Chapter 8 – I Drew Him
1358 Words
I didn’t mean to draw him.
That’s the first thing I keep telling myself as if saying it out loud might make it true — as if the graphite on the page could somehow be an accident, not a confession.
But the truth is, the moment I got back to the dorm, the moment the door closed behind me and Ava’s playlist started thumping softly from her headphones, my hands wouldn’t stay still. They needed to make something — to give shape to the ache that’s been pulsing under my ribs all day.
The page started blank. Then came the lines. A jawline. The suggestion of a nose. Eyes that weren’t supposed to look back at me — but did.
By the time I realized what I was doing, he was there.
My dream guy.
The same curve of his mouth, the same patient sadness. Even the faint scar beneath his right eye — the one I shouldn’t remember but somehow always do.
I froze, pencil hovering midair. The air in the room thickened. Ava’s laugh track muted through her earbuds, the hum of her laptop, the world beyond our little dorm — it all felt far away, blurred around the edges. Only the drawing stayed sharp.
My throat was dry. I whispered it before I could stop myself.
“Elias.” Yeah I just named him Elias
The sound filled the small space like a secret.
It wasn’t dramatic. No thunderclap, no flicker of lights. Just a soft vibration in my chest, like the air itself knew the name.
I reached out, fingertips brushing the page. The paper felt warm. Or maybe my skin was. I couldn’t tell anymore where one ended and the other began.
“Zoe,” Ava mumbled from across the room, pulling out one earbud. “You okay? You’re talking to yourself again.”
I jerked upright. “What? Oh — yeah. Fine. Just working on a sketch for class.”
She yawned, unbothered. “Looks intense. Is that him?”
I blinked. “Who?”
She smirked, like she’d been waiting for the chance to tease me. “Dream Boy. You drew him, didn’t you?”
I could’ve laughed it off — said it was just a face, some random composite. But instead, I closed the notebook a little too fast. “It’s nothing. Just practice.”
Ava didn’t push. She never does when my voice sounds like that — tight, too calm.
“Right,” she said, settling back with her laptop. “Just don’t fall in love with your imaginary boyfriend, okay?”
I smiled because that’s what she needed me to do. But my pulse didn’t settle.
Later that night, when the dorm was dark and Ava’s soft breathing steadied in the bed beside mine, I pulled the notebook out again.
The moonlight from the window cut a silver stripe across the desk, just enough to see by. My drawing sat there waiting — and God, it looked alive.
The longer I stared, the less it seemed like pencil lines. The more it looked like memory.
My fingers hovered, afraid to touch it this time. Because what if it wasn’t just a sketch? What if it was something pulled through me — a fragment of that other place sneaking into this one?
I told myself that was ridiculous. That I was sleep-deprived, over-caffeinated, borderline delusional. But still, my fingers brushed his cheek on the page.
And that’s when I felt it — a tiny jolt. Like static electricity, only deeper. It buzzed in my fingertips and ran up my wrist, a pulse of warmth that shouldn’t have been there.
I gasped, pulled my hand back. The air smelled faintly of rain.
I dreamt again that night.
Only this time, it wasn’t a beach. It was somewhere quieter — a garden maybe, or something that wanted to be one. Flowers I couldn’t name swayed in a wind I couldn’t feel. The sky was the color of twilight — soft blue fading to violet.
He was there.
Leaning against a low stone wall, half-shadow, half-light.
“You drew me,” he said.
His voice felt close, too close.
“How do you know that?” I asked.
He smiled faintly. “Because I felt it.”
There was a tremor in my chest, the same one that always comes when he says something that shouldn’t make sense but does anyway.
“I don’t even know you,” I said. “Not really.”
“Don’t you?” he asked. “You always find me, Zoe.”
The words hit me like déjà vu.
He’d said them before — in another dream, another night, when the waves broke too close and the air smelled of salt and rain.
I wanted to reach for him, to close the space between us, but I was afraid. Because every time I touch him, I wake up.
He tilted his head. “You don’t have to be afraid. You made me real enough to find you again.”
My breath caught. “You’re not real.”
He smiled — not sad, not amused, just knowing. “Then why do I know your name?”
And before I could answer, before I could even breathe, I woke.
The first thing I saw was the notebook. Still open.
The page — my sketch — had changed.
The shading was different. Softer, deeper.
And behind him, faint but unmistakable, were outlines I hadn’t drawn: vines, a wall, petals curling open under a violet sky.
My hand trembled as I turned the page over. It wasn’t smudged pencil. The strokes were deliberate. Detailed. Like someone had continued my drawing while I slept.
Ava shifted beside me, mumbling something in her dreams. I froze, heart pounding so hard I could hear it.
When she quieted again, I whispered, “Eli?”
Nothing. Just the hum of the air vent and the distant sound of someone laughing down the hall.
I touched the new lines on the page. They were dry. As if they’d been there for hours.
Morning came heavy and too bright.
Ava was half-asleep at her desk, mascara smudged, cereal untouched. “You look like you didn’t sleep,” she said, squinting at me.
“I didn’t,” I admitted.
“Nightmares again?”
I hesitated. “Not exactly.”
She gave me that look — the one that sits between concern and exasperation. “Zoe, maybe you need to take a break from writing about him. You’re starting to freak me out a little.”
I laughed, though it sounded thin. “You and me both.”
She shrugged, already halfway back into her phone. “Well, come to the gym with me later. Sweat out the weirdness.”
I promised I’d think about it. I didn’t mean it.
Because all I could think about was the drawing. And what he said: You made me real enough to find you again.
By late afternoon, the dorm felt too small to breathe in.
I sat by the window with my notebook open, the campus sunlight washing across the page. The sketch looked different again — or maybe my eyes were just tricking me. But it felt alive. Like he might step out of it any second.
My pencil hovered. I wanted to test it. To see if the dreams really answered.
So I added something. Just a small thing — a curve of his hand, palm up, as if he were reaching for mine.
My stomach twisted even as I did it. But when the last line was down, the page looked complete.
I stared for a long time before closing the book.
That night, I dreamt again.
The same garden. The same violet light.
Only now, he was closer.
“Zoe,” he said softly.
His hand was outstretched — exactly like the one I’d drawn.
The air between us shimmered. My pulse roared in my ears. I reached out before I could stop myself, fingertips brushing his palm.
It felt like heat and gravity all at once — the kind of touch that makes the world tilt.
- Writer
