Looking for trouble | Vol. 2 | Jamie Bower fanfiction

20 | Perfect and Imperfect

Skye

I have been going at it for hours on end trying to make a complete drawing of Jamie. Each one as imperfect as the next. Each one a picture of him, but not. It had kept droning on in my head, why? Why couldn't I do it? Why couldn't I draw him? I have been sat here for hours on my bed, drawing the same person over and over again for a billion different angels, with gazillion different light directions and thousands of facial expressions. Already many half-finished or finished drawing strew around me on the bed. The blinds closed, shielding me from the burning sun. the only light the lamp on my bedside table, joined by a lit candle.

In a sudden fit of rage I hurl the sketch book across the room and burry my face in my charcoal covered hands, tipping forward on the bed. I hear the book thump against the wall loudly. I lie there in the darkness of my hair. I feel tears press my eyes, but they don't come. 'Now Skye don't go hysterical on me. There is no reason to fuss.' I tell myself.

I sit up again, sucking in a large gulp of air, looking at the drawings around me. I pick each one up and neatly place them down again, putting them all in ranks.

"So what are you trying to tell me..." I mutter staring at the numerous drawing before me. I had started at about 10 in the morning, after having disconnected with Brad. I look over at the clock on my bedside table. 03.00 pm... I've been drawing for 5 hours straight. No food or drink, but I didn't feel anything. I needed the answer more.

I put them all in order, the one where he is smiling in one line, frowning in another, being silly in the next and the last one was him crying, only one drawing, as I had seen him yesterday. I dwell on it for a short while expecting the tears in his eyes to cascade down his cheek. I shake my head. Of course they won't, it's a drawing. Stupid, Skye.

"What are you hiding..?" I mutter at the drawings like an insane person, wanting to know why I can't draw Jamie perfectly. I inspect each row. The first row of him smiling, the one of him frowning, the one where he is silly, the only one of him crying. I notice a particular drawing of him having a helmet on, grinning like the happiest boy in the world. It was a memory from that day where we basically broke into an ice skating ring. A sad smile form on my lips. It feels so long ago.

My eyes wander to the silly row, a drawing of Jamie peeping out of a hoodie type thing, the panther onesie. I notice the ears I almost unconsciously drew at the top of his head. He is clutching it down over his one eye, leaving the other free to stare at out, making a silly Miley Cyrus-y face at me. I suddenly recall where that is from. It was from one of the first times I had ever really enjoyed Jamie's company, the first time we had been all silly drunk together. It was from the party in honour of The Darling Buds record being realised. I smile at the sweet memory.

Another of him picture pop up ,it's one of him frowning his hair dark and wet sticking to the sides of his face. I remember the reason for his frown, I had just beat him in lasertag. Then suddenly I see it. It hit me so suddenly as if lightning had appeared at the black of night.

"Oh my god," I mumble running my hands over the paper. Every drawing was a memory and not enough with that, it showed how I felt in the moment too. That was why I couldn't draw him as I saw him in pictures, a memory interfered each and every time. It is why I could draw Tom no problem, there were no feeling. No history. My feelings didn't interfere with what my eye saw. A sudden memory strikes me and I get up to take the sketch pad lying strewn on the floor. I pick it up and go to the page in mind. The first drawing I have ever drawn of Jamie. The one where I saw him for one second sitting sulking at the back of a pub, it was him. Unclouded-ly him. Perfect him, though seen from afar, with sparse facial features due to the distance. Another memory surfaces.

"Are you comin'?" Jane shouted as she was just about to head out the door, "we'll be late! Maddie's waiting!" We were just about to head out to Maddie's brother's band party.

"Just a second!" I hollered back as I as I put the finishing touches on the drawing in front of me, a full close up of Jamie.

Back in the present I see the exact same sketchbook rested in my hands and I turn the page to find the drawing from my memory. I had I forget I had ever made. This one is exactly the one I have been looking for, it's Jamie. The perfect Jamie from the time where I didn't know him, where my feelings weren't clouded more than a couple of strange meetings. It was how I saw Jamie with my eyes, but not how I saw him with my heart.

I turn to look at the drawings lying in line next to me on my silvery grey bedsheets, then I look back at the 'perfect' one, but suddenly I find it boring. Looking back at the others I suddenly see there never had been anything wrong with my self-proclaimed 'imperfect' drawings of Jamie. The one that was something wrong with is the so called perfect tedious ones, which I had so relentlessly soughed. There is nothing interesting about it. No soul. No heart. So I close the book and put it away.

I turn to the pile of drawing picking up each, searching for the memories behind them, for the spark of light or darkness in the strokes of the pencil. "Perfect imperfection," I mumble at the memories on my bed, happy that I am alone. Soon tears are running down my cheeks and I realise I have loved Jamie all along, all his flaws and weirdness included. All of his mistakes didn't matter. But mine did. I have lost him for good and as I look at each drawing, both sweet, happy and heart breaking memory surfaces in my mind and draws out sobbing or a quite wishful laugher.

When I lie the last one down in a pile on my bed, the one of Jamie crying, the end of our insane stupid arse love story, tears are still trickling down my cheeks, my face feels raw and my eyes are burning with sleepiness. I ball myself up in the in fetal position in the middle of the bed crying myself silently to sleep. My heart sailing in self-pity of love lost.