I've just seen a face

Aside from the gentle scratching of a pencil on heavy paper and a softly muttering voice, the loft was perfectly quiet. Outside, dark clouds obscured the sun. Everything was grey and dismal. Everyone inside the sprawling gothic mansion was subdued.

Well, more subdued than normal. Aimee virtually locked herself in the music room and had been pounding out scales and arpeggios for hours, and Fenrir had disappeared into the basement. With Johannes and Jonna gone on their honeymoon, the house seemed empty and abandoned. There was no one to talk to but the silent wonders, so December spent a good deal of time sketching alone and talking to herself, as she was now.

Curled up cross-legged on a pile of pillows, she had an oversized sketchbook and she was hunched over it, her face screwed up in intense concentration. She wasn’t thinking too hard; she rarely thought at all before she put a pencil to paper. In fact she felt like any sort of planning that went into a piece made it less of a work of art. For December, it was spontaneity that made something truly worthwhile. So for now, as she hunched over it with a wrinkle in her brow that could rival the Grand Canyon, she was just sketching what happened when her pencil touched the paper.

“You are still a whisper on my lips, a feeling in my fingertips,” her voice sang softly, travelling down from the raised loft and cascading over shelves lined with various books. Three days had gone by. Three whole days. Since December had been in Finland she had felt no inspiration whatsoever, no drive to put pencil to paper. Art was foreign to her when she lay in her massive bedroom that didn’t feel like home. Drawing seemed overrated when crying alone to walls that couldn’t hear her, that couldn’t respond to her emotional rollercoaster. But now, three days since her visit to the hospital and she hadn’t been able to stop sketching. Her current sketchpad was already fast filling up with started pieces. A few of them were finished, but many had been started and abandoned in favour of something else.

“Days go by and still I think of…hmm…shadow…shadow…there…needs to be a wrinkle…right there…silk or cotton?” She ran her fingers across the top of the paper, smudging a couple of the lines together.

What was taking shape on the page was rugged and weathered, like old leather in shades of grey. But it was beginning to have form and substance.

“Where is my b4 pencil?!” She turned and rummaged through the accumulating pile of drawing implements that littered the floor around her throne of pillows. Dim light played on the work of art transforming before her eyes.

It was a hand. Large. Wrinkled. Not like an old hand but a hand that had worked the earth, that had lived a life without privilege, without the blessings of wealth and power. And the hand was grasping; fabric was gathered around the tips of the fingers, the shading dramatic and dark to accent those weathered fingers against the smooth, soft fabric of…whatever it was the hand was grasping.

There was a lot of emotion in the image too. There was a possessiveness about the way the fingers were posed. Not aggressive but protective. Not dangerous but comforting. It was a firm, dynamic grasping that implied ownership.

She paused and studied it seriously, the crease in her forehead softening as she looked at the fingers with a sense of pride. She added a tiny bit of shading under the nails; dirt. It made them look real. Whoever’s hand it was, it was beautiful. Strong. Imperfectly perfect in every way.

From somewhere below her she heard footsteps and suddenly stopped, holding her breath as they padded softly across the floor, the sound echoing off the cavernous walls lined with books. The soft step was familiar – probably Aimee. And as December held her breath she realized that the faint sound of piano playing that had filled the halls for most of the day had stopped. Perhaps Aimee had gotten bored with practicing and went to look for her. December sighed; it wasn’t that she didn’t want to talk to Aimee. It was more that she just hadn’t been in the mood to talk to anyone. Not for a while. Not when her thoughts were so jumbled.

Every moment she was on the edge of a breakdown. And she didn’t want to break down right now.

If it was Aimee, she didn’t announce herself but started walking slowly up the staircase to December’s left, softly and precisely. December didn’t move but kept her eyes locked on the top of the staircase, waiting for her friend to appear and break into her perfectly constructed seclusion. And there she was, barefoot and still dressed in her Batdz Maru pyjamas with her hair in a ragged ponytail on the left side of her head. She smiled shyly at December and glanced around, her dark eyes searching for a pillow to sit on. Most of them were currently under her friend, but she found a few that had escaped the roundup and propped them together against the wall, sitting down and leaning her back against them for support. She wrapped her arms around her legs and rested her chin on her knees.

