Picking Up The Pieces

The train screeches to a stop as it reaches the station. The distorted images of people in the glass windows soon phase back into reality as the ghostly voice over the PA announces that we have reached the capital.

With haste I squeeze past the double doors, just barely avoiding the waves of flesh and suits. The pristine white tiles were blank, like the canvas of the old atelier where we last spoke. It reminds me of her, never touching people yet so close to them.

It has been seven years since I saw her.

I ascend the gray staircase that lead to the city above. The slippery pavement, the splashing of raindrops in the puddles of rainwater echoed. That last afternoon we spent, echoing in the same sky and the same rain we walked under so long ago. More people, faceless people, umbrellas obscuring or protecting their faces pouring rain. Close, but never touching. She liked the rain.

Just walking in a straight line. I didn’t really know where I was going. Going where ever the street and pavement was leading me. Skyscrapers, office buildings, and streets full of souls peppered the eye of my mind. So much to see, so much being said. Within minutes I stopped in place suddenly, realizing I was lost.

The letter said that she would be at the studio. 0 Gull Avenue. Of course. How could I forget? She was an artist, after all.

But where? Where was the studio?

Funny. That lost feeling. The city was a cold, concrete maze. Comfort, understanding and simple human companionship. Things that I learned that I should not expect, yet should never turn away, from others.

I stop to ask directions from an older man, who lit a cigarette under a building scaffold, taking shelter from the rain.

“Sure. Gull Avenue, is it? You’d better turn around.”

“Why?” I asked.

The old man shrugged and looked at the ground, taking a puff from his cigarette. “You’ve been walking the wrong way the whole time.” He looks towards me again. “Gull Avenue is all the way north.”

I thank the man before I turn around. And so I trudge back the other way, back into the rain. The rhythmic staccato of the drops on the brim of my umbrella were the only sounds I heard.

Never knowing where you are, where she is and what we were looking for. I’ve felt this before.
~~~~
“The problem must be in your pants!”

I am immediately taken aback by Rin’s Sherlock Holmes-esque deduction minutes after I’ve met her.

“So it’s true! There’s something wrong with your tackle, isn’t there?”

“What? No! I have arrhythmithia. A heart condition.”

“Oh. That’s boring. Problem in the pants would’ve been much more scandalous.”
~~~
"The fireworks."

I could barely hear Rin mutter over the din of the fireworks and the awwing students. It was the annual festival that the academy held, some tradition that escaped the grasp of my mind. Perhaps it wasn't important to remember it.

From the corner of my eye I could see the fading green hue of the fireworks reflecting off her pale face and messy auburn hair. Radiant green eyes glowing against the night sky and the glare of the lights. Almost as if they were absorbing the colors and light from the world around her.

"Hmm?"

"The fireworks. I think it's a sad thing."

She leaned back into the mural she painted the week before, craning her neck towards the salvo of fireworks, then at me. Red and blue. More cheering. What was she getting at?

This is something I learned about Rin after spending the whole festival with her. The whole day, just sitting against the wall (well, in her case, against me.) and her mural, looking at the clouds, the sky, the students, the world around us. Never at each other, though, which would mean this was the first time we were looking at each other after she finished the mural.

The strange analogies she uses to explain the world around her, how she needs her roommate to help her with her period (Understandable, since she didn't have arms), and how tired her feet were from painting all week.

But rarely was Rin ever straightforward with what she felt. Serious, yes, but never straightforward.

"Why?"

Another salvo of fireworks. The thunder of the explosion broke our gaze.

"I think it's pretty. The colors. The sound you hear when they spread their arms. The way they spread their arms to everyone. Me. Like they want, can, touch others."

She stretched out her right stump…

Arm. Rin stretched it to the sky, just as the yellow streamers fell to the earth.

As the brightest ray of light hit her, I could see the faint outline of a smile.

"And sometimes, it's like I can touch them too. Feel them. But by the time you hear them and turn around, they're already gone. Like they weren't even there. It's depressing." The tied-sleeve of her shirt fell to the earth like the streamers.

"It's not like they can last forever. Remember the laws of thermodynamics in chemistry this morning? There is always a finite amount of energy. You can't change that."

Idiot. The stupidest thing I could ever say.

But she didn’t mind. Rin shrugged, and began to stare into the sky. There would be no more fireworks that night.

"But you can be sure, they were there." The last of the gold firework dwindled as it reflected in the clouds above.

"How do I know?"

"You remember them, don't you? How they made you feel. You told me how they made you feel, so they must've been there. Something was there."

"I guess."

We sat there, staring in silence into the sky. Time seemed to pass around us as the students bid goodbye to their families. In the distance the student council was busy packing up all the booths and food for the festival. I could hear the class president's loud mouthed interpreter laughing and barking orders to her hapless lemmings.

As I tried to lift myself up on my feet, I notice that my body seemed heavier than it was before. I tried to budge my left shoulder, but found that Rin had fallen asleep on me. My eyes tried their best to avert what felt like an awkward gaze, to respect the sleeping dreamers. But something in Rin, right now, captivated me. The ambition, the drive and the fire that I saw in her had faded, waning into a calm breeze, not much unlike the breeze that ruffled her auburn hair. With every breath she took Rin looked more like the branches of the trees rustling in the wind: blissful, calm. Behind her shut emerald eyes, Rin had found a beautiful peace.

