The Life of Esther Jameson

Chapter Six

May 3, 2014

I can't believe I still have empty pages left in this book. It's been a long while since I've written in the diary, but it was because of all the studying Jackson and I have been doing lately. As it turns out, I can retain a lot more information than I thought I could. The information wasn't exactly welcome, since my experience with my dad would forever be locked in my mind, but it was good news for school.

Just a few hours ago, the kids and I were hanging out at the park and they were getting some fresh air. Jackson was at home because apparently Saturday means "sleep until noon" for boys. I was just sitting on a bench while Luke pushed Jenny on the swing set. Everything seemed so peaceful and quiet.

"Luke! Jenny! Ten more minutes!" I called. It was surprisingly quiet at the park this weekend. Usually multitudes upon multitudes of tiny humans would be fighting for a place on the swings, but today there were only a few moms with their young ones playing on the small teeter-totters with seats that were shaped like animals. There was a faint group of clouds strolling in the sky, tranquil and puffy.

I was sitting on a bench close to where my siblings were as I usually did when we came here and sketched nonsensical doodles on the back pages of my diary. I was drawing a boy on his phone, standing a few yards away, but I didn't know who he was. I continued to draw in feathered strokes as his features came into place. After a few minutes, his appearance finally became visible. His facial structure made him look like he could be from a rich Asian family. The way his eyes were set into his sharp features and his carefully styled bleached hair made up the boy's handsome appearance. Who was he? Was it possible for one to be entranced by their own drawing?

I looked up to get another reference but the boy was leaning over me and staring at the drawing. Granted, I was not the best artist the world had ever seen, so it could have been a stick figure. My head was bent more towards the left side of the brain instead of the artistic side.

"What are you drawing?" suddenly boomed a voice close to me. My heart nearly jumped out of my chest as I bolted up from my seat and took a few steps to distance myself from the same stranger I was sketching.

"What are you drawing?" he repeated. His voice was deep, and like the drawing had me, entrancing.

"Nothing that you need to see... sir." I said bluntly.

"I kind of have an obligation ma'am," he replied. "Since what you're drawing is me."

I felt my cheeks heat up and I looked down at the slightly crumpled pages. I exchanged a look between my diary and the boy...man...thing. My heart constricted as I realized that they looked exactly alike. My eyes widened and I closed the book. "It's not that good anyway."

"If you would let me look, I think I would be the better judge of whether you drawing is 'good' or not," he smiled at me like he knew he won the argument.

I rolled my eyes, pretending not to care and opened to the page where my drawing was. Of course, whenever something like this happens, there is always something else to make me more embarrassed. On the page where I drew the boy (or man, whatever), there were math equations where I would try and solve a few because I wouldn't have extra paper to work on when I would study with Jackson.

I noticed that the guy's dark eyes would slightly rest on the math equations before continuing to scan the rest of the page, occasionally glancing at me. He was probably thinking about how wrong I had gotten the answers and how bad the drawing was.

"It's..." he searched for the right word, looking up to the sky like it held all the answers. "Adequate."

"At least you're honest," I muttered.