This is a rough story writ­ten in a cou­ple of hours. It was not per­fected af­ter thou­sands, dozens, or even more than one draft. This is a sin­gle write-through and a ba­sic proof­read.

Seven thou­sand four hun­dred eigh­teen pieces of pa­per. Stacks. Fold­ers. Boxes. Crates. She had­n’t thrown a sin­gle one away. Each, she thought, was bet­ter than the last.

Ding!

Saman­tha pulled the pa­per gen­tly from the sketch­pad, leav­ing a fine neat edge, and placed it on the May 2014 stack.

To­mor­row, she’d set the timer for ten min­utes once more, and start all over again.

Should she show it to Anne? Maybe she should draw a few more, just to be sure, just to get it per­fect.

She had first tried show­ing… what was his name? It was back in… what was the year? Back some­time when she could­n’t re­mem­ber; early grade school, per­haps. Def­i­nitely be­fore the whole high school dra­mas; that was an­other guy en­tirely. And his girl­friend. And her girl­friend.

No, this boy—Joshua? Or is Joshua just the first name that comes to mind? Any­way, he was the first.

“I want to show you some­thing,” she said. He seemed ea­ger enough, so she showed him, and he looked at the draw­ing, and made the best “oh, that’s nice” face a twelve year old could be ex­pected to make.

She watched his face as her own fell. “It’s… it’s just—“ “No, no, I like it!” he said.

So she called him that night, and the next, and the next, and then she did­n’t, and then he did­n’t call her, and he did­n’t call the next ei­ther. Or the one af­ter that. Or the one af­ter.

So she got out her sketch­pad. Prac­tice makes per­fect. She’d make her­self per­fect.

Aaron, she had thought, would get it. They were just friends; noth­ing too spe­cial about them. She took ad­van­tage of him a bit—he ac­tu­ally had a car, and her par­ents would­n’t let her drive—but he seemed happy to drive her around so she let him.

He was study­ing art, or would be study­ing it, when he went to col­lege—he wanted to take a year off first—so she showed it to him.

His head tilted strangely.

“It’s me,” Saman­tha pro­claimed. “The draw­ing is of me.”

Then the door squeaked open. And then si­lence.

Aaron looked at Elise. Elise looked at the draw­ing.

“Why are you in my house, Elise?” Aaron asked. “Honey?” he added, be­lat­edly.

“So you wanna do this on his—“ a voice cut off sud­denly. “Oh,” said Abby, pok­ing her head in from be­hind Elise.

Aaron’s face pinged back and forth be­tween them. “Wait… Are you two…” His eye­brow wagged. “Wanna make a sand­wich?”

“Leave,” com­manded Elise.

“It’s my hou—“ “Leave. You too, ass­hole!” she told Saman­tha. “And take your draw­ing with you.”

So Aaron drove her home.

And the next day when she needed a cof­fee run he drove her. And the day af­ter that. But the day af­ter he was busy. And the day af­ter that. And then he was al­ways busy. And he did­n’t call.

Next time, she promised her­self, next time she showed any­body, it would be per­fect. She would be per­fect.

Then there was Laura.

Saman­tha was twenty three, and every minute of the day was Laura. Did Laura want to have din­ner? Did Laura want to go to a movie? Did Laura want to help make a movie, or try writ­ing an app, or—

“It’s time for me to show you some­thing,” Saman­tha told her. “A part of my­self I hide from every­one, un­til they get to know me.”

“Is this about all the boxes?” asked Laura.

Saman­tha nod­ded, opened her newest box, lifted the top sheet from it, and handed it to Laura.

Lau­ra’s eye­brows rose. She glanced at Saman­tha, and made the same tilt of the head that Aaron had.

“So… they’re all draw­ings of…”

“Yep.”

“I… see…”

“It’s me. It’s who I am. What I am. The bit of me I keep hid­den.”

Laura looked up at Saman­tha and then… And then…

“I think we should step back our friend­ship.”

And then she left.

Saman­tha called. No an­swer. She texted. No re­ply. She emailed long mes­sages. Short mes­sages. An­gry mes­sages. Sad mes­sages.

Noth­ing.

Af­ter a week she stopped call­ing. Tex­ting. Email­ing. She did­n’t want to be an ass­hole.

Laura was years ago.

And now…

Anne.

“Why do you do this to your­self?” Anne asked.

“Be­cause it is who I am. I’ve per­fected it. It’s done.”

“I can’t be with some­body who is like this,” Anne said. “I can­not be with this part of you. And nei­ther can you.”

“But… But it’s per­fect!”

Page af­ter page burnt in the fire. Fi­nally, her hand came to rest on the last; the mas­ter­piece.

Then it, too, en­tered the blaze.

“I don’t want to be an ass­hole,” she whis­pered.

She grabbed her pen­cil, and be­gan to draw.

“Per­haps a flower in­stead?” she asked her­self.