“Do you always watch other people when they sleep?”

Her words jar me out of my trance as I turned away shamefully.

She shrugged casually. “I don’t mind. Really. It’s not like I can watch myself when I’m sleeping. I’d need my eyes open, and I can’t sleep like that, although there is a boy in art club who says he can do that. And plus, I’d need a mirror, and I’m not exactly handy with those things, if you know what I mean.” She waved one of arms in the air as she laid her body on my chest, smiling casually at her morbid joking. “Just stay. Stay for a bit.” And so we did. We lay there, just Rin and I, until the families had all dispersed. The sounds of students walking back to the dormitories, snickering at the sleeping boy and girl who had missed the whole festival at the foot of the mural. It wasn’t until the deafening silence came on my ears that I jarred myself back to reality.

"It's getting late. We should head back to the dorms."

"My feet are tired."

I rose to my feet, and extended my arm towards Rin, but took a second look at Rin's tied sleeves. I quickly realized the stupidity of the gesture, and took my hand back. It was a good thing she had her head down.

"I saw your shadow. I don't care. Actually, you can make it up to me. Carry me up."

Stepping over her I place my hands on the side of her waist, hoisting her up. Soft and light, like a feather. Much lighter than I thought, for I soon found myself lifting her almost above me like a bird in the sky. I would have dropped her in my surprise, if she had not fallen into my chest. As I set her back down she takes a puzzled glance at me before taking off in the direction of the dorms. Disappointment?

I hobble over as quick as I can to walk beside her. Her sandals and my shoes clack against the concrete in synchronization. Again, we stay silent for most of whole walk. Both looking forward, but never at each other.

"Is it selfish to want to feel them again?"

"I don't think so."

Later that week, I saw Rin painting the explosions of the fireworks in the night sky.

~~~~
What was that feeling in the bottom of your heart when everything is all right?
Happiness.

I like it.
~~~~
I glanced up at a familiar gray sky, with the same clouds. No, these were different ones. Rin said something like that before. Their arms were different, even though they’d always be reaching for a cloud.

I must have been walking for what seemed days. Everything turn, every back alley and every building seemed the same. I realized that I was no closer to reaching my destination than I was before. The faces of the people around me started to meld into shades and facelessness. Like brush strokes of watercolor, smudged and unreadable, insignificant and fleeting. People I would never know. I couldn’t be asked to pay attention to them.

Soon I couldn’t hear the voices of the people, the blaring of car horns. The splashing of puddles and falling rain were the only sounds I heard. The only thing important enough to listen to right now. It was almost as if everyone disappeared. All that was left was the world I could see.

A man behind me roared from his car. Something about walking on a green light. I must not have seen it. Or I just didn’t want. He might have been angry at me. Or something else. I couldn’t see that.

