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You found a sketch portrait of someone in between pages of junketed mindless doodles. You run your fingers along the outskirts of the graphite lines, caressing the face of this man. This face, this man hold elegance and beauty in a way you don’t recall anyone else does. You trace the outlines of his long hair, drawn like flown silk.
But who is he?
Your heart pumps off track from their steady rhythm. You don’t recall his name or his voice. You don’t remember the color of his hair or his eyes. You should, you feel like you should, but this portrait found itself astray and lost in your sea of memories. It laid on the page, in silence, in solitude.
You tear the page off.
The excitement of studying abroad and its new experiences does not take away the sickness for home or the underlying dull tone of isolation. It breathes on you whenever you can’t quite catch onto the words or slang used by your classmates. It pats you from behind when you tries to figure out proper documentations for whatever you tried to apply for.
You are not ungrateful for this experience. Your classmates are nice people, and you’ve found friends here, both of same backgrounds and not. You celebrated holidays of this place along with your home’s, and you celebrated both with rewarding style of feasts and drinks.
You receive a post card every holiday, without fail, and on your birthday, from your unmet guardian. Different pictures of your homeland make their ways into your hands, bringing snippets of views you could not see overseas. Never signed with a name, these handwritten blessings find their place in the first drawer of your desk. You hold onto them like a thread to a past tie hanging on the brink of snapping.
You wish it wouldn’t. You wish you knew what to do so it wouldn’t.
Museum dates are common for art students. You don’t escape that impression. There are many that stroll through museums alone, and just as many that go in pairs. Their hand holdings are hard to ignore.
You remember once a upon a time, when you were younger, your mother held your hands as you admired all the framed creations. She framed your creations on the walls of the house too. All the crayon colored art—sun in the corners, funny looking flowers, birds, dogs, family pictures, and more—drawn by the hands of a child that didn’t understand any art theories or rules and could barely color inside the lines.
“Because your art holds no less value than the ones framed in a museum,” she said. “Art is valuable regardless of its fame.”
Someone else walked with you too. Before your mother passed, and even after she did. You watched them paint, and it inspired you to do the same. You turn, only to see a painting of wisteria in your direct line of sight, opposite of where you stand.
There is no one in the space behind you, saved for the others that walked by you in pairs.
You don’t know why disappointment took a place in your heart at this. You came alone, you know this.
Winter time is lonelier for you. The back to back holiday celebration and the commercial marketing tactics targeting couples decorates the streets. The buy two get one half off deals are great for your wallet though.
The days gets darker faster, and stays dark for longer. Most days, you walk into school or your part time job when the sun barely raises, and walk out of them when the sun already set. You find yourself drowsy more often, from the decreasing temperature and the shorter amount of sunlight.
You find yourself dreaming more often too. In them, there is always a raging snowfall. There is nothing but white ahead of your sight, nothing but snow around you. You walk on, aimlessly. A name whispers from your lips. Who did you call out for? You can’t remember, only that a warm hand loosely took yours seconds after you did. You tried to see their face, but the restless snow blurs it all.
You hold on tighter, almost like you are afraid of letting them go. And you are. You are scared to let him go, again.
Again?
The cold of winter couldn’t cool down the burning of tears in your eyes. You don’t know how to make him stay. It seems like he will always slip away like snow at the touch of contact.
Stay, you want to say. Stay, stay stay, you want to ask of him, but as who? How could you ask someone to not leave you, out of the desires of your heart, and not his own? Pity wells in your heart, and so does resentment, for yourself. These words does not make it pass your lips, but it stops you stubbornly in place with unguarded water gates replacing your eyes.
You don’t let go, and he doesn’t notice until the distance between the two of you tugged your hand in his. He halts. You wonder if he could see the your tears in this blustering snow. It would be unfair, you thought, if he could but you couldn’t even make out what he looks like.
He hesitates before he reaches out his thumb and wipes a tear away from your eyes.
“What exactly is it that you want from me?” You asks. You don’t know what it is. He doesn’t answer, doesn’t pull you in closer, and you don’t let go of him.
“Why have I forgotten you?” Questions spill from you. “If you don’t want to see me anymore, why do you keep showing up whenever I wish for you in my dreams?”
Your hold on him tightens. “Did I do something wrong? Is this a punishment?” You feel like a child.
“No,” he refutes. “I’m sorry. I thought this would be a kinder fate for you.”
“But I’m not happy. I’m not happy here, because no one is here, and home is not here,” you tell him.
Something, someone, has always been missing.
“This is not a kind fate for us.”
Weeks passed and you no longer see him in your dreams after that confrontation. You wonder if you should’ve kept your mouth shut. Now it seems that you’ve robbed yourself of the only place to see him.
But that matters less when you have midterms looming over you as the semester comes to an end. You find yourself escaping the prison of books at a local park. You sip the drink in your hand, bought on your way to the park, and stares at the newly formed buds and sprouts on the ground from your bench.
You tell yourself that it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter that you never see him again—it wasn’t like you even remember him besides of his existence in your dream—and it doesn’t matter that midterm is closing in on you because either it dooms you or it doesn’t.
The strands of hair lost due to studying late into the night disagrees with you, and so does the page of his sketch portrait in your hands. It bothers you a little bit, the creasing on the portrait due to folding it to fit better in your hands. You try to smooth it down. Maybe you should’ve kept it safe at home instead of bringing it with you everywhere like a lucky charm.
“I see, is that the cause of your memories of me latching on?” A soft voice asks above you. “You’ve entangled me in so many places that I was unable to completely erase myself from you.”
You raise your head. You call out his name before your memories catch up to you, “Cael.”
“Or perhaps it is me that is unable to.” He places a hand on your head.
The weight is real, he is real, and he is here, in front of you. You just stare and stare, trying to carve him into your mind. You don’t even blink. “Cael…”
The desire to reach out, to hug him, to hold him so you could tie him down to this reality washes over you. Unfortunately, you don’t have a spare hand, and you also don’t want to wet the only portrait you have of him with the condensation from the drink.
“If this is what you have chosen, the future ahead is not easy.” His gaze sets on you tender and helpless.
No, you suppose it wouldn’t be easy if he had gone to this length—erasing himself from your memory and sending you overseas, placing distance between you and him both physically and mentally.
“Let’s go home. I’ll fix you up a warmer drink.” He smiles and lead you up from the bench. “Spring isn’t quite here yet, you should not be stuck buried under all the snow.”
You hand over your drink to him, and his hand replaces that space. Home. Suddenly your quiet and small apartment sounds a lot more like that word.
You’ve taken the choices of future back into your hands; you’ve chosen him, back into your life.