Love on Hold Read online

  “The big world of mini tadpoles?” He asked, reading my sketch title out loud.

  “I thought about what you said. I think we only see them alike because we’re so big compared to them. I think if we look closely, we’re gonna see them differently.”

  He was still snickering.

  “You drew a monocle on a tadpole!” he said, his long fingers tracing the figures on the paper.

  I’d drawn tadpoles with eyes and mouths and little feet and arms, and all of them were engaged in activities like fishing, and cooking, and even playing with a dog. I gave them accessories like ponytails with scrunchies, and monocles, and glasses, and even walking canes. So even if they were all black and they had basically the same shape, like a comma with a fat head and a long wavy tail, they had bits of color added to them and their own personalities.

  “Hey, this one is playing the piano!” he said with glee, looking at a figure in a corner.

  I smirked, happy he’d discovered the piano player in the giant mass of tadpoles.

  “Do you like it?”

  “I love it!”

  I took the pages and ripped them from the pad, gently. That was another reason I’d chosen the middle. It would easily rip, and I could just gift him the drawing if he enjoyed it.

  “It’s for you,” I said, placing it on the small table he’d been working on. I returned to fiddling with my colors some more.

  “You have to sign it,” he said, giving the paper back to me.

  “What?”

  “All artists have a signature. You have to sign it so I can flaunt it around when you get famous,” he explained.

  I looked at my drawing and thought about it. I hadn’t signed any of my works, not the ones I kept hidden under my bed at home, because I didn’t find them good enough for the world, not the ones my dad had bound and encased, displayed proudly around the house, not even the ones my teacher had placed in a school exhibit for a whole semester.

  “I never signed myself on anything,” I said out loud, but my wheels were spinning.

  I had a thought and smudged some of the red paint I had been using that day. I mixed colors until I got the perfect shade of crimson I was looking for. It reminded me of Oscar’s hair, but I didn’t tell him that. I placed the hollow of my hand on the paint, pressing it so I’d get color on most of the ridges, and I carefully transferred it to the sketch. I lifted my hand and inspected it. It looked like an irregular circle, with white lines and details inside it that made you look twice. I took a brush and used the tip of its wooden part to scribble my name onto the paint before it dried. I made a big, flowery D, followed by a barely-there squiggle of my name.

  “There, nobody can copy that,” I said, looking at my signature from a distance and thinking about how I would perfect it.

  “Genius!” Oscar said, and blew softly over the paint, to help it dry faster.

  “I’m gonna keep this forever, Dellie!”

  I looked up to his golden eyes, and I grinned. Nobody had ever called me that name before, and I cherished that we had just one more thing that was only ours.

  And so the summer went by, week after week of blissful exploration and friendship. After the 6th week of camp, many of our friends started going home. It was soon going to be our turn, and a sense of doom started looming. I’d go back to Casper, Wyoming, and he would return to Minnesota. He was supposed to leave first, and we counted the days, wanting to stretch them as much as we could. We snuck out with our flashlights and barely escaped getting into trouble with our counselors, who found us holding hands and telling stories near the charred remains of a bonfire that they’d put out hours before.

  That day, in the forest, when he skipped music, and I skipped painting class, we didn’t know it would be the last time we’d see each other. We had one week left, after all. But the sun was shining, and some kids mentioned they’d seen a deer the other day, and we went searching. All we found were squirrels and worms, and a few other truants. We’d been running for what seemed like hours, and we stopped to take a breath. I saw Oscar’s golden eyes and I saw his puckered lips coming towards mine. I puckered my lips too, and I closed my eyes. And so, I got my first kiss, standing under a kind August sun and holding hands with the most beautiful boy I’d ever seen. It could have lasted a minute or an eternity. I felt my lips funny like they were a little moist, and when I sucked them in, they had a new taste on them. I touched my fingers to my lips and smiled at him, from beneath my fingers.

  “I’ll never forget you, Dellie,” he told me, and I believed him with all my being.

  “I’ll always love you, Oscar,” I told him, and I believed me with all my being.

  He pulled at my hand and started running.

  “Come get me!”

  Out of the clearing, through the forest, on our trail back, beyond the pond, and the soccer field, until the cabins. There was a bus parked, with counselors and kids fussing about, with names being called in megaphones.

  “Oshy!” I heard the voice of a woman call loudly and I stopped an older girl that was running from the bus.

  “What’s going on?”

  “There is a tornado hitting some states next week, the kids in the affected areas are going home sooner.”

  “There you are!” Oscar’s counselor said, approaching us. “We’ve been looking for you, please go finish your bags, son!” he ordered around.

  Oscar looked at me wide-eyed.

  “Stay! Stay to say goodbye!” he pleaded.

  Of course, I’d stay. I kicked at a rock nearby and hurt my toe through the sneaker. Tornadoes sucked! We still had goodbyes to say, stories to tell, addresses to exchange. That’s right! I looked to his cabin and the bus, and at my watch. I had time to make it and find my sketch pad.

  Like the wind, I ran to my cabin and scrawled my address and our phone number. Like the wind, I ran back towards the bus and saw it was packed, a woman crossing names off a list while the few remaining children left. She gently, but firmly, touched their shoulders as they went up, signaling delays were not accepted.

  I saw the unmistakable russet hair at the end of the line. He’d probably had time to put his pack in the bag compartment because he had an ipod in his hand and a black shirt on. I’d never seen him in black, but he was probably sweaty from the run.

  “Oscar!” I yelled and ran to him.

  He turned, and his brows went from furrowed to raised arches. He took the paper I was holding out for him right before the woman near the bus called again.

  “Oshy!”

  “Goodbye, Oscar!” I said, lifting my hand and waving.

  “Goodbye.” He answered in a weird voice like he was holding back words I’d never know.

  “Write to me!” I yelled as he was climbing inside the bus.

  He looked towards me once more and lifted his chin.

  Then the bus left, leaving me behind, with my sketches and my love for a boy with golden eyes.

  Truly Yours is a full-length novel releasing during early summer 2018

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