relapse (remington leith)

juniper

juniper (dark green) - evokes the feeling of serenity.
_______________________________________

I woke up and kicked something with my foot. It was hard. My eyelids were still heavy and my lips were dry, I lazily patted the bed space until I felt the cold surface of the object on the skin of my hand.
I placed my hand on it flatly and slid it up the bed sheets, it made a zip noise across the fabric.
It was my sketchbook...
The scraped black cover suddenly felt familiar in my hands. It was placed at the side of the bed I did not sleep on.

Remington.

I must've left it at my moms, and he took it.
I flipped through it, my lyrics and scribbles still there. My hands felt the familiar thick dull pages. I flipped to the page I used last, I drew Remington.
There was a little king crown drawn above his head in grey pencil a small heart beside it.
I wrote "Amy Lee" at the bottom as our running joke, of him being compared to the singer of the most emo band ever, Evanescence. There was a sad face beside it.
My fingers traced the markings on the page, but the page felt thin. The other side had been used.
I flipped it over and my mouth fell.

A drawing of me.
Perfectly captured, like it was copied from a photograph. The pencil marks that were not mine etched onto the page into every detail and flaw of my face.
The shape of my eyes, the placement of freckles under my eyes and across my nose, the detail in my lips and eyelashes and eyebrows.
Perfect.

Not that my being itself was perfect in real life, but the drawing was proportionally accurate in every way.
The grey pencil took in every shadow and highlight of my structure, the only bit in colour that my eyes fell to first, were the emerald - juniper green irises.
The only part in the picture that was coloured, the iris of my eyes.

A small heart drawn in the bottom of the page, with an R beside it. The same shaped heart drawn beside the crown on the page before.
Remington Leith Kropp, you had done it again.
Taken my breath away without even being near me.
The words written underneath my portrait.
"Sempiternal, my highness."

I sent him a text.

"Thank you, my love 👑✏️" - Me 8:37 AM

I noticed that it had said "my" highness, instead of his usual "your" highness, it was small and maybe even accidental but it still made my heart flutter.
I needed to be at work soon, so before anything else, I made myself a tea. That drawing had woken me up quite a bit, but not enough to get me to work.
I braided my hair in a loose French braid, that fell to the middle of my back, the dark strands still messy. I washed up and barely filled in my eyebrows as I drank my tea.

buzz buzz
(3) new messages.

"💚"
"Do you have any Nutella in your house?" "...I'm.. I'm asking for a friend." -Remington 9:04 AM

"Tell your friend it's in my cupboard above my stove :)"
I played along with his joke,
and I put my phone down.

I put on some mascara and covered up my bruises, they were beginning to fade.
I remember writing about it in my sketchbook.
The stages of bruises: from new to old.

pink
red
purple
blue
brown
green
yellow

I was in the blue stage now. None of these are good look, bruises like these would take a while to fade. In my experience, this is what I've learned:
Pink-Red stage occurs on the first day. Day the bruise is received.
Purple-Blue stage occurs the day after and up to 5 days prior.
Brown-Green stage happens after that, and lasts up to 2 days.
Green-Yellow stage, or the final stage can take up to 7 days to fade completely.