“…yes?” December asked quietly, her voice betraying her obvious discomfort with her best friend’s sudden presence.

Aimee said nothing but held out her hand toward the sketchbook. December passed it to her without hesitation and stretched, her hands reaching far above her head, then coming down to rest on her stomach. She could feel the quickening more and more frequently the closer it got to her due date. It had been real before, but it was more real now then ever. She was pregnant. There were babies inside of her.

A light smile covered her face. It was okay. She loved those babies. That was a fact she couldn’t deny.

“Whose hand is this?” Aimee asked in her quiet voice, glancing up at December. She saw the underscored joy on her friend’s face as she felt the movement in her womb and she giggled.

“I don’t know,” December replied honestly.

“It’s big.”

A simple shrug. “Yeah.”

“A man’s hand?”

December was rubbing small circles over her expanding stomach, soothing the kicking of whichever one was so active right now. Probably Lincoln. Lincoln would grow up to be a feisty, restless spirit. December had already decided as much; Lincoln was the name December had given to the foetus that preferred the left side of her womb and was often the one that kept December up at night.

As if in retort, there was a firm strike (an elbow) that hit the left side of her womb. “Ouch!”

“What?” Aimee peered over the sketchbook with mild concern.

“Lincoln,” December groaned in response, and she removed her hand in favour of rubbing the small of her back instead. Her spine always seemed to hurt these days.

There was a rustling of paper as Aimee flipped through the pages of the sketchbook and her smile increased, her dark eyes scanning through the series of images that were mostly incomplete and yet held one thread of continuity.

Two bodies, a non-descript man and woman, in embrace.

A silhouette; a man seated on a stool.

A half-empty glass.

Two small, stylized foetus shapes.

The beginnings of a face; two eyes obscured by hair. There was no smile in the picture but the eyes were smiling. It was obvious enough given the way they crinkled in the corners, the way the light played off the irises. “Who is this?” Aimee asked, turning the sketchbook so that December could see it. Her artist friend didn’t respond immediately; it was obvious her thoughts were elsewhere, but when her eyes glanced over and saw the picture that Aimee was showing her, recognition glimmered in her eyes and she pulled at one dread that had fallen over her sloping shoulder.

“What?”

“Who is this?” Aimee repeated, pointing to the eyes.

“No one.”

The answer was too fast. It rolled off December’s tongue with so much ease that it was pretty clear she was avoiding something.

Not that Aimee had asked out of an honest curiosity. The eyes looked familiar to her. And the smile that she placed into the portrait that wasn’t there was also pleasantly familiar. She assumed perhaps that this person was the same one featured in the other pictures. The silhouette. The man in embrace. The hand. “Is it that guy from the party?”

December was looking around the loft but at Aimee’s question she glanced back at her friend in surprise. “What guy?”

Silence met her ears. Aimee was smiling knowingly.

“Aimee. There were loads of people there.”

There was a brief pause before Aimee answered, “The guy who was flirting with you.”

It didn’t take her any time to reply. “He wasn’t flirting with me,” she replied defensively, though as soon as the response left her mouth she rolled her eyes. Basically she’d revealed that she knew exactly who Aimee was talking about, which made Aimee’s second statement all the more legitimate. “Okay, yes. It is that guy, and his name is Jukka.”

Giggles filled the space.

“What?”

Dark almond eyes peered across the room at her friend, then back down to the sketchpad that sat on her knees. She was still smiling brightly as she took in the image once more. It was very good. Recognizable. She didn’t talk to him that much but he was certainly memorable, given the way he was dressed and the explosive way his laugher punctuated nearly every moment he was in the room. And December had certainly caught his eye. Aimee had picked up on it sooner than anyone else seemed to. He’d made a pretty concerted effort to get as much of December’s attention as possible, and (at least toward the end of the party) had been relatively successful.

December needed that.

“I can tell,” Aimee said finally, turning it again so the picture was facing December. She gestured to the eyes. “He’s laughing.”