How ironic, being alone in a city of dreams and people. No, by myself. Just with other people. And the world I could only see.
~~~
I walked back into the art room, carrying the brushes and supplies from the closet down the hall. It was late afternoon, about the same time art club ended. So who would be in there? Why Teacher Nomiya wanted me to bring these supplies, I had no idea. Why Rin was still in there puzzled me at first.

She was seated sideways at the window sill, looking out at the campus grounds. The cherry blossoms fell, painting the wind with pink and white.

“Hey Rin.”

She didn’t respond. The same expressionless face. Was she upset?

“Nomiya told me to get these supplies before art club ended, but it took me a while to find everything in the closet. It’s a mess in there. Like your hair today.” Maybe a little humor would lighten her up.

“It’s the way it always is. Is it always messy?“ No dice. I guess she didn’t want to talk today.

“Do you know where I can put these? The art room is still a mystery to me.”

Rin averted her gaze from the colors outside, taking a short glance at me then pointing with her foot at the large closets in front of her. She struggled to keep her eyes open, perhaps from staring outside so long. Or she was losing sleep.

“Right.”

I opened the closet, half expecting an avalanche of brushes and paint. It was empty. Must be why Nomiya wanted me to fill it back up. In between my laborious task I steal glances at Rin. Dull green spheres rested where her radiant eyes were before. A longing look, searching for something on the other side of that window.

Just as I place the last paintbrush, Nomiya walks in with the biggest grin I’ve ever seen. The man looked like he was a cartoon character. His legs were disproportionately thin and short compared to the rest of his body. He was a jovial, beer-bellied, bespectacled and bewildering man.

And eccentric. Like a lot of artists. You could tell by his unbuttoned red shirt and tie hanging from the skin of his neck.

He looked around the room, before centering on Rin like a hawk hunting his prey. He threw his hands up in the air jubilantly, wings bared to dive down into the forest.

“Ah, Ms. Tezuka! We have good news!”

Rin turned around to meet the ecstatic man. “We? But you’re the one talking.”

“Good news for both of us!” He turned my way just as I shut the closet. “Ah! Ms. Tezuka’s acquaintance!” Don’t I have a name anymore? I guess it’s not important to him. “Come here so you can hear this as well!”

Rin shook her head. “He has a heart condition, not deafness.” Way to go, Rin.

Nomiya laughed at Rin’s observation, throwing his arms up again and dragging the both of us closer to him. “Then he shall hear! Rin, do you remember the woman in the city that came up to see the mural you painted? Ms. Sae?”
Rin’s head tilted to the side in confusion. “No. I didn’t know I was supposed to remember her.”

“You don’t remember, Rin? The older lady that was a friend of Nomiya?” It wasn’t that she was forgetful, she only remembered things important to her at the time. So why did I need to remember such a detail for her? I guess I just wanted to say something to her.

“No.”

Nomiya‘s voice boomed out of nowhere like a bomb. Rin winced in pain. “Bah, it doesn’t really matter!“ He stood up, straightening the tie on his neck in his pride. “Ms. Sae and I have been talking recently, and she has expressed a lot of interest in your work!”

“Why?”

“That’s not the point, my dear. The point is, she owns an art studio in the city and is offering us -- you -- a chance to be on display in her gallery!”

“I wouldn’t want to be put on display. What if I got cold hanging on a wall?”

“Not you, silly girl! Your paintings, Rin! People can see your paintings! I know you’d want that.”

Rin maintained her distinctive poker face. “But I don-”

“I can see it now! Journalists awwing over your work! Hipsters worshipping your footsteps! Your name in the art history books! And the connections! They’re everything in the art world, you know.”

Nomiya looked like he was brimming, no, growing, with very word he spoke. So much that I barely could see Rin behind him.

To be honest, this was a really big chance for her. To be famous, to be someone. It’s not something that everyone can expect. And certainly nothing to throw away like a penny. She couldn’t be ignoring it, Rin wasn’t stupid. But why wasn’t she saying anything?

“I’ll have to think about it.”

Nomiya deflated like a balloon. “Rin, I understand this is a lot to take in such a short amount of time. But please, understand me, when I say that a chance like this might not, won’t, come again.”

Everything was ready. Rin would paint in the studio rather than go to class. She would make them up in the summer, but she was allowed to dorm here still. The transition from a student to a full-fledged artist as a sophomore was a great one indeed. Her life would be free from the monotony of school life. Nomiya droned on and on about this being her big break, but I stopped paying attention to him. I was transfixed at the green eyes darting everywhere. Rin was terrified. She looked to the ceiling, to the closets, to the blank easel. Then her eyes locked on me. Was she waiting for me to say something?

“I think you should do it, Rin. Not everyone gets a chance like this at having their work be praised. It‘d be a waste of your talent as an artist, after all, if the world never sees it.”

The eyes bulged out of their sockets. Looking back, I think it was disbelief. Or fear. Or sadness. Rin looked back and forth all over the classroom. It was panic.

“But-”

Nomiya laughed again, slapping Rin‘s back so hard she coughed. “Excellent! You see, Rin? Everyone wants to see you succeed. Everyone wants you to be happy! Everyone’s hopes are riding on you! You wouldn’t let them all down, would you?”

“I can‘t be happy unless I do this? That‘s strange.”

“If that helps you make your choice, then sure!” Nomiya looked at his watch. “I need to go Rin, but I’m glad our friend here helped you see the magnitude of this opportunity!”

Nomiya danced out of the art room, humming some foreign country’s national anthem. He reminded me of an ant.

Rin and I just sat in the art room, taking in the last of the afternoon. The cherry blossoms had stopped falling, leaving the wind naked and colorless.

“I think we should go. Housekeeping will be here soon, and I don’t think I want to explain to them why a girl and a boy are in a room that’s supposed to be locked.”

“Okay.”

As I closed the door to the art room, Rin rushed to the stairs. I had to sprint just to close the gap between us. I shouldn’t do that, with my heart condition.

“A penny for your thoughts?”

“That’s too cheap.”

“Maybe you’re just overpricing your thoughts.”

“Perhaps. I don‘t think I could sell my thoughts anyway. I‘m not sure what I‘m thinking about, anyway. That‘d be fraud.”

“You mean theft.”

“Precisely. I have to think about what I think. Does that make sense?” she asked.

“You know, if you do this, you just might get rich. I heard that some paintings sell for thousands of dollars. That’s a lot, even if you account for today’s inflation.”

“But I don’t need money. I can eat and sleep and paint and walk and talk just fine right now.”

“If not the money, then think of the fame. You can be someone, not just another unknown artist.”

“Be someone? I thought I was me.”

I thought about what she said for a bit. “Fine. People will want to know who Rin Tezuka is.”

“Will they?” Damnit. It’s like she’s asking me to predict the future. I said nothing.

By the time we reached the bottom of the stairs, she spoke. “I think I have to change.” We never looked at each other as we walked back. Silent.
~~~
“Come with me,” she asked.

I had just woken Rin up from her slumber after searching the whole school for her. Just before she was asleep on a desk near the windowsill of the art room.

“To where?” I asked, struggling to keep up with her increasing pace. How she managed to walk so fast without tripping amazed me. Her tied-up sleeves trailed behind her like contrails. It was almost like she was gliding on a current of wind. Like she was running away from something.

