In Love With A Prisoner

Chapter 18: "We've just blocked off our view of the outside world."

KAT'S P.O.V

"That's it," Justin encourages, guiding my pencil along the paper. "And you're done!"

As I compare our drawings, my smile fades. "Mine looks nothing like yours."

I hold my paper next to Justin's and my enthusiasm drops dramatically at the difference.

"Remember I've been drawing for years. This is your first time. And it's quite good." He smiles.

"But my shading is so uneven to yours," I mumble, my eyes flickering between the two drawings, each of an apple.

"Alright," he says. "Close your eyes."

"Why?"

"Just do it."

Shuffling my feet in hesitation, I do as he says and close my eyes After ten seconds he tells me to open them again.

I open my eyes and look at him, wondering what he did.

He holds my picture in front of me. "You drew this."

I observe my drawing closely, taking in the shapes, detail and shading. Did I really draw that?

A smile creeps its way onto my face as I look proudly at my drawing. "I did."

A rush of excitement floods me and I squeal with joy while clapping my hands together. "Oh my god, I'm an artist!"

Justin chuckles. "You sure are."

"Wait..." I say, quieting down. "Where's yours?"

"Right here." He holds up a piece of paper from behind him but it's showing me the blank side so I can't see his drawing.

"Why are you hiding it?" I ask.

"Because you need to stop comparing yours to mine. We're at totally different levels when it comes to drawing. Yours isn't bad at all. You just thought so because you were looking at mine as well."

"I guess so."

As I stare at my drawing it just makes me want to draw and draw and draw.

"Can we do another one?" I ask with exuberance, grabbing the notepad and flipping pages.

"No, wait!" Justin says, trying to grab the notepad but I hold it out of his reach.

"What?" I laugh, flipping through more pages until a glint of pencil on paper catches my eye.

I stop on the page and the drawing takes my breath away.

"Give it back!" Justin snatches at the notepad in desperation for me not to see the drawing.

I can't help but stare at the girl in the drawing. She's smiling and she looks extremely familiar.

"Justin. Is...Is this me?"

He says nothing but steals the notepad from me, turning it over to cover his drawing.

I sit there, wonderstruck. He managed to draw me perfectly. And it must've been from memory because there's no way he did it while I was in the room.

"Don't go through my notepad," he mumbles, his cheeks a light shade of red. He looks at the wall, like there's something interesting on it.

"Justin...that was amazing," I breathe out.

His eyes stay off mine as he ignores my compliment.

"Can...Can I see it?"

He slowly and unsurely looks at me. I wait for him to answer but he says nothing.