My Kind of Woman

19. The Most Normal Things

Past midnight, in the bottom drawer in my kitchen, I found a pack of cigarettes. I knew my dad was a social smoker, but I hadn't known he kept them in the house.That night (more morning), I was worrying about the gift. I'd made the decision to give it to her, but it didn't ease my anxiety. What I thought would ease it was a cigarette.

I shook one out into my palm and dropped the pack back into the drawer. Where my dad kept his lighters, I hadn't a clue. So, I fished about the kitchen for a bit before I found the gas lighter. It was completely impractical for lighting a little cigarette, but I bit the rolled paper between my teeth and pressed at the trigger a few times until a small orange flame flickered at its end. I inhaled sharply and spluttered for a minute or two. I'd never smoked in my life.

I tried at it for a few minutes, puffing through watery eyes and a hot throat, before flicking it into the sink and running the faucet over my mouth. I wasn't worried about waking my dad, he was completely passed out after his shift. The cigarette did nothing to ease me, but it did make me think of something.

I trailed back through the kitchen and up to my room, taking a plain paper pad from under my bed and my paints and pencils. I'd remembered the time Mio had said she wanted to see something arty of mine. I'd really not thought about it since, being someone who wasn't too keen on showing art projects. But I'd thought something different. I'd have her see herself, but through my hand. Through my eyes and onto paper.

I dragged a stool up to the kitchen counter and laid my pad against the surface, biting my lip in thought. Where and how I'd draw her wasn't much of a question; I'd draw her in the way that I always looked forward to seeing her in. I'd draw her in the way I dreamt about her.

I started with the room; the lamp, the edges of the loveseat, the outline of photo frames on the wall behind where she'd sit. I sketched them roughly, making the lines just faint but thick enough to see where everything would go. I was afraid to start drawing her. It was the thought of ruining her that scared me. I wanted to draw her features large and bright and beautiful, but a small slip-up would distort her face - so, I decided I would show her how I saw her from the bottom of the stairs; features neat, pinched, hair shiny. Starting with her slender feet and the lengths of her legs, one crossed over the other, I went from the base of her to the top - sketching faintly ahead before I went over it. Though I hadn't started painting or poured my paints, I was biting my favourite smooth-ended paintbrush between my teeth. I felt I already was missing the feeling of a cigarette in my mouth - despite it doing nothing but make my throat taste awful. 

Once I got up to draw the shape of her face, my heart started pounding. It was heart-shaped, as I saw it, a shape you could only really define when she tied her hair back and revealed the line of her jaw and the shells of her ears. Her eyebrows were thinner than mine, but always were groomed perfectly, and her thin fringe fell just above them. The more I thought of her, the easier my hand moved. I lined her eyes and her lashes, the shape of her nose then her lips. I made them all neat, I made them all how I saw them. I did her hair quite quickly, having the ends finishing against her shoulders. I thought I was drawing at a steady pace, but glancing over at the clock hung above the stove, I saw I'd been drawing well into the morning. Only by an hour or so, but I had yet to paint and polish and approve of it.

It was December 24th, and in a few hours, I'd be with the woman who was probably thinking about me in her sleep.

The concept of her thinking of me was still unbelievable. I wasn't sure if it was the way I thought of her, whether her stomach fluttered or her heart leapt, but to know I was on her mind satisfied me. But only half of me. Inside me, somewhere deeper than just where my pleasure to know sat, something was unsatisfied. Where would her thinking go? On what or which part of me would it linger? Where was its end?