Santa Barbara

by Junior Bases

I love to write. In a way that I need it. In a way that tomorrow’s not the same without it because I’m not the same without it.

She loved to draw. In a way that made me jealous. Not of her talent or affinity for the craft, but for the craft itself. I wished I could be that sketchbook, accompanying her to all her science classes, carried on all her beach walks, sitting beside her at all of her 4-p.m. lunches. I wondered what it was like to be alone with her.

I’d thought I was alone with her before, listening to her vulnerabilities, audibly discovering my own. But when I’d walk out of her room toward the sunrise, that sketchbook was still there. What could she tell it that she couldn’t tell me? I never meant to judge, but the book couldn’t judge. Maybe that’s love, I’d thought. I visited her more, tried to replace the book, but never felt alone with her like I used to. I found myself hating how she loved to draw. My visits shortened and shallowed. Soon, she could always be alone with her sketchbook.

***

I love to draw. In a way that I love to breathe. I don’t think about it; I just do it. And without it, I can’t go on.

He loved to write. I appreciated that about him. I used to get bummed out when he’d leave me so early in the morning, needing time alone with his notebook. So I drew my first picture of him. He had his legs crossed, his notebook on his lap, and a pencil in his hand that wasn’t holding the notebook steady.

Angered by my absence in the portrait, I drew the two of us. Somehow, in the sketchbook, there I was, seated, listening to him read one of his stories. And to my giddy surprise, I was smiling. Maybe that’s love, I thought. As he visited me less in person, he stayed with me more in my sketchbook, soon filling the pages of what had been a piece of me for so long.

I needed a new book like I needed a new lung; I was suffocating. I waited for him to come by. He told me he had a new sketchbook that he thought I’d like. I told him at the time that I loved my book and that I’d never replace it. But nevers only lasts so long. Eventually, I got tired of waiting for his return.

I went out and bought a new sketchbook. It was less colorful, but much bigger, more room to breathe. When I got home, I immediately tried to draw him. But all I could draw was my old sketchbook and a dull pencil next to it, my single tear darkening where lead should have remained.

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