“Worry Tree,” she said matter-of-factly.

“Worry Tree? Where is it?” I huffed. Maybe following Rin here wasn’t such a good idea. My legs were about to give out.

“It’s just a tree. Like this one.”

We left the school grounds and soon found ourselves on a tree-lined path. By now I had almost caught up with her, though I was always a step behind at her back. Her eyes darted back and forth from treetop to treetop. Eventually we reach the forest, where the paved road ended and a poorly-trodden dirt one began. Deeper into the forest we went, where the light was smothered under the leaves of the trees.

Silently Rin took what seemed to be random twists and turns out of nowhere. They must not have been so random, because I bumped into her as she stopped in front of a lone maple. “This is it.”

“This tree?” I said  as she plopped down sluggishly against the bark of the maple.

“Yes. Some people believe they should come here to wallow in their misery, if you’re miserable. Only by people, I mean me, and this tree doesn’t really have a name.”

Rin was certainly an interesting person. “So when you’re sad, you talk to the trees?”

“No. What? Do you think I’m crazy? Trees can’t talk.”

“I didn’t mean it like that.”

“Or maybe you talk to trees. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to say you were crazy. Even if you talk to trees.”

“Ugh, forget it,” I said, defeated. I took a seat next to her at the worry tree. I gazed up to see the scarlet leaves of the maple swaying in the wind. The light glistened in the canopy of the topmost branches as the scarlet leaves came tumbling through the wind all around us.

“Okay. I’m good at forgetting things,” Rin said blankly. She stared at me with an equally blank face. I hate how I couldn’t read Rin. We sat there in silence, much like we always do, just staring at the trees around us. I was starting to get used to it.

“So, are you miserable then?” I asked.

Rin shifted around in her spot. She wasn’t ignoring me, no, she just didn’t know what to say. Her face contorted confusingly until she finally opened her mouth to speak. I still can’t read her expressions.

“Maybe. I just don’t know what to do. Actually, I don’t know where I should go. Like I’m drowning in a dark place, only out of the water, and I don’t know which way is up,” she said. Rin shrugged her shoulders. “Or if I can even go up. That’s why I wanted to go somewhere. Maybe if I went somewhere, I’d find out where I wanted to go.”

“So it’s Nomiya’s exhibition you’re worried about? Not sure if you want it or not?”

“Yes. No. Maybe. I don’t know if I can do it. I’ve only ever painted for myself,” she said as she turned to me, “I just can’t have my things on display now, not as I am now, no.”

“Teacher said you could do it. He even calls in favors from all around the city just for you to succeed. I believe you could do it,” I reassured her.

“I don’t know. To do what Teacher wants me to do would be hard. To be someone who could do it would be hard. And no one can help me, not even Nomiya, no matter how much he tries. I’d have to change myself.” Rin inched closer and closer until she was again leaning against me like the night of the festival.

“I feel the same way. This whole semester I’ve felt like I’ve had little control over my life. Forced to go to this school, losing my friends, the whole…incident with my condition,” I said as I placed my hand on my heart. “Like I can’t breathe.”

“Is that why you look sad all the time?” she questioned, “I don’t want to look sad all the time like you. Is that how I look to you?”

“I’m not sad. I just don’t know what I should look like or feel sometimes.”

“Me neither. Do I look sad now?”

“Right now, you look like you always do.”

“But right now I’m sinking.”

We leave the conversation at that.

Right now, it feels good to be next to Rin, even if this is all we really share.Sure, she annoyed me at first with her unpredictability. Like dancing on landmines. But now, I’m starting to find that I’m becoming less heavy on my toes too. Almost as if I was flying, too.

With Rin I’ve managed to let go a bit. Though she seems disinterested on a lot of things, something about her makes me try harder. To reach out to her, to talk to her. And to listen to her talk to me. It’s not that I want to impress her, but more the feeling that I can’t let Rin down. But she doesn’t talk a lot to begin with. How could I disappoint her?

I withdraw from the recesses of my mind only to find that Rin had, once again, fallen asleep on me. She was weightless, floating in the beautiful, blissful breeze that failed to stir the sleeping artist from her dreams. Again I find myself looking at her as she peacefully slumbered. Again I was captivated by her auburn hair, flowing carefree in the wind like a leaf, untethered to any physical shackles.

I noticed that my chest was becoming damp. I moved her hair gently and saw the glistening tears dropping from her shut eyes.

“Rin?” She was fast asleep.

