Healing Tea and a Sketchbook

It was a Saturday morning, and rather than opting for her usual mug of coffee, Ariel was reaching for the honey and turning on the heat to boil some water. Today her body was in need of something lighter, something different than her usual coffee with cream.

Whenever she was sick as a child, and every moment since that she could remember, Ariel was given a cup of tea with honey (and sometimes a dash of lemon). It was a simple remedy her mother and grandmother reliably clung to. And, unsurprisingly, it became natural for her to adopt it.

On this Saturday she wasn’t feeling sick in the way that the tea was generally used for. She was feeling nauseous because her heart was aching, and the ache of it needed somewhere else to go. Her chest wasn’t able to sustain the weight of it alone.

In a desperate attempt to calm herself, she convinced herself that the tea would help.

Her eyes darted to the time that appeared on the microwave from above the stove. The water was rolling to a boil now, so she turned the knob and removed the small pot from the heat. It appeared like a waterfall as it drained into her mug, swirling with the tea bag and morphing into a warmer color. A few spoons of honey later, she had the mug cradled in her hands and ambled away.

Ariel preferred to sit in natural light when she was drawing. Today it was raining, but the sky was still clear enough and the sound of the downpour seemed to fit right in. No one was home, which was also to Ariel’s benefit. Her mother was getting a haircut and then groceries, so she would be gone long enough for Ariel to work in silence for a while. Her father was at an auction a few towns away. She didn’t expect to see him until after dinner that night.

Setting the mug down on the dining table, she went off in search of a blanket. She found the best one draped across the stool in front of her father’s recliner. Of all the blankets they had strewn about the place, the maroon one was her favorite. Ariel needed to be comforted by simple things like that today.

The dining table felt unwelcoming as she neared it once again, but she pushed past the urges of her bellowing insides and dropped into the seat closest to the window. The drapes were open, the blank sketch book was ready and the tea was cooled enough to meet her tongue.

After a prolonged, satisfying drink, Ariel knew there was nothing stopping her from lifting a pencil and getting started. Nothing was keeping her from what needed to be done.

Ariel preferred her weekends to be empty, but that didn’t mean they were never littered with things to do. She only disliked the sense of entrapment by agreeing to plans. Even if they were things she genuinely wanted to do. When her friends wanted to see her, they’d just ask spontaneously, and she always appreciated that. She disliked nothing more than the daunting study of the clock as the time dwindled closer and closer to her leaving in order to arrive somewhere on time.

Although she did not enjoy making plans, sometimes Ariel was cornered into commitments. That was just the way things happened. So a week ago, when Mariah Hammond approached, it felt like the world was closing in on her suddenly. She was trapped. Asked a question she couldn’t refuse.

Mariah wanted to know if she could (please, please, please) draw a portrait of Jase. Her eyes were red and wrecked from all the crying, darkness surrounding them from her inability to sleep. Mariah was in the midst of grieving her boyfriend Jase who had died two weeks ago. The entire school was grieving him. And when Ariel was asked to draw a portrait of him, how could she turn it down, even if she did not want to do it?

She didn’t want to draw him, or even think about him, because it was too hard. It was almost impossible. From her gut to her throbbing chest she felt like she wouldn’t be able to do it. She knew there was no question about it. It had to be her. She’d been asked directly. Targeted.

No one could know how she was feeling. They were all grieving and lost in their own incomprehensible sadness. The rest of the world was blurry within it. But even before, when Jase still wore his subtle smile and wandered the halls like he’d be there forever, no one could see it. Maybe Ariel was that good at keeping a secret. A part of her really did think it was obvious though, with how often she looked at him.

Jase was the star baseball player at their school and that really had nothing to do with it. The girls adored him. The guys, the teachers and the parents of all the students did, too. He was just that sort of person to the town. Every place had that person so it wasn’t actually that special, but at the same time it really was.

When all of those spectators and peers were pulled away, when he was still Jase but unidentified, not pointed out in a crowd but lost inside of one, Ariel knew she’d still be there to search for him.

He’d been happy with his girlfriend Mariah and that was never not fine. Mariah was great--she was outgoing and beautiful, smart and dedicated. Ariel wasn’t envious of what they shared because she knew she was completely different, and if he’d ever considered her, they’d never have the same sort of relationship. She held onto the idea that maybe, possibly, insanely, it could be her opportunity one day. If they were both searching at the same time. If he ever noticed her, looking at him the way she did.

That day never came. How could it, when he’d died so young? He got into a car one night and didn’t make it out. No one could ever see that coming.

She looked at him the way she did because he was honest. If he was hurting, he wore the pain on his face. If he was confused, he didn’t shy away from asking questions to find the clarity he needed to move forward. When they were only freshmen two years ago, Ariel was trying to find her place in a small school that she just moved to, and he sat beside her. She’d been alone at the right end of a long table, sitting at the very edge with her face pointed towards a beat up novel. He wanted to know what it was. And when she told him, he admitted it sounded bad. 

He was right. It was the worst book she’d ever forced herself through.

That day, she was able to put the book down (thankfully) and have an honest conversation with him. Before he found Mariah and became a baseball star, he was just a freshman like her. He had a large group of friends, but they still didn’t know where they fit yet. She met him and only knew him as a truthful person with a magnificent smile and infectious laugh. Could anyone blame her for thinking of him more after that?

The next day, some new friends spotted her at lunch and decided to make her look less lonely. Jase didn’t come over again.

Now she had to find a way to transfer that smile on her paper and it felt like an insurmountable task. She wished his family had more recent photos of him. They could just frame a picture and remember him that way, but Jase didn’t like his picture being taken, and the most current image his family had of him was a cartoonist impression. That was the only thing Jase agreed to. 

So, thanks to Jase really, Ariel was left in an impossible position. She had to create a realistic portrait of him. Something true, like the person he was.

She always loved drawing people. Remembering details and being able to summon them without much difficulty. Ever since she was young she’d been able to notice the small, seemingly insignificant features on a person. Moles, freckles, lines, curves. And later, it would be easy enough for her to jot them down if she felt like it.

Mariah had given Ariel a reference photograph, which was his yearbook photo. But people wanted to remember him in all his realness—not just the prepared moment captured by the school photographer.

It wasn’t even Ariel’s first time drawing Jase.  After he left her with the impression that he did, she couldn’t stop noticing him again and again. Whenever he was near, she chanced a look. Captured and sealed the images in her mind. She had to draw him. She needed to get those moments down on paper.

But this drawing wasn’t the same at all, and the tea didn’t make a difference. She wasn’t sick. Ariel was more than that. Distraught. And no one knew.

Art was her outlet. She could let this moment either muffle her, or help her bring out everything she’d kept inside her.

When Ariel closed her eyes, she could see him. When she opened them, she found a blank sheet of paper waiting, like a question. And questions deserved answers.

One more sip of the honey-laden tea that was quickly losing heat, and then she was propelled forward.

She’d never be able to start if she didn’t do it now.