titles ; styles

02

I could've sworn on my life that the entire world just froze at that exact moment. His deep voice echoed in my head.

"Is that me?"

I straightened out my fingers letting the pencil fall onto the table and squeezed my eyes shut. I slowly rose my head up and opened one of my eyes, followed by the other. I let out a breathy laugh and cracked a smile as he looked down at me, raising an eyebrow.

"Hi," I said, my voice cracking on accident. Dammit.

"Mind if I sit here?" His voice invaded my ears again and restricted words from coming out when I open my mouth to answer. I resorted to just nod my head, and he sat down in the chair right next to me.

Out of all the chairs at this table. Right next to me.

The entire shop seemed to be taken over by an eerie silence as I noticed him sipping his coffee out of the corner of my eye. His lips.

I looked back down to the drawing of the beautiful man who was now right next to me instead of across the room. My pencil added little details to his lips before he reached underneath my arm, pulling my journal over to him. My heartbeat rang in my ears as I watched him carefully stare at my drawing.

"Hand me your pencil," he said, reaching his hand out to me. I noticed the tattoos scattered there as I placed it in his hand. "You forgot the freckle." He added the small mark right between the corner of his lips and his jawbone and I looked up to his face, seeing that there was indeed one there. "Now it's perfect." He smiled. A big, wide, cheesy smile that made my knees shake slightly.

"Thanks," I squeaked out timidly.

"So it is me?" He lowered his head down a little to meet my gaze that was focused somewhere across the room. I nodded and his smile grew wider.

"Well it's beautiful," he paused.

"Like you."

--

"Taylor, let's go! We are going to be late." My mom yelled up at me from downstairs.

There was absolutely no way that we were going to be late. I was not going to be late to going to the Art Institute. Never in a million years.

"I'm coming!" I yelled back. I shoved everything I needed in my bag and ran down the stairs, nearly falling down them as I did so. It wouldn't be the first time though.

Ever since my birthday I loved this place. It was one of my favorite places in the entire world next to the shop. I begged and begged my mom to take me almost every weekend, and I must've gotten annoying because she finally said yes.

I crawled into the passenger seat and my mom pulled out onto the street. "Are you excited?" She asked.

I looked over at her with a faux astonished look. "Am I excited? Am I excited to go to the Art Institute? Do you even know who I am?" She laughed at me before the car fell to a comfortable silence.

I reached into my bag and pulled out my journal, pulling the strings untied and flipping to the page I wanted.

I didn't even ask for your name. I thought to myself, staring down at the drawing of the man from the coffee shop. My finger ran over the small freckle that he drew on himself.

It had been a few days since I had went back to the coffee shop. I don't know if I was too scared to go back because I was scared to see him again (even though he probably hasn't come back since) or if I just didn't want to go.

Who am I kidding? I'm scared out of my mind to see him again.

"Are you ever going to stop staring at that picture? You don't even know who that man is." My mother's voice drew me out of my trance.

Did I know who he was? Probably not. An hour at a coffee shop isn't enough to say you know a person. We barely even talked anyway.

I closed the journal and shoved it back into my bag as we pulled up to the Institute. We got out of the car and happiness mustered up inside me as I walked through the door and saw all of the beautiful masterpieces. All in one place.

"Be free, my child." My mom chuckled and I smiled back at her before walking aimlessly to a part of the building.

I eventually came to my favorite painting hanging in its usual spot on the wall. It was titled The Bedroom here, but I knew that wasn't what Van Gogh intended it to be. I teared up a little looking at the piece because, come on, it's a real Van Gogh. Who wouldn't cry.

I pulled out my phone wanting to take a picture of the masterpiece so I could look at it whenever I wanted. It was just so beautiful. I had focused my camera on the painting and was about to take the picture when someone walked up next to me and a familiar voice said,

"You know, the painting is better if you're not looking at it from behind a screen."