With a ready hand on dog-eared pages, Jeremy eyes his sketches warily. With each flick of the page an all too familiar face peers back at him. Occasionally, there's a wet blob in the corner or at worst, in the middle of the sketch, smudging the image and in Jeremy's eyes, ruining it completely.
He'd never gotten her quite right. There was always something missing - no matter how he tried to depict her. But that's only half of the reason why he's dropping his pencils (for good this time, he promises himself) and pushing away the wad of paper that had kept him company for so long.
"It's time to move on," Elena had told him the other night, her eyes penetrating into his.
But even as his sister stared at him, trying desperately to pull him out of whatever it was he'd dug himself into, he could see she wasn't really all that keen to stay with him. She was probably busy - wanted to meet with Stefan, he guessed. It wasn't that Jeremy didn't appreciate Elena taking the time to drag herself away from her boyfriend, whom she seemed glued to more than half the time, but the whole time she was lecturing him, he couldn't help but wonder what it would be like to draw her. He'd never cared to draw her before. After all, she was just his sister. Nothing interesting about that. Even so, he'd wondered. Could he draw Elena and capture her for who she is? Or would she be missing something... just like Anna.
"I moved on from our parents," Jeremy had snapped back. "And Vicki."
She'd cringed as he'd pulled the trump card. "I'll be back later."
Oh, so predictable. After she'd left, he'd rushed to his room, desperate to draw her face fresh in his mind. The result wasn't what he wanted though. Technically, it was decent enough drawing. A few lines had gone astray and the shading wasn't perfect. But worst of all, she was actually there. She wasn't absent like Anna.
Holding two drawings - one of Anna, one of Elena - up in the light, Jeremy analyzes them both carefully. And after several movements, his eyes narrow dangerously and he crunches both pieces of paper in his fist before throwing them to the other side of the room, growling in frustration.
He wants to remember her. He never wants to forget Anna. Whether it was anything like the "true love" that Elena had claimed to find with Stefan, he isn't sure. All he knows that she's all he thinks about now. And that he'd do anything to bring her back.
Clenching his eyes shut, Jeremy tries to picture her in his mind. Meanwhile, his hand reaches for the stash of pencils under the bed, because he could never give up, no matter how many times he promises himself. When his eyes do fly open, his hands are already at work, frantically scratching at the page.
And slowly, but surely, Anna appears on the page. Not still and staring at him as she usually is in his mind. Instead, she's latched onto a bleeding hand. He doesn't try to draw anything that resembles love. The only thing in Anna's eyes this time is hunger. Undying hunger, need and lust. She's sinking her teeth into his skin and he's in ecstasy.
She'll never be entirely there, he thinks. But she's half there. And with the memory replaying itself over in the back of his mind, he finds that he's half there too.