The Keeper

Martha's Feelings For Dean Are on Another Level

Martha folded up the letter and put it away in her school bag. Her heart was racing. It confirmed to her that the way she felt about Dean was on a different level to the way she had felt about Toph. Breaking up with Toph was horrible, but it had been inevitable.

Martha left a quick note at the Post to see whether Dean would collect it. He didn't. She left another and another and another. The forlorn pile remained untouched. He meant what he wrote. But it didn't change how she felt. She couldn't think about anyone but Dean. The letters were a lifeline. There had to be a way to reconnect with him – something that would demand his attention.

When she knew what that was, she raced through every art class assignment and took the time to make sketches for her project. She took them home, to work on a painting small enough to fit in an empty ice cream tub. A painting of him that was truer than a photograph: where you could almost curl the locks of hair around your fingers, or be lost looking into his eyes of many blues. Looking back, she would say it was the first painting she put her heart and soul into. She also put in a note to say that it was over with Toph.

When the bus arrived at school, she was the last to get off. At the Post, she dug a hole for the tub, covering it with grass and three identical pebbles that had no reason to be there. She finished with a note in her homework:

The Post has something important.

The pebbles were undisturbed the following day. The day after, they had been scattered, and the tub was gone. The day after that, there was an envelope there. Inside it was a beautiful drawing of her. There was no note, but the picture said it all. She wrote back immediately.