“How could you possibly know that? There isn’t even a mouth on there.”

Aimee pushed the sketchbook across the floor toward December and the pregnant female picked it up quickly, flopping it with excess force on her lap. “I can fill it in,” she said finally in her soft voice. “It fits.”

“That’s silly,” December answered flippantly, trying to act like Aimee hadn’t cornered her with the truth.

Another light giggle bounced through the loft and Aimee stretched her legs out in front of her, wiggling her exposed toes at her friend playfully. “Why are you embarrassed?” she continued quietly, turning her toes in and out, watching her feet go from pigeon-toed to second position with interest.

There was a moment’s silence while December studied the beginnings of the portrait, taking in the laughing eyes, the light hair that covered them gently, and she too could see the rest of the features, hiding just beneath the white paper. The smile was there; there was no ignoring its presence even though it wasn’t drawn, and filling in the rest of the features – the nose, the ears, the chin, the throat – was easier then she was willing to admit.

When she started this picture three days ago, the evening after she got back from downtown Helsinki, she had wanted to finish it. But she abandoned it when she realized what exactly it was.

It was a man. Men had hurt her. Men would hurt her again.

“I’m not embarrassed,” she answered finally, her eyes not leaving the sketch. It really was quite good. Maybe she should try to finish it. It was, after all, just a picture. It didn’t have to mean anything.

“Are you scared?” Aimee asked gently. There was no accusation in her voice, only understanding. She knew December as well as December knew herself. Perhaps more so, because she could watch her friend from the outside and witness the external that December never saw.

And she was right. December glanced up at her, surprise evident in her face, and her sadness was painfully clear. She was scared. Nathan had left her so wary of others that she didn’t feel like she could trust anyone that expressed a serious interest in her. Nathan had been charming too. Nathan appeared to care. But Nathan was too selfish to slip one on in the bedroom. Nathan was too proud to admit the twins were his.

“I don’t want Nathan to happen again,” she choked out softly. She couldn’t look at the picture anymore and set it face-down on the floor.

Only a second passed between December’s pain-filled words and Aimee fluttering to her side, placing a sympathetic hand in the middle of her back and rubbing gently. “He won’t.”

“But he seemed like a nice guy when I first met him!” December continued in her low, tear-lined voice. And it was true; Nathan had a suave charm about him that could entice the sweetest woman, encourage the pants off the most devout virgin. Even Aimee had fallen victim to his performance, trusting him as a friend and confidant. But the warning signs had always been there. He was possessive, jealous. He uttered the smallest jokes that always had that biting deprecation about them that would, after a period of time, stab their way into December’s memory and mar her self-perception. Even his flirtation had an edge to it. Now that December knew it existed, could look back on the memories and recognize the signs, she could avoid it. She didn’t have to fall into bed with another Nathan. She wouldn’t.

“Not all men are Nathan,” Aimee replied in a voice that was barely above a whisper.

“No. The ones that aren’t are Fenrir. And Johannes,” December spoke bitterly, wiping at her face to eliminate any indication of the tears that were just beneath the surface, waiting to slip out the corners of her eyes. They would come later. When she could hide alone in her room once more and remember that she was in a house filled with love, and aside from her pregnant belly, she was alone.

Aimee sat back on her heels and glanced at December’s face, saying nothing, though her expression was an accusation. It said “that’s not fair and you know it”. And December did know it. But it wasn’t just Nathan. It was Nathan and Rod and Fred and Aaron. It was everyone who found their way into her arms. She attracted that sort of person. Why would that change now?

“Do you like him?” Aimee asked.

That did it. The tears she’d been suppressing slipped out and travelled down her cheeks, slipping down her neck and causing a low tremor to course through her. She did like him. She liked him a lot. But she didn’t want to. If he was just like all the men of her past, she couldn’t bear to fall for him and have her heart broken like every other time.

And somewhere hidden away in a tiny corner of her heart was the belief that, if he wasn’t like them, if he truly was a good man, then she didn’t really deserve him anyway.

