Rose

I am twenty, and I am ready. Ready for what, I don't know yet. Yet. It should make itself clear soon, right? I mean, that's what Life does. It makes you go to school and grow up, and then after you finish growing up and going to school, it tells you what it wants you to do.

And I am done growing up. Twenty years and five-and-a-half feet should be plenty.

And I am done going to school. Two years at university was enough for me, even though Bill says Well Really Darling Even Caddy Managed More. I do not care that I did not learn about old dead people like Indy or animals like Caddy or plants like Sarah or languages like Saffy. I already knew how to do art, so after two years of stuffy old professors telling me Rose Stop Sketching People And Work On Your Still Life and Rose Why Didn't You Do Your Portrait Assignments (I had, but on the wall of my flat, not the terribly smooth paper he gave us), I quit.

So here I am. All grown up and waiting in my flat in London for Life to tell me what to do.

While I am waiting, I will tell you about my flat.

Bill was happy that I was going to be in London but the uni was across town from him so he picked me out a flat that is close to his house. It is a tiny place, with just a bedroom and a bathroom and a kitchen which I never use.

The bathroom is like a giant aquarium because I painted fish and seaweed and other in-the-ocean kinds of things. It is unnerving, Kiran says, to have a shark staring at you when you are trying to use the toilet. But I don't mind the pink frothy seahorses in the shower.

The kitchen has shining pots and pans and cluttered counters and a refrigerator filled with leftover takeout food. The walls have my art class assignments that I did not want to do on the horrible shiny paper they give you, so it has bowls of fruit and portraits and landscapes and figures, all the boring variety that you have to do in school. The kitchen is my least favorite room.

My bedroom is my favorite room. The ceiling has stars on it because it is hard to see the stars in London, so I painted them on my ceiling in glow-in-the-dark paint. Just like real stars, you can't see them during the day, but at night they twinkle and I wish on them just like I used to with Indy. And Tom. But I don't want to talk about him.

The walls have big pictures of home. Mummy painting in the shed, Saffy and Sarah trying to cook, Indigo playing his guitar, Michael kissing Caddy, Buttercup chasing a butterfly, Sarah's mum trying to tidy up the Banana House. My whole family is on these walls, everything I miss from the past. The pictures are all I have left of them.

There is one more picture in my flat, but nobody has seen it. It is right by my bed, covered with pillows usually. It is a small sketch, and I shouldn't have done it, but I had to. It is a picture of the one who broke my heart, and I know I said I was going to forget about him for ever and ever, but I couldn't help it. There has been a picture of Tom next to my bed for eight years.

The first night I slept in my flat, I woke up in the middle of the night feeling like there was something missing. This was silly; there was lots of stuff missing. I had just moved in and all I had was my bed and some clothes. But the feeling wouldn't go away. I tossed and turned and then I ended up facing the wall way up at the top of the bed, and I knew what was missing.

So I got up and rummaged through my bag until I found my charcoal, and I drew my little picture of Tom, and I got back into bed and slept just fine. The next morning, I got fixative and sprayed the picture and it has been there ever since. And I really should scrub it off because I am supposed to be forgetting him and moving on, Kiran says, and I tried to get rid of it, but I just couldn't erase Tom. I just couldn't.

But I didn't tell Kiran about the picture so she won't keep telling me to Get Over The American And Give Some Other Boys A Chance. I do not want other boys. I do not want anyone.

I don't want to talk about him.

So here I am, sitting in the kitchen, writing. Because there is nothing else to do. I used to draw and paint when I was bored, but after I painted my apartment, I didn't know what to do. I haven't painted a picture not for class in months. And it's been years since I really loved my pictures.

Except for the ones of my family. I love those.

But the rest of them don't look right. It's like the colors have no life in them. The pictures have no life in them.

I told Eve that on time.

"Darling," she said, absorbed in her latest picture. "Darling, it's not the colors."

"What," I said crossly, "is that supposed to mean?"

Eve started humming, once more fully immersed in her painting.

"EVE!"

She jumped and dropped her paintbrush. "Yes, darling?"

"What do you mean about my pictures?"

"Well, is it all pictures and colors, or just yours?" Eve leaned down and picked up her paintbrush, accidentally smearing cobalt blue on her skirt. "Oh, dear."

I reached for a rag. "Just mine."

"There you are, darling. It's not your pictures, it's you."

I though about this. Then I went back to the house and thought about it some more. Then Kiran came over, and I stopped thinking about it.

Now I'm thinking about it again.

It's true.

Everyone else says my pictures are lovely, but I just can't see it anymore.

I guess I lost a lot of things that night.

No, no, no, no! I don't want to talk about Tom. I don't want to think about that night in New York.

But I can't help seeing it over and over again.

Fine. Maybe writing it down will help. A little bit. Maybe.