Drawn To You

by Lily Summers

  Twenty minutes later, I’ve finally managed to drag myself up. My room’s a minefield of scattered art supplies and half-finished drawings, so I pick my way over to the dresser on tip-toe and dig through the things crammed inside. I could swear I used to be slightly more organized than this, but I can’t seem to put in the effort these days.

  I settle on an overlarge boyfriend button-down and purple skinny jeans. Exactly what you’d expect your neighborhood book jockey to wear. I’m tying my messy curls into a loose braid when my phone buzzes again. Now that I’m awake, I take my time getting to it. Only a handful of people call me, and I have a hunch as to who it is.

  When I pick it up, I see that I was correct. Part of me doesn’t want to answer.

  I answer anyway. “Hi, Mom.”

  “Hi, honey. We missed you this weekend.”

  Immediately guilt rises in the back of my throat like bile. I close my eyes and swallow it down, forcing lightness that I don’t feel into my voice. “I know, sorry. Things are so intense with work right now because of the indie theater festival. Wish I could have made it.”

  “Don’t worry. We know you would’ve been here if you could.”

  More guilt washes through me. I try not to think about how I spent the weekend holed up in my room sleeping and drawing. I barely peeked my head out to eat. There was no way I could’ve made an hours-long drive to visit my sister’s grave.

  I didn’t deserve to go, anyway.

  “How’s Portland?” Mom asks. She’s not as good at hiding the sadness behind her cheer as I am.

  “Fine. Rainy.”

  “And work?”

  “We just set up a new display for the local playwrights.”

  “That sounds nice.”

  It’s empty small talk. We both know it is, but I don’t know how to make it more, not without opening the floodgates, not without addressing the Iris-sized elephant in the room. I can’t go there. Not yet. Mom’s stopped trying to pull it out of me. But she still calls, and I still answer. I think we need to hear each other’s voice, even if it’s just to exchange pleasantries. There are some things you feel compelled to do when your family becomes smaller, and trying to hold the rest of it together is one of those things.

  We chat about nothing for a little while longer before I make up some excuse.

  “I’ve got to get going. My shift starts in ten minutes and I’m going to be late.”

  It starts in an hour.

  “Okay, sweetheart.” Mom says. “I hope you can make it home next month.”

  “I’ll try.”

  No I won’t.

  “I love you,” Mom says.

  “Love you back.”

  That’s the truth, anyway.

  I hang up and slip my phone into my back pocket before folding my legs and sitting on the floor right where I was standing. I feel grief and self-loathing raging like a storm in the pit of my chest. I feel empty. I pull the closest sketchbook and supplies over and start drawing a ghostly girl sitting prettily atop a tombstone.

  It’s funny—how a person can be overpowered by emotion and completely numb all at once.

  An hour later, I really am late for work, huffing down the street with a travel mug full of Audrey’s latest caffeinated adventure. It scalds my tongue as I pass the tagged painting of the sad woman. I lower the mug and pause to look at it. No matter how late I am, I can’t help stopping to admire the painting. It fills me with warmth and a pleasant kind of longing just to look at it. Every time, I find something new to love. Before yesterday’s shift, I noticed one of the fish has broken teeth. Today, I see that the light in the woman’s eye is shaped like a crescent moon.

  The bell jangles as I push my way through the door and catch Sampson’s “Yo!” from the periodicals section.

  “Sorry, I overslept,” I say as I shrug my anorak off, tossing it behind the front desk. I grab my employee badge and toss the lanyard over my neck. There’s no point in lying to Sampson. He doesn’t have ambition in him to care.

  “‘Sleep, those little slices of death, how I loathe them,’” Sampson replies, not even looking up from his list as he checks inventory.

  “You’re so weird,” I say.

  “No, Edgar Allan Poe was weird. I just quote him.”

  I open a new window on the main computer console and clock in. “If you start hearing hearts beating in the walls, let me know before your inevitable descent into madness, all right?”