And so we remained there.

~~~
By the time I finally reached the studio it was 4:00. The rain had not ceased. The studio was white on the outside, made of marble and finely cut granite. Aside from it’s opulent building blocks it was a humble establishment. No fancy lettering or elaborate decorations. Not even a rug outside the revolving doors.

The lobby of the studio was cold and empty, except for the receptionist typing away at the computer at the polished oak desk in front of the entrance.

“Good afternoon. I am here to see Ms. Rin Tezuka. Do you know where she is?”

The receptionist gave me a puzzled look. A somber one. “I’m sorry, Ms. Tezuka is no-”

“I have an appointment with Ms. Tezuka.”

The receptionist looked away, unsure of what to say. “Ms. Tezuka is in the 1st multi-purpose conference room. You’ll be able to see her, but only until tomorrow.

“That is fine.”

I walked away silent as the corridors and halls of the studio began to unfold before me.

Rin and I did not speak much before, even after that last moment we spent in the rain on the day after her exhibit.

I open the double doors of the massive multipurpose  room. Aside from the pristine marble floor, the room felt empty. The walls were adorned with her paintings.

~~
Rin was never the same after that day in the art room. Sure, it was the spring semester, and she was already working in the atelier in town, so I didn’t get to see her as often.
But something changed. All she would do was paint. I knew it was practically her job now that she was working with Professor Nomiya’s contact, but she seemed like she was trying her best to avoid everyone. Even visiting her seemed like a chore.

But that didn’t stop me from taking the bus every weekend to visit her up in the old atelier. I opened the heavy blue door as quietly as I could and took one step into Rin’s atelier. It was actually just the attic of the studio, which, judging from the peeling paint, had not been used in a long time. Canvas and paint littered the studio in a mess that was too perfect to not have been organized. And there was Rin, sitting on a chair, legs in the air and brush in foot, in front of a half-painted canvas. She was wearing what seemed to be an old pair of overalls, covered in all the colors of the rainbow.

“Hi.”

“Hello,” she said, without turning her back.

Watching her paint now was different, different than that first day I spent with her outside the dormitories painting the mural for the festival. And the paintings themselves were also…different.

I saw a disfigured, armless human attached to another human’s chest and shoulder. It was a woman, screaming. They were facing opposite directions, and just as the womand id not have arms, the man did not have eyes or ears.

Another one of a blue man, bent over and gazing past a chasm where a pink woman was floating.

And something else. Like Rin had grown a hand that throttled my throat every time I was near her. Silencing me, choking me. It was becoming hard to speak to her.

“How’s the painting going?” The same question I would ask every day. After a few seconds, her foot stopped. It took her a while to respond.

“It’s going to be the biggest one yet. But it’s confusing. It’s like I’m trying to vomit a skyscraper I ate and all I have to build it with is dirt and spit. Difficult.”

I shrugged. “I’m sure you can do it. I’ve seen you paint before.”

“This is different,” she said curtly. And she resumed painting, flicking her foot with such dexterity and skill. All without turning back. Soon, countless minutes of awkward silence followed.

“Why are you here?” she asked, emotionlessly.

“You said I could visit you, so I’m taking you up on your offer, and here I am. I thought you would want company, seeing as you spend most of your nights here rather than in the dorms back at-”

“Please, stop. Could you be quiet for fifteen minutes? Maybe ten is good enough. Five, no,” she snapped. And again, that awkward silence fell upon us like a wave. All I could do was stare at Rin’s back. Her delicate frame, the smooth contours of her hips that lay on top of her thin thighs , and the messy auburn hair that draped the back of her neck.

It pissed me off.

This was how every day I spent with her in this atelier was. Me, staring at Rin’s back, both literally and figuratively.  Together but never seeing each other. Rarely did she ever look at me, both literally and figuratively. It was like there was a glass wall between us that nothing could pass through.

What was she thinking? Feeling? I could never understand what lay in the depths of her heart. All she would do was paint, absorbed in the world only she could see. Even now, she remained a mystery to me.

Sometimes Rin was aloof and distant, which annoys me Everything I said seemed to brush off of her, like she was shutting me down before I even started to speak. And at other times, her passion she has for her work and what she holds dear to herself shines through the distant dark and inspires me. Rin has that strength.

She is my friend. And sometimes, more than that. Putting up with those oddities was part of friendship.

And what did she think of me? After what happened last week with the kiss we shared while she was on her codeine-high, I’m still unsure. What if I told her how I felt? What would she do? Nothing. Nothing would affect Rin. But what if?

Now even I’m starting to ponder my own feelings.

“It’s finished,” she said as she turned around to finally look at me. I gazed at an image of a genderless face with black diamonds for eyes. It’s mouth was agape, and I couldn’t tell if it was screaming, shouting for joy, or something else.

“Oh, great, Rin. It’s beautiful,” I gulped, “Actually, I just came to…well,”

“You can’t finish your sentences?”

“It’s not that.”

“Okay,” she said as she walked away. Damnit. What was with this dancing around circles? I knew what I wanted to say.

“I just wanted to talk about some things, like what happened last week.

“Rin. I like you.”

No response. She stared at me, confused.

“I mean, more than just a friend.”

“What do you mean by ‘more’?”

I stood there, flabbergasted and embarrassed. Rin’s expressionless, unaffected stare needled me from all sides.

