Dearest Lottie

Day #208

I was doodling on the pad when he moved closer. I had come in with breakfast, and watched as he ate all of the strawberry dumplings. Once I made sure he ate everything on the plate, I began drawings. I wasn't very good, but I could sketch a rough outline of anything that I put my mind to. 

The scratches of both our pencils had been screaming in the silence of the hours. 

Aaron was staring at me now. His hands were scraping back and forth. His hair was tangled, though it wasn't long enough to fully cover his unblinking eyes. They were actually kind of bloodshot, now that I was paying closer attention.

I smiled. "Hi, Aaron. You're very close."

He nodded once, then kept staring. Again, he nodded. Then, he moved closer.

We were almost hip to hip.

"Do you want to see it?" I asked.

He nodded in a childish way that I couldn't help but smile for. I showed him the outline of a beach sunset with three people laying on a blanket. Only the ocean was shaded, because I wanted to color the people before I did anything else to them.

The left corner of his lips tilted up. I took this as a good sign. "May I see your work?"

He mouthed my work, then blinked a few times. The clipbaord slowly turned my way, and I saw several equaitons sprawled out. While I tried to work out what they meant, he slipped my sketchbook out of my hand and started drawing.

When I found an error, I tapped his shoulder. "You have the old calculations of the sun. It's one point ninety nine times ten to the thirty-third."

"I know."

He seemed so confident about it, so I studied what he had written out again. It clicked.

"Aaron, is this showing that the world is shrinking?"

He raised his eyebrows slightly. They furrowed in the center when he did this. "No, the other planets are growing and changing the gravitational pull on our planet. Earth will probably explode."