Fifteen | ✓

four

Catherine turned a fresh page in her sketch pad, her pencil poised above the paper, ready to imprint beautiful swirls and curves of darkness.

I guess that drawing is a proof that even the darkness can be beautiful, she thought just as the lead grazed the paper's off-white surface.

There was a halt in her movements as her hand remained frozen; she did not know what to draw.

Inspiration had been lacking lately, she not being sure whether to pin it on the semi-traumatic effect of witnessing her artwork be obliterated or just the simple distraction of Christopher.

Christopher was a good distraction, she noted as her hand began to move. He'd phoned her the previous night at an absurd hour, and she inquired, jokingly, if he was a vampire whom never slept. He could pull off the look well, with his dark eyes and the imperceivable shade underneath them. The only thing that might have proved otherwise would have been the creamy complexion of his skin, similar to the colour of milked coffee.

Christopher being Christopher laughed and asked the same to her. She confessed to binge watching on Netflix as he owned up to a semi-insomniac state counteracted by the six hour nap he'd taken in the afternoon.

He then went on to propose another meeting between them at the city park.

Catherine being Catherine complied, afterwards answering him when he asked her how she'd been doing.

"And by the way, six hours isn't a nap, it's going to bed," she'd voiced in her famous know-it-all tone, toying with the frilly edges of her duvet.

"Whatever let's you sleep at night, Sketch," he paused. "I wish it let me sleep at night."

"Count sheep."

"I'd rather count on you; see you tomorrow?"

Catherine chuckled. "You cannot be serious right now. That was corny to the max."

The was a noise on the other end of the line that resembled a groan. "You're killing my vibe here, you know that? That was supposed to be the prelude to my dramatic exit."

"Is that so? Well, you're sure to count on me, Christopher; I'll be there." She replied, hanging up the phone call herself.

He'd plagued her mind since then, and even subconsciously, she realized, looking down at the shapes her fingers had created.

Christopher's eyes.

She'd looked at them long enough to be able to semi-memorize the image to heart, its curves and angles almost accurate and exact. But she still couldn't quite capture the mirror-like essence of his eyes, it being almost ethereal.

"What are you up to, Sketch? You're quite early, or am I late? Hmm."

Christopher had seemed to materialize out of nowhere, as usual, with his dark hair flopping across his eyes and his omnipresent happy-go-lucky grin set in place.

She started to close her sketch pad in order to prevent him from seeing what she'd drawn; she didn't want him to think she'd grown obsessed.

Or maybe she had?

One thing Catherine hadn't known about was Christopher's razor sharp vision, another thing being his quick reflexes, supposedly supernatural, as within the time space she'd used to blink, her book was snagged from her hands.

"Whatcha got here, Sketch?" He queried, flipping through pages. His mouth fell slightly agape and his movements slowed, as he came to plant himself in the seat beside her. "These are really good, Sketch. With skills like this, you're sure to be famous any day from now. I might as well ask for an autograph now in advance."

"Flattery will get you nowhere."

"And what if I'm not flattering ?" He winked, and she felt her heart skip a beat. "All these are good, but this particular one catches my eye; literally."

With a glance over his shoulder, she discovered that Christopher had already zeroed in on her most recent piece, the one in which she'd depicted his dark orbs.

She felt her face heat up, and prayed that her tan skin would be able to cover up any traces of blush. "They could be anybody's eyes. There are seven billion pairs of eyes around the whole world; what makes you think I drew yours?" she challenged. 

"Well I never said anything..."

"You insinuated it."

"Yeah but I didn't say anything in particular." Christopher laughed, and she reveled in the sound. "But judging by your guilty defence, it seems my insinuation is correct."

Catherine rolled her eyes. "Well, whatever floats your boat." She willed nervousness not to slip into her tone; willed Christopher not to be uncomfortable or creeped out by her alleged attachment.

It really wasn't her fault; she was wont to get easily attached to people and things, be it an old best friend or tv show, and after plenty lonely nights of longing and crying, it seemed that she had yet to  learn her lesson.

Maybe Christopher was a test. Maybe all the other factors had just been the fire to her metal in a blacksmith's shop, and he was the final beat of a hammer to her anvil to create a finished product.

Or maybe she was thinking too much.

On another train of thought, The anvil and the hammer are proof that beauty can emerge from violence, but not senseless violence that smears the black and red of lost souls across the soiled soil of the earth, but a beautiful kind of violence.

What is beautiful violence, even?

"Are you even listening to me?"

Her head snapped to see Christopher staring back at her with an impatient countenance, and she'd realized he'd been speaking all this while, while she'd tossed around within the undulating torrents of her vast mind.

"I'm sorry," she said coyly, retracting her book from his hands and slipping her pencil back in its place between her fingers.

"Are you going to finish that?"

"What are you talking about?"

"Your drawing; it's not complete, is it?"

She raised her brow. "And what makes you think that?"

"Well, I'm not a levitating pair of disembodied eyeballs," he answered with a hint of cockiness, gesturing towards the rest of his body in emphasis.

"Where are you going with this, Christopher?" She smirked.

"I'd like it if you draw me, or at least the rest of my face. It makes me feel special." He said the last part with such comic playfulness that had caused the ring of laughter which tumbled from her mouth. 

And she did so: filled in his lips along with all their soft creases, his thick eyebrows and his tipped nose, the angles of his face and his curtain of black hair. She filled everything that entailed his portrait while he himself patiently waited, staring blankly as if memorizing the details of her own face to put to mind.

"This is amazing, Sketch," he appraised when she finished.

It hadn't been necessarily amazing in her perspective, with all its mistakes and blunders, but the moment those words left Christopher's lips it somehow became a masterpiece.

"Thank you."

His drawn eyes were still vague; still empty. It seemed like an insult to compare them with those of the boisterous boy that sat beside her, but then she realized that Christopher's eyes were a special pair that carried so much beauty which could not be depicted on a flimsy piece of paper. A kind of beauty that can only be witnessed, not imitated.

And in a final train of thought, I guess vagueness in its own can be beautiful in its essence of surreal emptiness.