The Attic

Light filters through the skylights of my attic, exposing the specks of dust swirling in the air. A layer of musty air coats the dull wooden walls. An easel with a blank canvas stands in the middle of the room, under the light. 

I dip the brush into the paint and smear it delicately across the canvas. The paint slides under my fingers, colors filling the void. I don’t know what I’m painting yet.

I never do.

From under my hands forms the silhouette of a boy. His arms circle his legs that are tucked in his chest as he stares up at the sky. His eyes are radiant blue. The corners of his red lips turn up and he smiles. He’s thinking about a

girl. 

She’s the love of his life. She makes him fly with the stars. She makes him dance in the clouds. She makes him

smile 

like this.

I paint the floor. He casts no shadow because he’s an angel. I paint the stars. They dot the sky like a million of my beating heart, pumping blood through my yearning body. The knife twists and the blood pours from the sky, raining on the boy as falling stars, but he doesn’t notice. He’s thinking about the girl. The girl who isn’t

me. 

The paint hasn’t dried yet. Streams of paint splatter the ground. Splatter my shoes and clothes. The stench rolls off of me in waves.

The Boy Sitting Under the Stars

I smile. What a clever name, Katie. The smile stretches across my face like a tightened rubber band, pinching my cheeks. My lips, parched and

cracked, 

split and I taste blood. I laugh and the sound breaks through the silent, crushing air in the attic. I try to laugh again, but it comes out as a screech. A tire squeals on the sun-baked road. An eagle shrieks as it soars above our 

miseries. 

Ha ha, ha ha. I reach for the knife. It sits with the paintbrushes, its metal glinting in the searing, afternoon light. The wooden handle feels warm and heavy in my tight grip. Such a

beautiful 

painting. I scream and slice the knife across the canvas. The tarp rips and the boy is

cut 

in half, like I was, his head separated from his body. I bring the knife down, again and again, watching the canvas get

ripped 

apart. Destroyed. Broken.

I bring the ripped painting over my head and slam it to the floor. The frame splinters and I bring my foot down, destroying every wooden piece. Anything that’s left, I crush. A whirlwind of wood ash and dust billows in my attic.

Tears stream down my cheeks. My throat is hoarse from screaming. I kick the mangled painting to the side. It joins a horde of destroyed paintings scattered across the attic floor, and my

broken 

heart. 

When I close my mind, I see him.

He laughs with her, with them, with his friends. His teeth glint in the morning sunlight, his eyes wide with the drunken joy of love. They swim in the ocean and leap out of the water like dolphins, droplets flying from their skin, soaring toward the sun.

Do they know his secrets? What he loves and what he hates? The times he cried and the times he laughed with me? That he writes with lovestruck passion and watches the rain fall from the sky, wondering whether it’s God 

crying?

But watching him laugh, watching him smile with them. I didn’t even know he swam. I swallow, and a knife twists in my hollow heart.

Do I even know him at all?

No. Again.

When I close my mind, I see him.

He lies in his bed, his hands behind his head. His face is a painting, of hollows in his cheeks, brightness in his eyes, waves of hair. He is staring at the ceiling, thinking. Thinking about

me. 

Katie.

I love my name in his mind. He thinks about the times we were together. The times we laughed and cried. The times we would send

love 

letters in emails. Talk about anything, because what mattered was not what we talked about, but that we were together. What mattered was not who we were, but who we were

together. 

Us.

I miss you, he says.

I destroy that painting in my mind. I slice the canvas apart with my knife. I tear the tarp apart with my hands until they’re bruised and sore. I crush the wooden frame under my teeth, tasting blood as it runs down my throat.

But the dust molecules continue to cloud my

heart. 

They choke my nose, my throat, my eyes. And I can no longer breathe.

I miss you, I say. Paint, blood, and tears are waterfalls down my cheeks.

I love you, I say.

I’m sorry.