  “Sure, Ace.” He finishes his list and stalks across the store to lean across the desk and smirk at me. His sleeves are rolled up today, revealing the pair of half circles with strange symbols tattooed on each of his forearms. I asked about them once and he held them together, waiting for me to understand. As the silence stretched on and it became uncomfortably clear that I still had no clue what it meant, he rolled his eyes so hard I thought he was going to fire me on the spot. He said something about a Starfence or Stargate or something. Needless to say, I didn’t get the reference.

  “You all right?” he asks after a minute.

  “Sure,” I respond automatically. “Why?”

  He whirls a finger near the side of his head where a tuft of red hair sticks out beneath his knit cap. “You got a rat’s nest sticking out right here.”

  “What?” I glance in the shoplifting mirror we have in the corner and see that he’s right. How glamorous. How did I miss the knot sticking out of the side of my head? I even put makeup on this morning and everything.

  “Shit,” I mutter, grabbing my bag to dig around for a hairbrush.

  While I’m preoccupied, Sampson picks up the sketchbook that’s poking out of my bag. The second he touches it, I almost bite clean through the hair tie I’m holding between my teeth.

  “Is this one of the art books we sell?” he asks. “Cool. Mind if I…”

  I snatch it out of his hands, dropping my brush to the floor.

  “Yes,” I say.

  He looks taken aback. “Huh? Yes what?”

  “Yes, I mind.” I realize I must look more than a little off center with my hair standing out all over the place, so I clear my throat and add, “Sorry, it’s just… these are personal. I don’t let anybody see them.” Sampson doesn’t react, so for emphasis I add, “Ever.”

  He blinks. “That’s kind of sad, but I get it. Tortured artist. Right. Customer.”

  Now it’s my turn to say “Huh?”

  He points past me toward the door. “We have a customer.”

  “Oh for…” I stuff my sketchbook back into my bag and duck below the counter to scoop up my brush and finish repairing my hair as best I can. Once I get it tamed into a braid, I stand and find the customer browsing through a nearby section.

  The corner of my mouth ticks up when I realize he’s looking at the poetry. A kindred spirit. Be still my heart.

  He turns so I can see more of his profile, and then I really do have to still my heart, all sarcasm aside. He’s gorgeous. Like, could-be-a-model-drawing-class-model gorgeous. The type of gorgeous that takes my breath away and makes me realize I haven’t noticed an attractive man in a while.

  My fingers itch again.

  I give him a minute or so to peruse in peace before I make my approach. He’s tall. I feel Lilliputian next to him as I clear my throat.

  “Could I help you find something?” I ask. My voice is mercifully steady. Well done, self.

  He notices me for the first time and gives me the instant, easy grin of an extrovert who’s used to being everyone’s best friend right away. I feel instantly intoxicated. There’s an openness to him that pulls me in, stills the endless worry in my brain into calmness. There’s something about him that makes me feel safe. Which is crazy, because I don’t feel safe with anyone. Not even myself. The fact that his eyes are the warmest shade of brown I’ve ever seen doesn’t hurt, either. Neither does the did-I-forget-to-shave-for-five-days-or-is-this-intentional facial hair or the knot of dark hair tied at the nape of his neck.

  He’s as beauti
ful as the woman on the wall outside.

  Oh wow, Mia, pull it together.

  “I’m glad you came over,” he says, and his voice is butter on toast. No, better than that. Peanut butter on toast. Peanut butter and honey on toast.

  I’m not doing this pull-it-together thing so well, am I?

  “I’m looking for slam poets from New York City,” he says. “Do you carry any?”

  “Um. Well. Actually, I think we have a collection around here somewhere.” I crouch down to look at the bottom shelves and I’m grateful for the distance. Hopefully he doesn’t notice my cheeks burning up.

  “Here we go,” I say, standing and handing the book over. “It’s an anthology, but I know several of the poets in that collection are from New York.”

  He flips open the book and looks at the table of contents. I watch him read, the steady smile that spreads across his face as he recognizes the names. I can’t help but notice he smells like leather and rain.

