Androphobia

vi. sellotaped loyalty

Chamber Of Reflection - Mac DeMarco

THEA'S POV:

I stayed in my room for the next few days. I didn't go to the charity shop, I didn't talk to Mama. I just sat on my bed and watched my bruises turn from purple to gold, expensive reminders of what had happened and what I'd done. The one on my wrist wouldn't leave, however. It remained like a tattoo on my skin, refusing to leave no matter how much ice I massaged on it. A clawing emptiness reached from inside me and seemed to feed off the pain I felt when I dared to touch the mark.

I didn't realise but it had started snowing last night. Wisps of ice had tumbled down delicately in the dark and rolled along the arms of our great tree through my window, painting the world a beautiful white. It had been a long time since it snowed. I'd always looked forward to snow in the Christmas holidays but it rarely came in Mospe. My fingers would always itch to sculpt the ice and craft it into snowballs, snow angels, snow bunnies.

I didn't feel like playing in the snow today though.

Instead, I sat cocooned in a blanket on my bed, an artbook resting against my thighs as I sketched the outside. The tree was the object of my desire today. Chewing on my pencil, I watched the lines loop and stretch far as if they were travellers journeying within the borders of my page. I mindlessly sketched out the pinecones, the bristles, the never-ending tree trunk.

But to my horror, I found that I'd drawn something else instead.

A pair of cold, familiar eyes.

Billowing winds, bullets of snow and thick cotton clouds: none would do justice to Synn's eyes.

My fingers tightened around the pencil to the point where I thought it would snap if I held it any harder. The rough pencil marks weren't exact, nor the overall image, but his essence had somehow been clearly transcribed into the paper until I could see the rest of his face being constructed around those eyes. His cheekbones. His soft, plump lips. The dark silk of his hair. Even the beautiful tattoos crawling up his neck.

Why did he keep creeping into my mind? Why?

Instinctively, I lowered my pencil to the page to scribble it out but I stopped before it could touch the page.

I gnawed on my lower lip. Synn hadn't once attempted to call me again and in a way, I was grateful because it only would have made it that much harder if he'd stepped into my life again. But the bigger part of me wished that he had called, that he had tried, and that maybe, just maybe, he had succeeded. However, that was nothing but my wistful imagination; reality was much crueller.

I stared at the drawing in my sketchbook. Slowly, I traced the edges while being careful not to smudge them. Perhaps this would be the last thing I could remember him by: a pair of graphite eyes.

Suddenly, my phone was ringing.

I snatched it up and looked at the name in a leap of hope, only to find my manager's number on the screen. Swallowing the disappointment, I answered.

"Hello?"

"Hey, Thea, how are you? We haven't seen you in a few days."

"I'm fine, I just wasn't feeling well," I said with a tight smile even though I knew she couldn't see it.

"I hope you're feeling better then," Andrea replied and I heard some noise from the charity shop in the background. "I was just going to ask, and don't feel obligated to say yes, but do you think you could come in for a short shift today? From one till three?"

"Oh, yeah, I-I think that's fine!"

"Are you sure? I don't want you to come in if you're still ill."

"No, that's okay! I'm all better now, don't worry. I can be there."