“You know, romantically and-”

“No. Not now, “ she said dismissively. “ I can’t have this. Not now. Please, don’t talk about that,“ she said as she continued painting, slumping her shoulders and turning around to avoid looking at me. And all I could do was stand there, embarrassed at myself as Rin locked me out of her life again.

There wasn’t much left to stay here for, and my mouth felt like it was glued shut as I tried to open it. Slowly and painfully I made my way to the door. As I touched the doorknob I heard Rin’s voice, almost like a whisper in the echoing atelier.

“Wait. It’s not that I don’t want you to go away. I just don’t know what to feel or say. And then I can’t paint. It‘s confusing, like trying to-”

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” I replied, cutting her off. Listening to her anymore would be the end of my sanity.

Without looking back, I left the artist to her world.
~~
It was the day after the exhibition. After her breakdown.

All at once Rin was bombarded by critics and reporters. How she fell to her knees and sobbed, all while the people around her gasped in horror. It was simply too much for her, and I remembered her running out into the rain, past a puzzled and flustered Nomiya.

How I ran into the rain, chasing her. Telling her that she was missing out on her one chance to be a great artist, and practically dragged her back into the inferno.

I screwed up.

We were walking down the street, away from the studio. I remembered that it was a rainy afternoon. Under my umbrella we walked, our footsteps splashing in the puddles forming before us. Her sandals did not do much to protect her feet from the cold.

I guess it didn’t matter. Her feet were her hands, the instruments with which she created her world. The way she was one with the world around her.

The splashing of our footsteps were uncoordinated, unmatched.

“Why did you have the exhibit?”

She shrugged. I noticed that she was starting to drift away from the umbrella. Always staring at the sky, the rain that fell like heaven’s tears. As if she could touch them with the arms, the hands that she did not have.

She walked faster, creating a gap between us. I struggled to pick up my pace, vainly trying to cover her with my umbrella. It was no use.

It was always like this. Ever since that night we spent watching the fireworks on her mural outside the dormitories. The night I worried and found her, cold and starving in the studio’s atelier, struggling to find inspiration to paint as she stared hopelessly into the night sky.

The way she broke down during the exhibit. How she ran away and yet returned to it. How she told me she didn’t want the exhibit. Even having the exhibit in the first place.

“I wanted to see you before summer started.”

Rin didn’t even look at me. She picked up her pace.

What was she trying to accomplish with the exhibit? Whatever it was, it was clear that she failed. A dream that she thought could come true.

It’s okay to dream. And it’s okay to be disappointed.

But that doesn’t justify pushing others away. You can’t just bend the world, and people, to what you want them to be. That’s not how the world works. It’s selfish.

But Rin was never one for words. I would never stop trying to bridge that gap between us. It was hopeless. Whatever she was looking for, it was something I fooled myself into thinking I could give her.

Suddenly, the rain stopped, sun shining from the parting clouds. As I fumbled to close my umbrella, I failed to listen to the footsteps going away from me.

“I wanted someone to understand me.”

She turned around, staring at me with her green eyes. The green eyes that once burned with passion and determination were gone. There was nothing but sadness.

The raindrops on her emotionless face. They were tears.

“I wanted someone to say ’I understand how you feel’. Then I wouldn’t have to be alone anymore.” She paused, blinking her eyes as fast as she can to get rid of the tears. It was the only way she could. “Wouldn’t that be great?”

I shrugged. “Yes…but why is it so important?” Didn’t she see that I was trying to do exactly that?

She stared at the ground. “Because otherwise, I’m not sure I can do this.”

For once, I was the one left speechless. My heart, my mouth froze with her words.

“When someone laughs, you laugh with them right? Because that’s what you’re supposed to do, a joy doubled is a joy tripled…”

She paused. Her eyes darted left and right, as if the right words would pop out of the alleyways. The sleeves of her shirt, tied at the stumps of her arms, sunk lower from the weight of the water.

“When someone is sad, you comfort them, you hug them becau-”
She purses her lips back and stops, her mouth trembling and struggling to speak. Was she waiting for me?

There was nothing I could say.

Out of nowhere she spoke again. “I don’t know why I can’t laugh or cry when I should. I don’t know what to say to make other people happy. I don't know why I can't feel what everyone else feels. I don’t know why I can’t say the right words. I don’t know why they won’t come out. I feel like I’m going to burst from all the things I want to say and I can’t do anything about it because I can‘t say them.“ Her voice wavered in between the words. It made it harder to understand.

No. “But at the exhibit…everyone wanted to talk to you! Everyone was there for your art.  For you! Why didn‘t y-”

Rin shook her head.

“They were only there for the art. They didn’t want to know me. Who I am. No one does. I can only be Rin. I’m the only one who can be Rin.“ She looked up at me, with those green eyes. Those watery eyes could not belong to the Rin I knew.

“And who would ever want to feel like that?”

She chokes back her tears. “I don’t. I don’t want to feel like that.”

As she said those words the rain poured on us. I didn’t bother opening the umbrella. It wouldn’t stop the tears. We stared at each other. Her expressionless face and my confusion. Frustration.

It was only until I looked away from the sorrow before me that I found my voice.

“Rin, everyone wants to be understood by someone.” Why couldn’t I look at her?

“But that is impossible. No one can understand anyone or be understood by anyone. Not even me. We are all alone.”

