I Can Feel The Draw

1-Coffee

Marie P.O.V

I guess I should really start at the beginning, which in fact is the end of all normality that remained in my family. On June 18th 1998 I was born into the world, healthy and pure.

I have been told that the day I was born the world was too quiet, an empty echo ran throughout the hospital, I guess from a young age I had the ability to make people question the world. And as I grew I only raised more questions and caused more trouble.

As a child I had an unconventional fear of this one abandoned house in my home town. It had survived both world wars, and maybe the thought of something surviving devastation could scare a child, As I grew more, an unconventional fear developed into an unconventional obsession. I began to visit it daily, sit on the front balcony, and feel the wind in my blonde curls. It was when I did that on my 15th birthday that I first saw him, cerulean eyes and hair the colour of coffee. He stared at me with intent eyes, like he knew me, and he smiled...

That smile...

It began everything that made everything I ever knew collapse. And I cant explain why I did what I did, put I made a gun symbol with my hand an pretended to shoot him. When I did it the boy raised his dark eyebrows and called out, "Eliza!"

That wasn't my name but I locked my eyes with his and a name flashed in my mind, and as he began to approach me, the smell of coffee surrounded me. He stopped a few paces in front of me and pointed to the sketchbook at my side.

"You draw?" He asked softly and I nodded in reply, and I extended the sketchbook towards him, he took it began flicking through the pages. He suddenly stopped and stared at a page.

"You drew me?" He asked turning the book to face me, and there was a sketch of him, well, it looked like him.

"I didn't draw you, its a drawing of a boy I dreamed about one day. If you look closely you can see I drew -"

"You drew freckles.."

"I drew them on that boy, that isn't you!"

I know I shouldn't  have told that stranger boy about my dreams, but in my dreams I always felt alone, misunderstood. How could I begin to explain the images of pin curls, the colour red striking fear into my very soul, and guns. But he listened, with intent interest, but I saw soft tear build in the duct of his eyes, and I realized I had made a mistake. I shook my head and snatched the sketchbook back and he stared at me, and I saw the tears in his eyes grow stronger. I stood up abruptly, and went to walk away, it was my birthday, I wasn't gonna spend it with a crying boy in an abandoned house!

I looked back for a second and all I saw was pain in his eyes, cool and calm but pained.

When I returned home, my mother offered a cup of coffee, I never drank it, instead I painted, I painted all the things I could never understand despite my wisdom.

I didn't see that boy for years, but he would soon come colliding back into my life again, bringing the bitterness of coffee.