A/N: Hey, everyone--this is just a little ficlet inspired partly by an anonymous challenge, and partly by PostSecret. Hope you all enjoy! Please read and review! PS. On Receptionists...will be updated next week sometime, when I get my flash disk back :)
bereft (adj.):
1. Deprived of something.
2.Lacking something needed or expected.
also:
(adj) 1: unhappy in love; suffering from unrequited love.
2: sorrowful through loss or deprivation; "bereft of hope"
Portfolio: Bereft
She draws pictures of him every day. That way it's like he never left.
She drew the first one the day he left. He came into the office at half past ten, and she opened her mouth to ask him where he'd been, that she'd been going insane without him to talk to for the past hour and a half.
But he didn't even look at her as he passed, just started packing his things into the cardboard box he was holding.
She remembered feeling like the world was spinning too fast as she asked, "What are you doing? What's going on?"
He just gave her a sad smile and said, "I got a transfer to the new Philadelphia branch. Better benefits, better salary. I couldn't…couldn't pass it up. You understand."
She didn't, but she didn't say that.
She couldn't bring herself to say anything, even after he finished packing his things and said goodbye to everyone in the office. Even Dwight looked a little sad, she remembered.
His arms were warm around her as he hugged her goodbye, told her he'd send a postcard from Australia.
She willed herself not to cry as she watched his back go out the door. She could feel the cameras trained on her and her alone as she sat down at her desk, feeling like she wanted to puke.
Numbly, she felt her fingers reach for a pencil, and by the end of the day, no calls had been answered and her desk was littered with drawings of him, of his face, of his hands, his eyes, his smile. She locked them all in her desk drawer so no one would know.
That was something like a month ago. She hasn't seen him since, and she's getting married tomorrow and still she draws, if not on paper, then on napkins. A few times on cards that people gave her at her wedding shower.
The drawings are getting more and more detailed, complex. Yesterday, she drew one of him on the beach in Australia, holding an umbrella drink and wearing sunglasses and swim trunks and a smile.
She doesn't want to know how she knows what his chest looks like, although she suspects a part of her always imagined.
When she finds a postcard in the mail, a photograph of the Sydney Opera House, she cries.
Wish you were here.
Only four words, but she knows what he meant, and she draws one last picture, in pencil, superimposed on his handwriting.
In it, he is handsome in a tuxedo, and she is standing next to him, wearing a white dress and veil and carrying lilies in her bouquet, not carnations and daisies because they're cheaper. She drew them smiling, looking into each other's eyes. She writes "Return to Sender" in delicate cursive under the drawing and smiles.
She gets up from the table and delicately puts the card in her purse, along with her passport and every credit card she has. Before she goes to the airport, she stops at the office and empties her desk drawer.
She'll give him the drawings, every last one, when she gets to Sydney.