Found my missing piece

A leap of faith. That was Kara's "homework" this week. She had recently lost both of her parents in a terrible road accident. They weren't even in a car. They were just walking across the street towards their home. Kara was standing at her bedroom window, waving at them. And suddenly a huge truck came hurtling towards them. The driver was drunk. He tried to swerve at the last moment, but it was too late. He ran them over and crashed into a few cars before skidding to a halt. Around 6-7 people were severely injured and 4, including her parents, were dead.

Kara quickly ran down to make sure they were okay. But by the time time she reached them, they were already gone. She sat there, holding their hands, till the ambulance arrived. She never cried. She didn't cry when she found them dead. She didn't cry when her sister arrived at the hospital. She didn't cry at their funeral. She just never cried.

Kara was too young to stay by herself, so she was staying with her sister. She would wake up everyday, go to school, babysit her sister's kids, do her homework and then sleep. She didn't go out, she didn't paint, she didn't do anything. She couldn't do anything. Painting had always been her stress reliever. But everytime she tried to paint, her mind would go blank. She could barely talk to any of her friends. She just didn't feel alive anymore.

After a few months of this, Kara's sister had forcefully taken her to a psychiatrist. She was diagnosed with clinical depression. She had to take pills as well as visit a therapist once a week. Her therapist would give her a "homework" every week. Like make a list of things that make you feel good. Try to find a silver lining to everything that happens around you. Compliment a random person and notice their reaction. This time it was : take a leap of faith. She never did these homeworks. Her first session, she had asked if this homework was mandatory. Her therapist had told her that she didn't have to anything she didn't want to. So she never did it. And she wasn't going to do it this time either.

Her sister usually picked her up after her sessions. But today she had to go to her kid's school for some function. It was a 30 minute walk back home, but Kara preferred walking over public transport. She was hungry, so she went into a cafe to get some fries. While she was waiting for her order, she saw a guy sitting at one of the tables. He was holding a pencil and staring at a open sketchbook lying on his table. There were 3 empty coffee cups around his table. She took a step forward to look at the sketchbook and saw a beautiful sketch of the cafe.

The guy looked up and saw her staring. He had piercing blue eyes. She quickly turned away. He ordered another cup of coffee and got back to his staring.

"He's been here for hours now. For the past few days, he daily comes here. He sits at the same table. Orders a cup of coffee every hour and keeps staring at that sketch. It looks perfect to me, but he keeps saying something is missing." The waitress explained to Kara as she prepared the coffee.

Kara looked back at him and saw what the others couldn't see. He was an artist, just like her. And just like her, he was having problems expressing his feelings. "A leap of faith", she whispered. It was not like her to talk to strangers. But for some reason, she wanted to talk to this stranger.

"What?" enquired the waitress.

"Uh, nothing" she replied as she moved closer to the boy. She stood besides him and said, "Hey. I'm Kara. I'm sorry, I just couldn't stop myself. This sketch is really beautiful."

He looked up at her and smiled. "Hi. I'm James. I don't know about the sketch. It feels incomplete. Like something is missing. I don't know what it is, but everytime I look at this sketch it makes me anxious. I've spent hours trying to figure out what it is."

"May I see it?" She asked.

"Oh, sure. Please take a seat" he gestured towards the chair opposite him.

She sat across from him and turned the sketchbook around, facing her. She studied the sketch. She looked at it and then she looked around, comparing the sketch to the cafe. Everything was perfect. The table placements, the counter, the people, everything was detailed. The people were obviously different, but everything else was undeniably perfect.

James was observing her as she compared his sketch to reality. She was pretty. She had dark brown hair and the same warm, brown eyes. She looked small but she carried a sense of confidence around her. He noticed that she was not just looking at the sketch, she was studying it. Like she understood it. "Are you an artist too? It's just that, most of the people just look at the sketch and say it's good, but you're actually noticing the little details. Only an artist has that point of view."

She smiled at him and said, "Yes, I am an artist. Or at least I used to be." Her smile faltered when she said it. But she shook her head and continued, "But I don't sketch. I'm more of a painting person. While you thrive in pencils, I excel in water colours. Though I'm nowhere as good as you."

He laughed at that. "You're only saying that based on one of my best sketch. If you see my other sketches, you won't believe I made this one." He had not missed the sadness in her voice. "I don't mean to intrude, but what did you mean when you said you were an artist?"

"I, uh, I stopped painting a while ago. I don't do it anymore", she looked down at the table.

"Why?" James asked curiously. She kept looking down silently. "It's totally okay if you don't want to tell me. I just thought that since you came forward to try and solve my problem, maybe I could solve yours." He said hesitantly.

"I don't think anyone can solve my problem." Her smirk was as mirthless as her voice. James didn't pry any deeper. He was worried he would push her away with his questions. She stayed silent for a while, then said, "I recently lost my parents in a road accident. They were just walking across the street and a truck hit them. I saw it all from my bedroom window. It kind of traumatized me. I haven't been able to paint since then."

