Page 2 of I Am the Wild

Please,babe. Give me another chance. We're perfect together. I love you. Isn't that enough?

I squeeze awaythe tears forming in my eyes as I look around for something to anchor me to the present moment. The silver door knob. The Ansel Adams print hanging in the hall. The spider crawling in the corner of the ceiling. I breathe in. Breathe out. In through the nose for two counts, out through the mouth four counts. I am safe. Whole. One with all. I am safe. Whole. One with all.

As my body settles and my mind calms, I continue my breathing until the panic abates.

It's getting easier to recover from these unexpected contacts. I screenshot the exchange, put it in the file I created specifically for this, and block the number. Again.

The gesture is beginning to feel pointless. He just finds a new number. I think he's got a year's worth of burner phones for the sole purpose of harassing me daily. I've already deleted all my social media and gone dark in every way that I can. My phone number is unlisted and I change it every three months. I would move if I could, but I haven't been able to afford it since Adam died. The authorities are fairly useless. Which leaves me on my own to deal with my ex.

So here we are.

I drop the phone into my bag and let myself out of my apartment, which involves unlocking four separate deadbolts I insisted my landlord install for me. I take a few moments to lock up, suck in my breath, and turn to face my future.

* * *

The subwaythis time of night is shockingly less crowded than I would have expected, much to my relief. Rush hour is long past, but still, New York is overcrowded at any time, day or night. Yet our train is only moderately full, mostly of people who look to be heading out for a good time or coming home from one.

I find a seat as far from everyone else as I can, pull out my sketchbook and pencils, and look around for the perfect subject.

I'm about to settle on a beautiful older male couple holding hands and talking quietly with their heads close together when I see him.

My body's response to him is physical, visceral and immediate. It takes me a moment to remember how to breathe. It's as if all the oxygen has been sucked from me, and when it returns I gasp, then cough to cover up the sound.

He hasn't noticed me—the god-like specimen across the train—and I'd like to keep it that way.

Never have I seen someone so perfect, so symmetrical, so angular in all the right ways, so handsome but also devilishly sexy at the same time. I feel a tightening in my gut as I study him, an awakening of something dormant within, something I haven't felt in a very long time. I shove that feeling aside and focus on the art as my fingers work quickly to sketch his form.

He's tall, maybe 6'4" or 6'5", broad shouldered, tapered waist, all wrapped in a suit that looks custom-tailored just for his body. His dark hair is wild, falls past his collar and compliments his forest green eyes, and I have to look away quickly before he catches me staring. A viral energy emanates from him and he fills the train with a kind of magic that belies his expensive suit.

The woman to his left can't take her eyes off of him, and is practically straining to get closer even as the man she's with wraps his arms around her possessively while he shoots dark looks at the stranger. Two college girls give up their seats to stand closer to him. Even the men respond, some with anger and fear, their bodies betraying their desire to get as far away from him as possible.

It's not just his attractiveness or the wealth he oozes with every detail of his bearing and clothing. He doesn't look as if he belongs on a New York subway. In fact, he doesn't look as if he belongs in the beautiful but grungy city of New York at all. He looks like a photoshopped magazine cover come to life, but whether that magazine is GQ or National Geographic is hard to say.

I watch, amazed, as some people on the train scoot away from him even as I'm fighting every instinct in me to move closer, as if he has a force field around him repelling and attracting, pushing and pulling. He's drawing me in without even knowing it. I could be invisible to him, but suddenly he's become the only thing I can focus on.

I work almost mindlessly, letting the art and inspiration flow through me. This has always been my release, my way of connecting to the creative movements of life. I minored in art after my college boyfriend convinced me an art major wouldn't be worth the paper my degree was printed on.

I chose a more practical route and kept my art a side hobby, a passion, a secret obsession at times.

I don't completely regret the choice. It turns out I'm damn good at what I do. Sometimes, I even like it. Though finding joy in anything for the last few years has been hard. Even my art has been more therapy than pleasure.

My fingers are smudged black by the time I complete the portrait. I stare at it for a moment, happy to discover I caught that undefinable energy he has, even while standing still. It's like he's always in motion, almost imperceptible, but it's there. A kind of hunger that drives him. I normally like to put stories to the people I draw on the subway, but he seems to defy my silly storytelling. He's telling his own story with every breath, every movement of his head, every glance at his overpriced watch.

I'm completely lost in my drawing when a baritone voice in a British accent shocks me back to the present.

"That's an incredible likeness."

I look up and into his forest eyes—and I feel suddenly lost in sensations of the wind and earth and tall trees and wilderness. My flash is buzzing like a trapped bee in my gut. I'm flustered, which isn't like me. "Thanks," I manage to mutter, though I can't seem to pull my gaze from his.

"You just drew this? In the last few minutes?" he asks, pushing the reluctant conversation forward as he takes the seat beside me. I move my bag to give him more room, and now our thighs are touching and I suck in air like I'll never have the option again.

I nod in answer to his question, my jaw locked stubbornly in place. Come on, get your shit together. Stop acting like a tongue-tied teenager.

"Yes. It's a hobby of mine while on the subway. To draw people I find interesting in some way." There. A complete sentence. We're making progress.

His lips form a smirky little smile. "And what did you find interesting about me?"

I manage to pull my gaze away from his to glance down at my drawing as I consider his question. Obviously he's smoking hot, but I actually see a lot of sexy men in New York, and yet they generally bore me as subjects for my work. It's not his incredible good looks that drew me in. "You seem juxtaposed against life," I say, as if that makes any sense to anyone but me.

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