I Amsterdam (Completed)

Chapter 5.3 - Emma

The curtains made the sunlight flicker in my room before flowing into place as I sat backwards onto my bed, trying to make myself forget the boy I've just seen, and tried to recall what happened last night.

When I did, I regretted that I had. The memories of the incident and my past came rushing back, and I clutched my head to try to rid myself of it, but I couldn't. My mother's voice, as sweet as a bird's song. My father's eyes, smooth as warm chocolate. I felt a tear roll down my cheek, and I quickly rubbed it away.

I remembered the boy I saw in the window, the way he stood as if the world couldn't touch him, and I tried to mimic that. I pictured that boy in my mind, my eyes closed, his every particle embedded within me.

My heart slowed. My eyes dried. I drew in a deep breath.

I played with my fingers, clenching and unclenching them while ignoring the sting, a feeling like needles poking at my skin. I watched as they turned white when I made them into a fist, cracking a few scabs and making them bleed once again. I went to the bathroom to rebandage them.

When I came back, I saw my sketchbook by the bedside, and being in need of a distraction, I picked it up, along with my pencil, and went outside into the yard.

Birds took flight into the sky at first sight of me, and I decided doubtlessly that they would be my first sketch subjects. I walked up the splintered steps to my right, which creaked under my weight, to reach a small balcony that grew from the kitchen indoors. On it sat a picnic table and four chairs. A mat laid flat on the table, and I opened my sketchbook on it, flipping to the next blank page.

It was only until I had to pick up my pencil that I realized I would have to sketch with my hurt hand, for I was only dominant with my left hand. I trifled with my pencil, in an effort to familiarize myself with the sting of my movements. I could feel the raw layer of skin rubbing against the bumpy surface of the bandages, but the pain was bearable if I blocked it out of my senses.

Placing my pencil tip to hover above my open sketchbook, I surveyed the yard around me, imagining how I would mirror the scenery on the paper. A railing made of oak slabs to my right provided a rigid surface for where a blackbird clung to for support, its feet wrapping around the wood. Its head was turned and raised for its eye, dark as the night, to stare at me cautiously, its ruffled wings ready to fly if I made any move towards it.

I started with the bird, making short and crisp lines to outline its body in the middle of my page, and then paused to examine.

The blackbird. It looks like a raven.

I debated whether to continue my sketch. Maybe I shouldn't draw the bird.

I placed my pencil back on the paper. No, I can't live my life in fear. Draw the raven and forget its past with you.

It was a big dare, but I took it. My thoughts became immersed in my sketching. I only thought of the shading with colors of gray, lines curved and straight, refusing to see the product until after it was finished, until after I had prepared myself. I don't usually sketch subjects by memory, but I was so sick of being controlled by fears I wanted to see if I faced it, that I would take it, that I could just forgive and forget. And so once I had added it my last marks upon the bird, I placed my pencil down to look.

It's too real.

"A raven." I could hear my mother's words as clear as the sound of metal against metal, ringing in the air.

Without thinking, I tore the raven out of my sketchbook, but before I could even crumple the paper, the wind snatched it and blew into the yard in front of me. My eyes followed it as it fluttered away. At least it's gone.