Page 2 of Back to Me

“Glad you finally made it,” he says, sarcastically.

“Graham, I’m so sorry. I—"

“You know what?” he asks, cutting me off. “Forget it. It doesn’t matter.”

I take a step toward him. Standing up, he lifts the strap of his duffle bag over his shoulder and finally turns around. His eyes don’t stay on me for long before they dart past me, over my shoulder.

“Of course, it matters,” I say, my voice soft and pleading as tears build behind my eyes. “My boss kept me late, then I got stuck in traffic. You know how bad I-30 can be.”

He sniffs, adjusting the strap of his bag on his shoulder, shoving his free hand into the front pocket of his paint-stained hoodie. “Right. I’ll see you at home.”

Walking past me, he makes his way across the large open field, headed for the entrance.

“Graham, wait. Please. I can’t tell you how sorry I am. You know I wanted to be here.”

He stops, spinning around on his heel. I lean back in surprise as his blue eyes glare at me.

“Exactly, Sara,” he says, raising his voice. “You wanted to be here. You were the one who wanted me to do this in the first place. And you didn’t even fucking show up.” My stomach twists with each of his words, his chest rapidly rising and falling with every breath he takes.

I close my mouth and swallow, tears now streaming down my cheeks.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper.

“Yeah, well.” Sighing, he looks into my eyes. “You’ll be happy to know your little plan worked. A ton of people showed up, and I even got an offer to do an exhibit from a curator at the Dallas Museum of Art.”

My mouth falls open, feeling nothing but happiness for Graham. I always knew he was amazing, he just needed that one person to find him. I clear my throat and say, “Graham, that’s incredible. I’m so happy for you.”

He shrugs. “Yeah, well, you would have known that if you had been here.” Staring at me one final time, he turns back around and begins walking away from me. “I’ll see you at home,” he mumbles.

Defeated, my shoulders slump as I watch Graham continue to walk away from me, the image of his back growing smaller with every passing second.

Wiping the tears from my cheeks, I wait until he disappears around the corner into the dark night before I turn around and look up at the wall. A few feet from where I found Graham packing up his supplies, high up on the wall, I find the piece he had finished creating only moments before. The few people who were left taking pictures with their phones have now gone, and I’m left standing alone.

Wiping the still wet tears from my cheeks, I look up to an image of a teenage boy, wearing a grey hoodie and dark blue jeans, the paint only just now beginning to dry. Staring into this boy’s eyes, I feel my chest cave in, and the oxygen leaves my lungs. The vision of him standing before me, holding out a bouquet of flowers blurs into a wavy mixture of color.

When the tears have dried on my cheeks and I can finally breathe at a steady pace, I leave the graffiti park and turn my back on Graham’s painting.

After staring at his impeccable work, it took several minutes for my breathing to return to normal and the sadness to leave my body. Six years ago, before moving to Dallas had been an option for both Graham and me, I had drawn a similar picture. In my old leather-bound journal, I had sketched a girl holding out a bouquet of flowers. She was much younger than the young man in Graham’s painting, but it was the first completed piece I had ever sketched using a small piece of charcoal.

One day, several weeks later, I had left my journal on the coffee table in the living room I shared with his sister and my best friend, Em. Graham had walked by, spotting the journal and picked it up. My drawing of the little girl was the first page he had turned to and looking up from the page, he had stared into my eyes, asking if I was the one who had drawn it. I was terrified and contemplated denying it because no one had ever seen any of my artwork and compared to Graham’s, mine didn’t hold a candle. But his blue eyes had filled with amazement before he looked back down at the paper as he shook his head.

“Sara, this is amazing. I didn’t even know you could draw like this.”

I shrugged. “It’s nothing, really. I was just playing around.”

He looked back up from the journal and smiled. “It’s beautiful.”

Sometimes, I’ve contemplated when the exact moment it was I had fallen in love with Graham. Now when I think back on it, I think it was then.

But none of it matters anymore because I’ve managed to disappoint him once again. Pushing my love for him aside, I had been a shitty friend tonight. I had abandoned him when he needed me the most.

When I step through the front gates of the graffiti park, I begin the long journey back to my car. My toes burn, and my calves ache with each step, but I ignore it and push through the pain, thinking how I deserve every bit of it.

I’m halfway down Sylvan Avenue when the strange man from earlier runs up beside me, matching his steps with mine.

“We meet again.”

“Please go away. It’s been a very, very bad night, and I just want to go home.”

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