I couldn’t face her. I stared at the ground. Her feet, no, her hands, were wringing themselves in her sandals.

“You can only affect others and be affected by them, but in the end we can only see the world and people as we see them. We can’t hope to be understood in the way we want to be.”

The truth was colder than the rain on the back of my neck. But there were no words I could say that could make her feel better.

I looked up to see Rin’s eyes meet mine. She stared at me, without blinking.

“How can you say that?” she demanded.

There was no more intimidation in her voice. I no longer felt fear when she spoke those words behind her emotionless mask.

“How can you say that when you made me believe otherwise?”

I couldn’t find the right words to say. I couldn’t find any words to say.

“I thought that I wouldn’t have to be alone anymore. I thought you could understand me.”

I couldn‘t tell what was rain and what were tears. “Because saying anything else would be lying.”

“Why?”

I could feel the tight grimace cast over me. “Because I am no artist. I can‘t see the world you see or the world you want.”

Rin just stood there. As if it was possible I confused her more than she confuses me.

That was it. This was all I could say to her. When it came to Rin, I always deluded myself into thinking I could bridge that gap between us. But I was wrong. I wasn’t sure if I was talking to her or to myself at this point. I was lost. Yet I had to speak.

“Because to understand you, to see the world only you could see, I would have to be you. And that is something I can’t do, no matter how much you or I want to.” I wished she would stop asking questions.

Her eyes beamed around her. Darting and shifting.  Her mouth trembled, open as her mind looked for the right words.

“But I’m not an artist either. I‘m just Rin.”

Even now, Rin still bewildered me. The literal way she took the world and the words of others. But if there was one thing I was sure about Rin is that she was always serious.

“I just paint to show myself how I feel. How I felt. The Rins I am and were before so I can know that I’m real. It’s the only way I can do that.”

With those few words she said, I understood, if only for a moment.

Her paintings weren’t a reflection of the world she sees, or the world she wants.

They were just reflections of her. Not just who she was, but who she is. Her hopes and her grief. It wasn’t a message from aliens or some prophetic omen from the heavens. It was just Rin.

I was wrong. Rin was not a deep, misunderstood artist searching for an unrealistic ideal, out to play on my emotions and confusions as if I was a muse for the sake of her art. She was a person. A friend. A friend who I failed to be there for.

A girl that I thought I loved, a girl I thought I could love, a girl that wanted to be loved.

A girl I failed to be a friend for. The one looking into my eyes, searching for a friend that wasn’t there.

“If even you say so, then it’s settled. I am leaving.”

Again I was surprised. “What?”

“I am leaving. Teacher recommended me to an art school in the capital. It’s a very prestigious school, I’m su-”

“Hold on. Why didn’t you tell anyone?”

She was puzzled. “I just did. You are the first one I’ve told.”

“Don’t you want to be with us? With everyone?”

“Everyone who? You said we were all alone.” She was twisting my words.

“Won’t you even try?”

“Their lives aren’t mine. I am not everyone. I am not you.“ She tried to wipe the raindrops from her forehead, but it was hard without arms. “You said it yourself. I have my own life to live. I have to be me, so I can understand me.”

I could feel my frustration and anger boiling inside of my heart. She twisted my words. I can’t let this happen.

But I made it happen. Those were my words. And now we stood silent again. Staring at each other. The shadows of our bodies grew longer as time went by, but never meeting. Never touching. We broke our gaze, with both of us staring at the floor. Looking at the same thing but never at each other.

“Do you hate me?”

“No. I am your friend. I promised you that.”

“Can you ever hate me?”

Before I could answer, Rin throws herself across the gap between us. Her damp shirt, soaked and laden in rain, melded against mine. Rin’s body was cold against mine. Like the night I found her starving in the atelier, yet her breath was warm. I struggled as she lifted herself higher like a bird into my chest, resting her chin on my shoulder. Wiping the rain from her forehead, I held her, hugged her, in my arms, holding her as tightly as if I could stop her, stop us from separating. Her short arms rubbed against my shoulders, as if she had hands to say that she wanted the same thing.

She was hugging me.

“No.” It pained me to say that to her. Even though I knew it was all true, it could not change the magnitude of the reality that we faced right now. There was no use wishing that we could go back to that night, under the night sky, leaning on the mural that I now realized was every part of who she is.

Sitting next to that mural must have been the closest I ever was to Rin. The few times we actually touched. How long ago was it? I always seemed to lose track of the time we spent together.

She broke off slowly, creating that gap between us again. She stared at the stumps of her arms. I waited. This was it. Rin found the words she needed to say.

“I can’t hug anyone. Not like you. Not like anyone else. I’m a bad person for that. That’s why I have to go. I will be a real artist. And maybe then I can hug people in my own way.
But then I might not be me anymore.”

And then no one can understand you. Her emotionless mask cracked a faint smile for a faint hope. The only thing she can hold onto as she descends into her uncertain future. A dream, the same dream she wanted to fulfill. To be understood, to understand and to feel.

The rain stopped, yet I could still feel it falling on my cheeks.

“That’s why I want you to forget about me. And I’ll forget about you too.”

She turned around, walking off into the distance. Back to her atelier. Our shadows grew farther apart until she crossed the horizon. I saw the gap that haunted me. But now, I didn’t even try to reach her. I couldn’t. In the end, neither of us could, really. So I stood there, watching the auburn haired woman cross the horizon and into nothingness. The ripples in the puddles from her feet disappeared into the oblivion.

