blackheart ➵ m. clifford

➵ two

➵ michael

Through the summer I spent every day trying to remember her.

I remembered that her hair was so pale it was almost the colour of the paper I smeared paint across with my fingers, and I remembered her red lips that were the colour of roses. I remembered her powder white complexion, tinged crimson from the humidity, and I remembered her big, burnt umber eyes that twinkled like the stars.

I remembered how she clouded the world behind my eyelids.

There was paint all over the cotton streets of my bed cover, and ashes from the burning-out joint that blew onto the sheets when I breathed. Page after page of paper became strewn across the floor, each littered with watercolour paintings that did my princess no justice. My forearm had become my pallet, the paint cracking on my skin as I mixed the colours to match everything I remembered about her. White dots, for the stars in her eyes, and crimson strokes, for her full lips.

I had a paintbrush tucked behind my ear, and another in my hand, my tongue poking between my lips as I added the different tones to the roses in her hair, using my pinkie to smudge and my ring finger to tidy. I never forgot the crown atop her head, not once. Princesses always wore their crowns.

I hadn't seen her again, not even once in three months.

I was bordering on desperation, a need to see her. There was so much I wanted to learn about her. How did she talk? Did she like English, or Maths? Or was she a genius at both? Maybe her grades were slacking, like mine. Did she like to read books? Or play video games? What was her favourite movie? Colour?

Sometimes I thought she was something I imagined when I was high, but she was so real and so beautiful that I refused to believe it. I would spend more time sketching her eyes into the margin of my notebook, than actually making notes. I barely saw my friends anymore, because I was so immersed in recreating her. Seeing her again, even if it was only harsh strokes of paint on pound shop paper.

I dropped my paintbrush into my glass of water, wiping my hands on my already paint-laden skinny jeans. It was her, but it was nothing like her, but it was everything like her. Blonde hair to just below her breasts, bright brown eyes with the stars, and that blessed crown of flowers over her hairline, but there was lines where the paint had dripped down, and smears where I hadn't wiped my hands properly. It made it all the more perfect.

I hung it up with the others, pegged to an old washing line that dipped across my room from one wall to the other. It was the newest edition to my collection, but probably not the last. They were all similar, but they were all different. Some were portraits, some were twisted abstracts, and some were the words and lyrics that reminded me of her. Each one was unique and special.

It was nearing two in the afternoon, the sun peeking through my curtains and streaming down onto my colour-splattered sheets. Optimistically sunny for October. After washing the paint off my arms, I put away the half-empty tubes of watercolours and trotted down the two flights of stairs - my bedroom was a loft conversion - and into the kitchen.

"He rises." My mum joked as I flung the fridge door open, earning a grunt and a sigh from me as I rifled through everything. "Would you do me a favour?"

"Depends what it is." I muttered, popping open a can of Fanta and taking a sip before letting the fridge smack closed and turning towards the woman who housed my foetus for eight and a half months.

"I need to have a painting delivered, but I've got a shift at three and I'm already late. Can you do it? I'll give you a tenner." She put her hands together in front of her and lifted her chin to smile at me, because I was taller than her. "You need to shave."