Page 67 of The Breakup Artists

“But”—I study my hands—“what no one knows is that... I still draw in my thoughts.”

“In your thoughts?” She leans forward in her chair like she’s genuinely interested.

I look up. “It’s like this... I’ll be concentrating, trying to figure something out, and just start sketching on the surface in front of me—the sky, the ocean, whatever. I think it’s a way of processing, like having a conversation with myself. But honestly, I hate it.”

“Why would you hate it?” Her voice upticks in surprise.

“Because I gave it up, you know? Because it feels like failure. Because I can’t stop. Even if I close my eyes, the sketch keeps going.”

“That’s not failure,” she says so adamantly that I almost believe her.

“And because...” I say, with a big exhale, “I used to leave sketches for my sister. I’d hide them in her things, like in her journal or under her pillow. And she...” I shake my head. “This probably sounds ridiculous.”

Suddenly Ella reaches across the short distance between our chairs, made smaller by the fact that we’re both leaning forward. Her soft fingers lightly touch my bare knee. “Not even a little,” she says reassuringly.

And so I go on, unsure, but somehow bolstered by her touch. “Des used to celebrate every time she found one. Make a big deal about how much she loved them. Drawing them now, with no one to give them to, just makes me angry.”

She doesn’t say anything for a moment, but she doesn’t take her hand back, either. And I’m not sure what it says about me, but I’m glad she doesn’t. That spark of warmth against my skin feels like an embrace, one I didn’t know I needed. I have the urge to place my fingers over hers and to rub the tips of them on the underside of her silky palm, but I know I shouldn’t, so I just sit there, feeling simultaneously raw from what I shared and anchored by her presence.

She gives me a small smile and pulls her hand back. It’s for the best, I tell myself.

“It’s okay to be angry,” she says. “No one really says that. They say it’s okay to be sad or quiet or worried, but no one wants to deal with anger. It’s too heavy and unpredictable. But how can it be wrong to be mad that someone you love is gone? How can you not blame the world?”

I nod while she speaks the words I’ve so often thought.

Ella pushes back wisps of hair from her forehead. “Remember how I told you I hated astrology after Nonna died? Most nights I used to climb out my bedroom window because I felt like there wasn’t enough air. And I’d lie on my balcony, gasping and crying. I’d have screamed at the stars, if I thought it’d have made a difference.”

A moment of sadness flashes across her face, and I wait for her to go on.

She lifts her hands. “Believe me, I absolutely understand why you’d want to give up your art. I, too, thought that if I could just forget astrology that the whole thing would hurt less. And for a while that worked, until it didn’t. Until I started doodling star constellations in the margins of my notebooks without meaning to and guessing people’s signs in my head. The worst part was when I’d realize what I’d done; it felt like getting hit by a grief truck.”

“I can relate,” I say with weight, agreeing with everything she said, especially the truck part.

Ella twists her ring again before continuing. “And then one night, when I thought I was finally moving on, I felt like there was no air in my room. Again. I went out on my balcony and still, nothing. I thought I was going to suffocate.” She drops her hands in her lap. “I don’t know why, but I started reciting the signs over and over. Saying my grandmother’s chart. Saying my own. And I know this sounds crazy, but I heard her reciting with me.” She hesitates. “I can’t believe I’m telling you this.”

“I’m glad you’re telling me this,” I say, and I mean it beyond just this case.

“Now every time I work on astrology, I hear her telling me to look deeper, or to stop being so judgmental, to trust myself.” She sighs. “So maybe, and I’m not saying I’m right, your sketching is similar, like a love letter to your sister. Maybe it’s not a failure but an opportunity to reconnect with her?”

The wordslove letter to my sisterhit me hard. My heart speeds up and I look away, not wanting her to see how much they affect me.

“I’ve never actually told anyone about the balcony,” she says in a quieter voice.

I look back at her. “And I’ve never told anyone about the drawings.”

“Not even Mia?”

I shake my head. “Like I said, I’m not good at this kind of thing.”

“I always thought I was. But the more we talk about it, I’m not so sure.”

I don’t know why, but this admission gets me and I feel it in my bones, that you can be in your own head every moment of every day, witness to every thought, and yet not know yourself.

“What you said about popularity the other day...” she starts and glances at the pool. “It bothered me.”

“You know I—”

“It bothered me because it’s true,” she says, steamrolling over my objection. “And not just about Justin, about me, too.”