There were no words left for us.

~~

I could never forget. And today was the day I would see her again.

From the distance I could see her. She was alone in the vast room. She didn’t stir when I walked in the room. But somehow, she knew I would come.

I looked around the room. No one else was there. I had a feeling no one else would come.

As I walked through the large room I saw paintings hung on the wall, leaning on it, even placed in the wooden pews lining the aisles. Without a doubt I knew they were Rin’s.

A genderless face, with blank black eyes and a open mouth. I couldn’t tell if it was screaming, crying, talking, or whether it was happy or sad.

A crookedly drawn woman without hands, connected at the shoulder to a man’s right shoulder. The man had no eyes or ears. Both were screaming. The woman’s eyes and ears were humongous. The man’s right arm had two hands, an extra one where the woman’s had would’ve been.

A blue woman in the distance, kneeling and clutching the earth, with a male figure in the foreground, staring into a chasm that somehow looked like a wall as well.

Her paintings haunted me. There was something similar about each and every one of them.

It would seem that she didn’t forget me either.

Every step I took seemed like an eternity. At the end I found myself at the same distance we were at seven years ago before she parted into the horizon. That same gap that would always be between us.

She still had her messy auburn hair. Her expressionless face. That cute nose.

“Hello, Rin.”

She didn’t respond. She didn’t look at me. Rin never was one for words. It didn’t matter. After seven years, just being here would be fine.

“I came like the letter asked. It didn’t bother to me that you didn’t write it. You probably didn’t send it yourself. You made quite a name for yourself, everyone at the college was excited when they heard that you were going to be an artist in the city. I’m happy you finally became a real artist.”

Nothing. She still stared into open space.

“I’m here because I promised you that I was your friend. I never forgot about you, because doing so would mean I would have to stop being your friend.”

Maybe there was a smile on her face. Maybe there wasn’t. I believed that there was.

“Look, I can’t take back the things I said seven years ago. It’ll always be impossible for me. But I can say that I’ve always wanted to fulfill that dream of yours. To understand you. To make sure you never have to be alone. To be the friend you wanted me to be so you wouldn’t have to be sad anymore.”

“And I tried, but I ended up making you push me away. In trying to understand you, I tried to take you away from what you wanted. To be understood.” Did that make sense? Were those the right words?

“Those paintings. You always painted what you felt. But when you took that job, when the teacher told you to make paintings, you couldn’t. You needed to feel something.”

“That’s why you wanted me to stay away. So you would have those feelings that you knew. You wanted to know that you could feel, you wanted to feel so you could paint. And maybe people would see what you wanted to say. When I was with you, you didn’t know what that feeling was. And yet you still needed to paint.”

I turned her into what she did not want to be. I forced her to paint for the sake of art rather than for herself, to feel things that she didn’t want to, all because of that day in the art room.

“But no one else saw that. No one else understood you behind the paintings. All they saw were the brushstrokes. The colors. Any artist could have done that. But no one would know Rin Tezuka. You were afraid of that, too.”

I found the words I should’ve said seven years ago. The words that could have made her stay. To tell her everything would be all right. I didn’t care that she didn’t stir or say anything. Whether she was listening or not, these were words I will never take back.

“I know I didn‘t.”

“You wanted someone to understand you. You wanted to hug others and be hugged in return. You wanted me to understand you. Not as the artist, but as Rin.

And I couldn’t do that. Because I let you go. Because I wanted to change you into someone you didn’t want -- need -- to be.  It was my fault.”

“But I’m here now. And I’m sorry I couldn’t be there for you. I’m sorry I left you alone.”

“You never forgot about me. You never left me. You were always looking at me, even if you weren’t. I hope that made sense.”

I froze, staring at her emotionless face for what seemed hours. Just like the last time we spoke.

“I can’t find the right words. So I’ll hug you. Because now I think I understand.  Like you wanted me to.”

The service must have ended long before I reached her. There was no one around to see us. It wouldn’t have mattered to me. This was the least I could do for her now.

I draped her in my arms again. I must’ve been imagining it, because now she was the one who felt warm against my skin. I searched for her, even though I knew she would never look at me again.

And yet I still gazed into her eyes, searching for the world she saw behind the closed eyes. Not the eyes full of longing and sadness, but the ambitious green eyes that I longed to see again. The Rin who not only hoped for but felt a happiness that we all look for but rarely find. In that regard, she wasn’t alone.

To see her smile again, however small, just once, knowing that she will be all right. But this was enough. This would be all right.

“I have to go Rin. But I’m here now. I’ll visit you whenever I can.”

I left the flowers on her chest before I walked towards the double doors. I stared back at the body of the girl I knew, draped in her white gown and forever silent as the falling snow. At the wordless paintings that told the world she, Rin Tezuka, existed.

And she was real. Everything she felt was real. Everything I felt for her was real. Every second we spent was precious, fleeting like a spark, but it was real. At least that was something I could take comfort in. Somehow, I knew she was still there.