  “This is perfect,” he says, giving me another smile. “You into poetry?”

  “Oh yeah. It’s my favorite.” Wow. Way to sell it, doofus.

  He laughs softly. “I’ll have to come back some time so you can point me to the good stuff.” He holds up the anthology. “I’ll take this one.”

  “Great!” Do I sound too chipper? Way too chipper. Audrey-level chipper. “If you want to head over to the desk, I can ring you up.”

  “Right on.” He steps past me and I take a minute to catch my mysteriously absent breath before I turn to follow.

  That’s when I see the Sonic Youth patch stretched across the back of his jacket.

  3

  It’s him. The street artist.

  I’m momentarily frozen in place, transported back to that misty night when I first saw the woman with water for hair. Then I’m back in the bookshop, the smell of paper and coffee everywhere, and he’s waiting for me by the front desk, his patch taunting me.

  What do you say to someone whose art brushed your soul? “Hey, cool painting” doesn’t seem sufficient.

  He’s turning to stare at me, raising perfect dark eyebrows in question. He ignites the room with his presence alone, his easy smile and ruffled hair. He’s a splash of color in the grayscale around me. And he’s an artist—spreading light and art through this city for everyone to share. God, he’s incredible. And talented. And gorgeous.

  Do something, Mia.

  I’m trying to keep it cool as I ring him up. But the barcode doesn’t scan, beeping at my angrily. With a nervous laugh, I type the ISBN in by hand, glancing at him every now and then and attempting a genuine smile. I hope I don’t look as manic as I’m feeling. My face is frozen in this awkward half-smirk and I’m pretty sure I’ve forgotten how to act like a normal human.

  He pulls out a pair of wrinkled ten dollar bills to pay. His fingers are strong and agile, like a pianist’s, and my mind briefly wanders down the path of wondering how well they work.

  Cool it, brain. Cool it way down.

  He’s still staring at me, a tiny crease forming on his forehead.

  I should say something. You should say something to artists who make you feel again, who break through your barriers of steel and ice to move your spirit underneath. How long had it been since I felt like that? Before his painting, how long had I been numb?

  I hand him his change and he gives me another half smile before he turns to leave.

  Say something.

  “Do you like to paint?” I blurt.

  He goes completely still before turning around to look at me, his expression blank. “What?”

  I swallow. “That was a stupid question. I already know you like to paint.”

  Now his eyebrows are knitting together. “What?” he says again.

  Wow, I am botching this something awful. My brain overcompensates and goes into ramble mode.

  “Sorry, it’s just, I saw you the other night. Outside. By the wall? You were painting. I mean, I thought you were tagging, but you were actually… anyway, I saw you, and it’s beautiful, your painting, like really beautiful. More than beautiful. Looking at her every day makes me smile, which doesn’t sound like a big deal, but it is.”

  Although his brows stay furrowed in confusion, his expression starts to melt. His eyes warm and he runs a hand across his stubble thoughtfully.

  I should shut up.

  I don’t.

  “When someone makes something that moves you, you should tell them so, you know? So I’m telling you that the woman moved me and thank you for painting her.” I reach up and fiddle with my braid. “Yeah. That’s all.”

  He comes closer, his lips twitching with amusement. When he glances behind the counter and sees the anorak I was wearing that night, recognition sparks in his gaze. The hair at the back of my neck tingles pleasantly, and I swallow, hard.

  “Well,” he says, voice carrying. “First of all, I don’t know what you mean, because I don’t illegally paint on walls.”

  I frown at him. “But I saw —”

  He winks and glances to where Sampson is shelving the latest series of Young Adult post-apocalyptic thrillers. I almost laugh at the idea of my clueless and endearing boss picking up on this conversation, but I take his point.

  “Ah,” I say. “Right. No illegal wall painting. My mistake.”

  “But if I did illegally paint on walls, and if I had painted the woman in question, I’d tell you that you had excellent taste.”

  I feel heat rise in my face instantly, which is weird because no one’s made me blush in ages.

