x.

purpose

By the time my sentence of probation ends, my bedroom is bursting at the seams with charcoal sketches.

I've swept them into corners of the room, in piles stacked so high they tilt to one side. The larger pieces I pasted with Scotch tape onto the walls, until every square inch of the off-white plaster is covered with inked drawings.

Most of the images are portraits of young women, their skin and bones prominent in highlighted contour. The faces are so generic that no one is able to guess who I intended to draw; none of the portraits are anyone specific. They're just sad faces that stick out in my mind so vividly I feel I have to give their expressions a sense of permanence by sketching them in charcoal.

Once I found something to keep me busy, the remaining nine months of probation – which used to seem like a lifetime stretching out endlessly before me – passed by at a fast pace. My mom had to help me cut off the ankle bracelet when my sentence ended, with huge garden shears dug up from the piles of unused crap in the attic. After she left for work, I set that piece of shit bracelet on fire, in a metal trash can behind the house.

I know what you're thinking. Did you ditch you mom's house right away? Did you do a line at Darren's place that afternoon? Old habits die hard, right?

Well, joke's on you. I didn't do any of that. I stayed right where I was because, believe it or not, I think I found a way to make money on my own. And no, it doesn't involve drugs. Or sex.

Trust me, I'm as surprised as you are.

A week after probation, I dig out the best drawings I've made from the stacks taking over the space of my bedroom. Ten pieces: most a portrait of a woman with hollowed eyes, but a few are sharply contrasted images of hands holding cigarettes. At the last second, I place a smaller drawing of two pairs of legs tangled together into the pile, bare feet tangled between gray sheets, toes curled, one with toenails painted a shiny black and the other with short, stubby nails. I know it's not as good as the others – and a little too "promiscuous", I suppose – but looking at the image creates such a sense of warm nostalgia that I have to take it.

I paperclip the thin stack of drawings together, gently, and tuck it under one arm.

Walking through the front door and straight down the short drive to the sidewalk still hasn't gotten old. The summer heat of Florida presses against my body like a second layer of skin, and sweat already begins to stick the thin material of my t-shirt to my lower back. My mom offered to drive me before she headed to work, but I wanted to walk. The heat doesn't bother me, because it's a million times better than being stuck inside the same house for months on end. Without air conditioning, by the way.

Open-roofed Volkswagen Bugs and mud-washed Jeeps roar past me on my left. I walk slowly and light a cigarette, holding the stick between my teeth as I pocket the lighter – careful not to crumple the papers between my arm and ribs. When a jogger passes me, I exhale smoke to the left so it doesn't drift his way. The nicotine dulls the tiny nerves that churn my stomach.

It's a twenty minute walk to the café, a tiny building nestled between a floral gift shop and an outdated jewelry store. When I spot the black plastic tables and chairs set up just outside, I flick the stub of my cigarette to the sidewalk and press it into the concrete with the toe of my orange flip-flop. I cross the street, hastily, because I don't care enough to use the crosswalk.

I hesitate once I reach the tables set up just outside the café's entrance. My mom comes here every other day on her way to work, to buy a vanilla latte from the owner at half-price – they went to high school together. She talked to the owner, Maria, last week about my art. The café accepts ten pieces of work from artists every month to hang them around the café, and if any of the pieces are sold, the owner keeps 10%.

My mom was bursting with excitement when she came home that night. She was trying to reel it in, for fear of annoying me, but I heard it in her voice. "Oh my goodness, Kira. Maria wants to see your charcoal pieces. For the café. Kira. If she likes them, she'll put them up for sale."

I'm still not letting myself get my hopes up. After all, the only ones who have seen my work are my mother and my goddamn therapist. My drawings could be shit, and all the owner is going to do is laugh in my face.

So that's why I pause, just outside the café with the ten charcoal and ink pieces beneath my arm. I'm not sure what I'll do if this woman tells me my drawings are terrible. This is the last straw I've tried to grasp, and I know I'll sink below the waterline if this doesn't work.

"Kira? Denise's daughter?"

I turn, a pudgy woman with graying hair standing from her place before the café's right window. I was so busy over-thinking this that I didn't notice one of the baristas was cleaning the glass just ten feet from me. I squint and see that her plastic nametag reads Maria.

"Sorry, I didn't see you." I start over to her quickly, awkwardly rounding one of the tables and holding out my hand. She wipes her right palm on the towel and reaches out to shake my hand. I stumble over my words, polite in a way that is foreign to me. "I'm Kira. It's um, it's nice to meet you."

"Likewise," Maria tells me kindly. "Please, come in. I can't wait to see what you have."

She lifts the bucket off the concrete and waves for me to follow her, a slight limp in her right leg as she goes to open the entrance door. I move to follow her and hold the wooden door open as Maria disappears inside the café, a wind of espresso beans and coffee grounds warming my cheeks.

The bell overhead clinks as I hesitate again, literally stopped in the doorway, holding a piece of myself under my right arm. The nerves freeze my feet to the floor, but it's only for a second.

I swallow hard. Taking a deep breath, inhaling to steady my heartbeat, I step inside the café.

[ thank you very much for reading! please let me know what you thought if you have a minute. I will be posting the third short story in this series "strength" soon, and there are still more stories to come! I hope you liked this story xx ]