almost made myself forget. The spot where I keep all of my old sketchbooks.
My heartbeat echoes in my head. The cut on my hand burns. "Come on, Jem, they're just drawings." I shake my head.
Dropping to my knees, I run my fingers along the books' black spines. It's embarrassing how many there are. I've gone through even more since we moved. Though I've changed my focus to sketching other people, even distance and time haven't been successful at making me forget my favorite subject. The boy.
Something unseen tugs at my senses, daring me to open the books, to stare into those solemn eyes again. It's as if the boy is alive inside them, calling to me...daring me to look.
Open me...open me, Jemma...you need me...you miss me...
It's his voice. In my head. Just like on that night. How can that be? A chill passes over me, washing my skin in goosebumps. This is so weird, it's not like he's here. I don't have to look at these books if I don't want to.
I do want to, though.
All those times I stared at him through my window. He was almost as good of a friend as Molly was. There's nothing wrong with just peeking—
My hand lashes out like it belongs to somebody else and, in the next moment, I've grabbed a stack of books. Relief forces the chills away and replaces it with happiness. It's like my friend is back. Not Molly, but the blond boy I once knew so well, if only in my mind.
I skim through the first book, taking in each carefully executed creation. One element stands out on every page. His eyes. My mind trolls my memories of him, comparing the guy from today with the boy I've immortalized on paper.
I touch one of my more cherished pieces. Even when I couldn't draw anything well, I could always sketch him. These drawings were extraordinary, as if the boy himself had snuck in during the night and created them. None of my other work has come close since. I have talent, but this...
The boy first made an appearance in the woods behind our house when I was only three or four. Every time I'd pull aside my pink lace curtains and look in the backyard, he'd be there. I'd wave. He'd wave back. He was handsome, like one of the princes in the fairytales I used to read.
I worried about him living alone in the woods, though I couldn't be sure if that's what he did. I left food for him. I never saw anyone take it. Yet, it was always gone when I looked outside again.
We never met, so I never learned his name. Now, all I have are my memories.
My hands shake, as they reach for the filing cabinet of their own accord. The same compulsion urges me to open the other books, as if my hands are magnets and the books metal.
A prickly heat flushes my skin. What am I doing? Why am I looking at these sketchbooks again when Mom just told me how much my drawings of the boy upset her and Dad? Maybe I am better off drawing Milford Schefflebein's junk?
Open me...open me, Jemma...
The call, the pull to keep digging into my sketchbooks, nags at me. "No." Shoving the books back inside, I shut the drawer on my art. Yet, I can't block the memories of him and Molly. After all, they disappeared from my life on the same day. Or I disappeared from theirs, depending on how I wanted to look at it. Mom and Dad moved us out of our house that week. As far as I can tell? They’ve never looked back.
The boy in ‘B&B's’ could have been anyone. There's no way he can be my boy, the one I remember so well. Right?
It doesn't matter. Because, just like the blond boy from my childhood, I'll probably never see the boy from the coffeehouse again, either.
And that's fine with me.