IT WAS MIDNIGHT as she sat on the subway, a sketchbook resting on her knees. There was a pencil held in her fingers, but she had nothing to draw. She waited for the doors to open and the right person to walk on, to sit in front of her with a face the perfect mix of startling and beautiful. A face that begged to be drawn.

            The subway screeched to a halt at Dundas station. When the doors slid open, he stood there on the platform, headphones in his ears, dark hair falling over his brow. The empty notebook page felt warm in her hands, almost pleading with her to draw his striking face.

            He stepped inside. One, two, three steps, then he sat across from her on the red-cushioned seat. When his eyes dropped down to the book he was holding, she began to draw.

            First, the outline of his head found its way onto her page. Then his jawline, followed by his eyes, a startling brown. His ears followed, then nose. His mouth was the most enchanting to her. The bow of his lips, the chapped lines where his teeth bit down. Two thick, furrowed brows, then a head of short waves, curled behind his ears, and she was finished.

            When she looked up, he was watching her.

            Their eyes met for a second before his focused on the notebook on her lap.

            He pulled out one headphone, then asked, "Is that me?"

            She felt herself freeze. In all the months she had been doing this, drawing strangers on the subway to combat her insomnia, she had never been caught. Not once.

            And she had never drawn someone like him, with a smile warm enough to combat even the chilling Toronto air.

            "No," she said quickly, shutting the notebook.

            He laughed. It sounded like summer, mimicking the wind chimes in her grandmother's backyard.

            With a single eyebrow raised, he tucked his headphone back into his ear and returned to his book.

            She felt her heart beat slow once his gaze left hers.

            The subway stopped again, doors opened, more people walked on. She scanned their faces, looking for the next one worthy of her time. A young girl with a head of red curls; an older woman with large brooch of a cobra. But, oddly, she found herself placing the pencil into her bag.

            None of their faces compared to his.

            None of them looked like summer in the dead of winter.

            When the subway approached the next station, she watched as he stood up, book in hand, and wait by the doors. They opened a moment later and, before stepping off, he looked over his shoulder, smiled at her, said, "Lovely to be your muse," then left.

            It only took a moment for her to run after him. She didn't even know what stop this was, what neighborhood she was wandering into, but his smile was like a neon sign, leading her to a great perhaps.

            "Wait!" she called, standing in the middle of the platform, shivering from the cold night air.

            Somehow, he heard.

            He turned around, slowly.

            He walked towards her, stopping only when they were toe-to-toe.

            "Hello," he said, smiling, knowing.

            And with that word alone, she was his.