She erupted and had to cover her face, a lame attempt at hiding her emotional outburst, but Aimee was unmoved and pulled her friend closer, her arm slipping around her heaving shoulders and rubbing her arm soothingly. The tears were answer enough that December did like the man. But, given her current state – pregnant and alone – she didn’t want to be.

“December,” Aimee spoke softly, her right arm still draped over her friend’s shoulders while her left pulled back her dreads to cast them over her shoulders and down her back so that Aimee could see what little of her face was not covered by her hands. “It’s okay.”

December said nothing but shook her head vigorously, dislodging the dreads Aimee had so carefully pushed behind her.

“December…you only just met him.”

“I saw him when I went to the hospital,” December answered, dropping her hands and turning to look at her friend. Her cheeks were red, her face moist from where the tears had pooled under her fingertips. It was obvious that she was as happy as she was horrified about the chance encounter. “I was lost,” she continued in a voice that was breaking. “He helped me.”

“He sounds really nice,” Aimee replied.

“He didn’t even know I was pregnant!” December continued, wiping her eyes surreptitiously. “He had no idea. And then I fell and he must have felt it because he…I guess he asked about it.”

Aimee’s eyes hadn’t left December’s face, nor had her right hand stopped gently rubbing circles in her arm, her left pulling dreads back again and again. “Was he upset?”

The silence lasted forever. December’s eyes stared at the floor as she sniffled, tears spilling out without stopping. Based on the silence Aimee’s first guess would have been yes, but then December shook her head, a firm indication of no. So he wasn’t upset. Yet clearly December was. Then slowly, her eyes unable to look up at her friend’s curious expression, December spilled to her friend the chance encounter that had happened days ago. Up until now she had kept it to herself. There was no reason to talk about it because she still needed to process it. But now she needed to share all of it; what had happened, how she’d felt, what he said, what she said. When she finished, her tears had faded and she was more in control of her faculties. Strangely Aimee was smiling softly at her, not betraying her thoughts.

The lull in December’s story allowed her dark, tear lined eyes to venture up. Resting on Aimee and her soft, kind smile, she fought returning it, though there was a tugging at the edges of her mouth. “What?” she asked quietly, both her body and her spirit fatigued from her mood swings. She touched her stomach out of habit, and rubbed at the left side. Inside her, a tiny influx of movement responded to the familiar touch.

“He likes you,” Aimee answered, her voice light but happy.

December sighed. “I know.”

Aimee gave December’s shoulders a little squeeze, then pulled away, sitting back on her heels again. “He sounds like he really wants to get to know you.”

Again, December responded, “I know.”

The pink girl giggled softly, though it was not quite so loud and amused as usual. It was a quiet, understanding giggle that hinted at the struggle December was faced with. When her giggle subsided, she touched December’s knee briefly with her fingertips. “You like him too.”

December didn’t answer this time but lowered her face. Her dreads fell about her and hid her from her friend’s prying eyes.

“It’s good.” Her voice was gentle and compassionate, and her smile didn’t diminish.

But December was unconvinced. She used her hair as a shield for quite some time before finally allowing an answer. “Is it?”

Another bright giggle. “Yes!”

Dark eyes peeked from behind thick dreads to glance at her smiling friend who was overjoyed by the prospect of December’s impending happiness. Even if nothing came of it, nothing more than a friendship, it was still someone that December could connect with. She didn’t have to be the mopey, single girl who lived with happily coupled people.

“He doesn’t even speak English.”

Aimee’s smile spread wider and she poked December playfully in the ribs. “Then you need to learn Finnish.”

Her statement did the trick and December smiled, finally lifting her head up such that her dreads fell back and exposed her face. “Yeah.”

Slender fingers patted her shoulder gently. She didn’t need to say anymore because there was nothing more to be said. But she was glad. December needed happiness. She needed a friend, a companion, someone who could be there for her when her loneliness took hold.

Part of her thought that maybe, possibly, they both needed that. Even though she didn’t know the man, there was something about him that said needed someone like December as much as December needed someone like him.

Aimee was December’s best friend and she would always be there for her, but she could understand how it was a struggle for her. December needed someone who was outside of the relationship web she was trapped in.

Only time would tell just where it would lead them.