How To Get The Girl

Chapter Six

☾ S O P H I A ☽

I looked out at the city for a long moment, drinking in the details of how the rising sun hit the City Hall building in the distance, before translating reality onto my sketchbook. It only took me about a month of living in my new apartment before I found the hidden door which led me to the roof, and ever since, I've been coming up here to draw landscapes of the city.

The creak of the door sounded quietly behind me, but I didn't look up to see who caused the crunch of the gravel beneath their feet, because I had a pretty good idea of who it was. Instead, I kept shading the west edge of the building on my sketchbook, smudging the graphite to make the transition smoother. After a moment, I felt someone sit down beside me, and an arm wrapped around my waist loosely.

"Was I that bad last night that you had to escape to the roof instead of waking up next to me?" Brayden joked gruffly, his morning voice in full effect.

I smiled, eyes still focused on the drawing. "You know you were fine, babe. I made it obvious enough that the neighbors had to bang on the walls to get me to shut up."

He chuckles beside me. "That's my girl."

I finally look up at him to catch him looking at me lovingly, his eyes soft and hair messed up from sleep. I lean in and press my lips against his, and smile against them, feeling content in the moment with the sunrise wrapped around us. When I pull away, his eyes flicker down to my drawing, and he studies it for a moment before looking back up at me.

"Why are you up here drawing?" Brayden asks slowly.

I shrug, then look down at my paper, pleased with how the the half finished drawing was coming along. "I like it up here. It's peaceful. And good inspiration, too."

I purposely didn't mention that it relaxes me before I enter the overwhelmingly unexciting world of my actual job.

His eyes linger on the page before looking back up at me, his tone clipped. "You should probably get ready for work instead."

I stared at him, almost inclined to ask why he didn't approve of my habits, but bite my tongue. We had the argument too many times. Brayden saw art as an unnecessary habit; he thought that I was wasting my time when I should be doing something more practical. He didn't understand why I loved doing it, nor did he mind the fact I wasn't pursuing it.

Instead of starting the fight again, I shut my sketchbook and get up, then follow him to the doorway on top of the roof. We head down the steps silently until we get onto my floor, and emerge from the hidden entry at the end of my hall, heading toward my apartment. When we get inside, I toss my sketchbook on the coffee table and head to my room to change for work.

As I'm changing for work, Leslie's words from the other week ring in my head: It was scary to put myself out there as a photographer because my parents always told me that it was unrealistic, but the best things in life are scary and unrealistic. You just have to go for it anyway.

"What time is dinner with your parents tonight, babe?" Brayden calls from the bathroom, the shower still running.

"Seven o'clock," I say back suspiciously. I had heard this tone of voice plenty of times: it usually followed with him bailing on dinner. "You're still coming, right?"

"Yeah, just checking," He says casually.

I slid on my white blouse and then tucked it into my black pencil skirt, skipping heels for flats instead. When I caught my reflection in the mirror, I cringed inwardly. Dressing up like a business woman was possibly my least favorite part of my job. I wasn't the girl who had no wrinkles or kinks in her clothes and wore pantyhose- I was the girl who wore two different colored socks and constantly wore my Converse.