  I clear my throat and try to shrug it off. “What can I say? I know good art when I see it.”

  He’s leaning onto the counter on his elbows now, conspiratorially close to me. “I bet you do. Do you only use charcoals, or other mediums too?”

  My look of surprise must be amusing as hell, because he laughs when he sees it. Then he rubs his fingers together and reaches for my hand, gently turning it so my palm is exposed. His touch spreads goosebumps up the entire length of my arm.

  “Your fingers are stained,” he says.

  I look and see he’s right. The tips of my fingers are black from the drawing I did this morning. I sheepishly pull away to rub them against my jeans.

  “Don’t do that,” he laughs, reaching out for my wrist. “Wear your art like a badge of honor.”

  His hand leaves a band of warmth against my skin as he stills me, even after he lets go. I try to douse that feeling, to shake it off.

  I can’t let myself connect like this with anyone. I can’t let myself feel attraction or anticipation or the fluttering-and-exciting-but-slightly-nauseating delight of having a crush. It will only lead to danger.

  But he makes me want to feel those things. To find delight and safety in another person, to embrace that danger and run with it. I stuff my hands into my pockets. This is getting out of hand. I’d better pull the sarcasm card.

  “You’re one to talk,” I tease. “Why would you create such a lovely piece in the dead of night and then walk away?”

  Sarcasm failed. Miserably. You dishonor me, brain.

  Something behind his eyes falters. Disappointment, maybe? Probably annoyance at my inane response. It makes me want to reach out to comfort him, but it—whatever it is—flickers away, and is gone so fast that I don’t get the chance. That’s probably for the best.

  The best sucks.

  “Not that I’m admitting that I paint on walls, which I don’t do,” he starts.

  “Of course not.”

  “—but if I did, I’d probably do it for the thrill. The best art comes out from taking risks. I just take mine more literally than most. Or I would, if…”

  “… if you painted on walls,” I finish for him.

  He nods. “Exactly.” He straightens, runs a hand across his strong jaw line. “You’ve got good taste, Mia. You know where to find the slam poetry, and you’ve got charcoal in your pores.”

  I blink at him. “How’d you know my name?”
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  He points at my employee badge and I feel like a dork.

  “I’m Ezra, by the way.” He holds out his hand. “Ezra Teel. Thanks for asking.”

  Man, that’s a cool name. It suits him, somehow. I accept his handshake and he leaves the skin of my palm warm after we let go. He’s standing so close, and much to my chagrin, my traitorous brain doesn’t want him to leave.

  It wants him to get even closer.

  It kind of wants to kiss his face.

  What?

  A buzz and a chime break me out of my reverie. He checks his phone, sucking in air through his teeth.

  “Shit, I’ve got to go.” He puts his phone away and looks back at me. “Do you party?”

  I laugh. I can’t help it. “Depends on what you mean by ‘party.’ Could be interpreted so many ways.”

  I don’t mention that my idea of “partying” these days is a solo Netflix marathon in my pajamas with a bag of Little Debbie Donuts and a six-pack.

  He grabs one of the pens out of the shop’s jar, along with a bookmark.

  “Hey, those are fifty cents. Don’t get a girl in trouble with her boss,” I joke, but he’s already scribbled something across it. He slides the bookmark across the counter toward me.

  “There’s a warehouse party tonight at this address. You should come. I’ll get you a cocktail with a ridiculous name and we can talk more about wall art and where you got that keen eye.”

  Then he drops two quarters next to the bookmark.

  Before he turns to leave, he says, “Would you mind not talking about that painting and who you do or do not think painted it with anyone else?”

  I smile despite myself and make a my-lips-are-locked gesture at the corner of my mouth.

  “Cool,” he says, giving me another wink and a wave. “See you tonight.”

  Once the bell above the door finishes ringing, I realize I’m still smiling.

  Hours later, I’m making microwave popcorn at home when Audrey comes out of her room and flops dramatically across our clearance-sale couch.