At Christmas I always gave her a Care Bear. She loved everything Care Bear. In middle school I began giving her two bears for Christmas and that part became tradition. Sometimes I would give her other things as well. One year along with her standard two bears I included a Care Bear jewelry box with a bracelet I made. She wore the bracelet every day until it broke. I admit I was bummed it no longer hung around her delicate wrist but I was ok with that.

She wore my jackets. She rested her head in my lap. She hung onto me constantly. We swapped notes in between classes. We did couple things but we weren’t a couple. We hadn’t been a couple since middle school. We both had dated other people but I couldn’t give up on her. My feelings for her were so complicated I barely understood them and most of the time I was painfully unaware how under her spell I was. My relationships usually ended because I just couldn’t be present in them. I couldn’t put anyone, even myself, before her.

We were both art kids, but our classes were different periods. Right before Christmas break she showed her end of term project she had been working so hard on. I was excited at first. But then my eyes saw it and I immediately recognized it. I could make out its true form under the paper mache and black paint anyday. It was the jewelry box I had given her. She waited anxiously for my opinion. I bit my tongue and faked amazement. I told her how edgy it looked and how unique it was compared to the other term projects that were scattered around the classroom. I didn’t ask her why she had defaced my gift like this. Truthfully I hated it. It made my heart sink into my stomach, but I smiled anyway. She hugged me tightly and asked to see mine.

Mine was a drawing in black ink that I had been working on relentlessly. I took her hand and pulled her across the room to my table. I drug out my sketch pad and flipped it open to the back. The paper was covered in seemingly random objects, song lyrics, and designs. I bit my lip as she studied it. Everything ran together. It was like a collage, only hand drawn. But everything on the sketch related to us. Our Converse shoes touching like the day we almost kissed. A nail polish bottle because we both painted our nails black. I had drawn some characters from her favorite book. Her favorite card was the ace of spades so it was included. The lyrics to her favorite song were carefully written in cursive and formed the shape of a rose. I had spent hours on this. I waited for her response.

“Wow,” she breathed after a few minutes of total silence. I leaned on the table grinning. “It’s amazing! You worked so hard! You’re definitely going to get into art again next year!”

I froze, staring at her face. She was impressed by it but if she realized the meaning of it I couldn’t read that on her face. “Yeah,” I nodded. “I definitely hope so.” I forced myself to smile back at her as I crossed my arms across my chest. My heart was so low in my stomach I wasn’t sure it would ever climb out of the acid pit.