Don’t be coy, you idiot. Just say it.
“My God, she’s even more beautiful in person.”
Yes. That’s it. Next panel, back to her. Play it back in your head. Every word.
“What’s the deal with that? Because something happened to you when you were a little kid?”
Now what? What do I say to that? I drew myself looking away from her, thinking “Yes.”
Her again. “It’s all an act, isn’t it? I can see right through you. Because believe me, you want to talk about things happening to you when you’re a kid? We could exchange a few stories someday.”
A view of me from behind, her face visible over my shoulder, which I’ll have to come back and make just right. Another thought bubble over my head. “If only she knew how much we have in common…”
Then a shot of her walking away, me watching her. Then me putting the shovel back into the dirt. The last panel on this page, the last thought bubble. I worked it over in my head for a while. Then I gathered my nerve and wrote down the words.
“If she asked me to, I would dig this hole to the center of the earth.”
God, that’s ridiculous. So yeah, write that down, too. Recognize how ridiculous that sounds. Another thought bubble, to the right of the first, and slightly lower. “God, that’s ridiculous. But I think it’s true.”
Okay, I thought. Okay. At least you’re talking to her now. This might actually do something.
I worked for a couple more hours, filling in all of the details in the drawings. Getting the faces just right. The texture of the dirt. Some background here and there, never so much that it would be distracting. When it was done, I put it in another big envelope. Then I set my alarm for two in the morning.
I tried to sleep. When the alarm rang I was out of my bed in seconds. I put my clothes on, slipped out of the house, and got in the car. The trip I was already making every day, and now apparently even that wasn’t enough. There was a police car on Amelia’s street as I made the turn. I held my breath, kept driving, and didn’t look sideways. The police car passed right by me. I went to the end of the street, turned around, and came back. I parked far from her house again. Got out and walked in the darkness, once again trying to act like I belonged there.
I ducked behind the house, got the tools out, and opened the lock again. Tonight it felt as easy and natural as using a key.
When I was in the kitchen, I stood there for a long time listening again. Feeling my heart beat faster, that same feeling, now so familiar. You could get addicted to this, I told myself. Just this part right here.
I went up the steps, paused at her door, waited for another minute, listening. This time, when I finally turned the doorknob, it wasn’t locked. That got me a little worried for a moment. I couldn’t help wondering if she was waiting for me on the other side of the door. Ready to turn the lights on, maybe. Ready to scream her head off.
No. I could see that she was sleeping as I pushed her door open. I stepped into the room, placed the envelope on her dresser. I froze when I heard a sound outside the door. I waited. Amelia rolled over, kept sleeping. I listened to her breathing.
I got that funny feeling again, at the thought of someone breaking into the house and standing there in her bedroom, watching her sleep. I mean, it’s not like I didn’t know it was wrong for me to be there, but somehow it was like that idea didn’t really apply to me, because I knew I was there for the “right” reasons, and that I’d never do anything to hurt her. I was more upset that it was so easy to do, and that anyone who really wanted to could follow in my footsteps tomorrow night and be standing here instead.
Nobody is safe. Ever. Anywhere.
I slipped out the door, down the hallway, down the stairs, through the back door, and into the night. Back to the car, got in and drove, all the way home. I tried to sleep for a while. It didn’t happen.
The morning came. I was so tired. I didn’t even want to look at myself in the mirror. I took a shower and put clean clothes on, wondering what her reaction would be to my comic strip. Today it felt like the biggest mistake ever committed in recorded history.
“If she asked me to, I would dig this hole to the center of the earth.” I actually wrote those exact words down on paper.
When I got to the house, I went right around to the back, picked up the shovel, and got to work. The hole was getting close to a decent-sized kiddie pool now. I hadn’t even started the deep end yet, but hell, I wasn’t thinking about that today. I looked around for Amelia. She was nowhere to be seen.
I’ve scared her away. The whole thing was just so wrong and so stupid. I might as well just beat myself to death with this shovel right now.
I had to live with all these crazy thoughts for the next four hours. Another hot day, another half ton of dirt to move into the woods. I still don’t know how I got through it. When four o’clock came, I dragged myself to the car. This is it, I was thinking. I won’t last one more day here.
When I opened the door to the car, I stood there for a moment, not quite sure what I was looking at. There was an envelope on the driver’s seat. It was the envelope I had left in Amelia’s bedroom. I picked it up as I sat down behind the wheel. I held it for a moment. My heart was pounding. Then I opened the envelope.
It was my comic strip. Obviously a big “No, thank you” here. Return to sender. Your submission does not fit our needs at this time.
But wait, there was something more. A second page in the envelope. I pulled it out and looked at it. Another comic strip? More panels?
Yes. That’s exactly what it was.
Amelia had drawn page two.
Now, I don’t have to have it with me, all these years later, to tell you exactly how it went. I can close my eyes and see it again, panel by panel. Every little detail. She was a better artist than I was, that was the first thing I noticed. Maybe not in a technical sense, but in this medium especially, she had a natural ability to reduce everything down to its essentials without losing anything. Just simple, clean lines. Her face. My face. The shovel across my shoulder, one hand resting on the handle.
Her first panel was herself standing on the edge of the hole, saying, “You’d have to drop the act first.” Her exact parting words to me that day, which I had left out. Second panel, her walking away. Anger on her face. A dark cartoon squiggle in the air over her head.
Third panel, her inside the house. The dreaded Zeke, sitting in front of the TV with a bottle in his hand. His hair swung around his neck and hanging down to his chest. “What’s the matter?” he says. Amelia responding, “Nothing.”
Close up on Amelia. Zeke’s words coming from off-frame. “I think we should go to that showing tonight. Linda is so cool and I think she’s got so much talent and if we get there by,” and then the words disappearing behind Amelia’s head. She’s ignoring him completely, her own thought bubble reading, “Maybe I’m being too hard on him.” Him being me.
Next panel, more words coming at her from off-frame. “Are you even listening to me? What the hell’s wrong with you today?” Amelia standing up now, looking out the window, thinking, “We’re not so different, right? If he can talk to anybody, it should be me.”
Last panel, me as seen through the window. I’m bent over, picking up a load of dirt with the shovel. Amelia’s thoughts at the bottom of the panel. “Why does it bother me so much that he won’t?”
End of page. I sat there looking at it for a long time. Finally I looked up and saw Mr. Marsh staring at me from the front porch. I put the car in reverse, backed out of the driveway, and took off.
When I got home, I laid Amelia’s page out on my desk, studied it and read it over a dozen more times, still not quite believing it was real. Then I put it aside and got busy with page three.