James was shocked to hear that. He was expecting her problem to be something like lack of support from her parents or teachers. Or maybe lack of motivation. But this was darker than he imagined. He didn't know what to say. "I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to.."

Kara interrupted him, "Oh, no! It's not your fault. In fact my therapist is going to be very proud of me. She's been asking me to talk about it for so long and I finally did it." This time her smile was genuine.

He smiled back. "Do you want to talk about it?"

"About the accident?" She was shocked by his question. No one had ever asked her about it so blatantly.

"Yeah. Or maybe not about the accident. Talk about them. Your happy memories. Anything you want to say" he rephrased. She looked reluctant to reply. "Look, I'm a total stranger. You're never going to talk to me again. You're probably never even going to see me again. And I don't know anything about you. So I won't, I can't, judge you for what you say. Just think of me as a diary. Say whatever you want to say."

She thought about it for a moment. What he said was right. She had nothing to fear. He won't judge her, he won't tell anybody about what she said. It was a safe place. "I feel weird talking to you about this. I mean, I pay my therapist by hour, just to listen to me talk. I don't say a word to her and now here I am, talking to a complete stranger." She looked into his piercing blue eyes and continued, "but I feel a lot comfortable with you than I do with her."

They kept her eyes on his as she said, "I miss them. I miss them so much! My sister never had any time for me. I have never had many friends. My parents were my closest friends. They meant the whole world to me. I am used to talking to them about everything. I would show them every painting I made, and they would praise it like it was a masterpiece. I would tell them all about my day at school, and they would intently listen to me. I could never stay away from them. I would fall sick if I didn't see them for more than 2 days. I was so used to them. And now they're just gone." A single tear escaped from Kara's eyes and she didn't even notice it.

"And I know that they're never going to come back. And there's nothing I can do about it! No matter how sick I get, I'm never getting them back." Tears were streaming down her face.

"And I just can't make myself do anything! I can't paint, because I know they won't be praising it. I can't go out, because I know they won't be waiting for me back home. I can't laugh around with my friends, knowing they are gone. I just can't do anything! And it's killing me! I'm alive, but only physically. Mentally, I died with them. People keep expecting me to get better, but how can I do that? How can I get better, knowing that I'm never going to see my parents again?" James silently took her hands in his and stroked them with his thumb.

"When I saw them" she sobbed loudly. "When I saw their body, I wanted to cry. I wanted to cry so bad! But I couldn't. The tears just won't come. The same thing happened at their funeral. People were looking at me, expecting me to burst into tears. But I just sat their silently. Later I heard some whispers. Everyone was talking about how heartless I was, how I didn't spill a single tear for my parents death. But how do I tell them that I physically couldn't cry?! That was the worst week of my life."

She pushed the tears away from her eyes and continued, "I expected things to get better after a while. I knew I would never be the same without them, but I wished it would hurt less. But it didn't. It didn't get better. It didn't hurt less. It still hurts as much as it did the day they died. I don't know how to live like this!"

She managed to stop crying after a few minutes. "I'm sorry. I'll understand if you just ran away at this point. I'm just a stranger sitting infront of you and crying about her parents death. I don't know why I did that. I haven't cried in months, I don't understand why I did it now."

"I think you needed to vent out your feelings. You've been bottling them up for months, and now that you got a chance to speak, you couldn't stop yourself. But it's a good thing. Now that it's finally out of your system, I'm sure you'll feel better soon. And don't worry about me. It would take a lot more than that to make me run away from a beautiful girl" James gave her a mischievous smile.

Kara blushed. She had to admit that she did feel better. She felt light, as if a burden had been lifted from her shoulders. She didn't know why, but James made her feel comfortable. He made her feel alive. She opened her bag and took out a book, a box of water colours, few brushes, a pallet and a water bottle. She always carried these things around, just in case she decided to make a painting.

She opened her book to a blank page and picked up a brush. She stared at the paper. She didn't feel blank anymore, but she couldn't decide what to paint. She looked up and saw James looking at her with amazement. She stared into his eyes for a moment and then looked back at the paper. She knew what she was going to paint. About half an hour later, she was done. She looked up to see James looking proudly at his sketchbook.

"Did you complete your sketch?" She asked.

He looked up and smiled. "Yes." He turned the book around so she could see.

She once again studied the sketch, trying to understand what was different this time. The counter was same. The table placements were same. The people were same... She gasped when she got to the table at which James was sitting. Last time she looked at it, there was only one guy sitting at the table. Now there was a girl sitting across from him. "Is that me?" she asked.

James smiled at her and nodded. "Found my missing piece" he said. "Now can I see yours?"

She quitely handed him the book. She watched him as he took the book and looked at her painting. His eyes widened in surprise and disbelief. "Is that my eye?!" He asked. She nodded. "Well, now you made my sketch feel bad! This is so much better than mine!" He exclaimed. She had painted his eye, as she saw it. It was light blue with flecks of a darker shade. There was a ring of gold around his pupil. It was the best painting she had ever made.