Leave {z.m.}

One

I stared at the plain, white cracked paint on the wall of the new flat. It was very spacious in here, but I had no need for many belongings. I was just not attached to anything or anyone, except for my sketchbook. 

As I moved in this morning, four hours ago exactly, I entered with one, black duffel bag filled lightly with ordinary clothes, shoes dangling on my left shoulder, and my frayed sketchbook tucked under my right arm.

I honestly did not know why I still held onto this old sketchbook. A person without feelings shouldn't keep something that may express feelings. Oh, the contradiction.

I have had this sketchbook ever since I was born. Literally. My mother, Trisha, had given birth to me on the twelfth of January in nineteen-sixty: fifty-four years ago, although my physical appearance was that of a twenty-one year old. 

On that day, my father, who I had learnt to not care about in the slightest, had missed my birth because he was finally selling one of his paintings. He was an artist as well, though I never wanted to be one.

 I did not wish to be anything like him.

When he arrived at the hospital two hours after my birth to lay eyes upon his new son, he brought a sketchbook with him. The moment he met me, my mother had told me, he took my tiny hand in his palm and brought my hand to the sketchbook. 

"This will be his only escape from the curse," he had told my mother. 

I was taught to always have it with me, and so here I was.

I blinked twice and focused on the present. I could not reminisce on my past. My mother died five years ago and my father had been nowhere to be found. I had accepted that, and of course, I never wanted to find my father.

An ebullient knock on the front door of the flat made me sigh. I moved silently to the door and didn't bother wondering about who it might have been. I only wished for them to leave me to myself.

 "Hello," I greeted in a monotonous voice. 

My indifferent hazel eyes flickered upwards to meet a young girl's brown eyes. She must have been about seventeen or eighteen.

"I'm sorry to bother you. I'm Addie." 

Her right arm extended as she wished to shake my hand. I watched her without speaking, and her arm soon dropped to her side. I sensed that she was suddenly quite timorous. I mentally sighed; sighing was a habit. 

"I'm Zayn." 

She breathed in and out slowly as her eyes wandered over my face and torso.

"My car just broke down and I have no idea where I am. I'm so sorry. I was trying to go back home to Baltimore to see my parents. I go to college here in the UK so I rarely ever see them. I was trying to get to the airport. So anyways-" 

I cut her off, not wanting to hear her entire life's story. "What do you want?"

She bit her lip and twirled her long, dark hair in between her fingers. 

"Could I stay here?" 

Her voice was so quiet that a normal person most-likely wouldn't have been able to hear; I was not normal though.

No, I absolutely did not want a random girl staying in my flat. I couldn't be around others. It never ended well for them. I considered shutting the door in her face. 

"No." 

Her large eyes filled with disappointment and utmost anxiety. I sighed. I will regret this.

"I guess-" 

"Thank you so much. Oh my gosh. You are a life-saver!" 

She didn't know how wrong she was about that. On the ground beside her were what seemed to be her possessions and she picked them up quickly. I backed away inside and stared at her as she entered. She must not have been very intelligent. No person would come into a stranger's house like this.