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...continuation of drawings...

He stood staring into the window.  His eyes sought the object of his obsession.  Obsession was the only word he could use to describe the emotions that tormented him.  He had purposely avoided the cafe for the past two weeks.  Somehow he had figured that if he didn't see her, she would slowly but surely disappear from him mind. It had not worked.  Her image was engraved upon his brain.  Every time he picked up a pencil or pen he found himself sketching her from memory.  Charcoals seemed to me his favorite medium as of late.  For the life of him, he could not understand how someone could weasel their way so easily into his heart.  He looked at her, sitting surrounded as always by stacks of papers.  He wanted to deny that his heart was involved, but the tightening in his chest told him his heart was completely taken by her.  The first time he saw her, she had stolen his breath.  Even the way she seemed so oblivious to the world around her brought a smile to his lips.  He wanted so badly to shake her out of her trance and open her eyes to the world around her.  Instead, he sat there silently and sketched.  Somehow he just couldn't seem to capture her just right.  Several times he had tried to catch her attention, but he had failed miserably save that one day.  He had asked to borrow a chair.  And finally, she pulled her gaze away from her work and looked at him.  If he hadn't noticed the tug at his heart strings before, that moment he found himself completely rapt.  But all she did was nod.  She didn't say a word.  He probably would have stopped coming at that point, however, he felt drawn.  He spent another two weeks just sitting there hoping that maybe what he had seen her eyes in that moment was a twinkle of what he felt.  After watching her for those weeks continue to work as though that connection had not occurred was more than he could handle.  The only way he thought he might be able to let go of her was to walk away and clear his mind of her image.  But she had continued to haunt him.  Each day for the past two weeks her image plagued him.  Where before he might only see her image floating before him once or twice, he was now constantly picturing her.  He gazed at her through the window, watched her work, and wondered if she had even noticed he was gone.  The ache in his heart at the thought that he might never know hurt more than he cared to admit.  He looked down at his feet and contemplated what he should do.  Move on, was what is brain was telling him.  One more look, was what his heart was asking for.  He looked up once more.  He didn't need to memorize the moment or the way she looked because he lived and breathed it every second of everyday.  With a sigh he began to turn his gaze away from the window.  Out of the corner of his eye he saw her look up.  He turned back to find her looking directly at him.  The left corner of her mouth lifted into a half smile.  Her eyes seemed to soften.  She leaned down, never once breaking eye contact and withdrew a piece of paper from her bag.  He watched her eyebrows raise in a questioning manner as she turned the paper toward him.  There staring back at him was the last sketch he had made of her before his hiatus from the cafe.  It had been a decent sketch, but compared to her it had been pitiful.  So, like most of his cafe sketches of her it had ended up in the trash.  How she had come to possess it was beyond him.  But he had every intention of finding out.

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She spread the crumpled coffee stained paper out on the table in front of her.  Tears began to swim in her eyes.  Everyday for the past six weeks she had sat here and barely noticed him.  She was too absorbed in her work to even look up from the papers that were always scattered about the table.  When he first approached her to ask to borrow her sugar, she had mindlessly grabbed the container off the table and handed it to him without once looking up.  That had been the first week she had missed him.  The following week he had come over and picked up a piece of paper that she hadn't even realized she had dropped.  She barely took her eyes off her work, her gaze only reaching high enough to see his outstretched hand.  It wasn't until the third week that she had actually looked at him.  He had bumped into her on her way in.  She had barely been able to keep her grasp of the papers and binders she carried.  His voice caught her as he apologized.  She stood puzzled staring at his profile and then retreating form as he made his way out of the door.  The whole walk to the table she racked her mind trying to figure out why his voice had sounded so familiar.  It wasn't until the next week that she found out.  He came over to her table and asked to borrow the empty chair.  The voice registered once again and her brain finally kicked into gear.  For the first time she looked up and saw him, truly saw him.  Her voice caught in her throat, her heart fluttered in her chest, and her mind for the first time in months went completely blank forgetting the work that lay constantly spread in front of her.  She had smiled and nodded, unable to find her voice.  For the next two weeks she found herself unable to do work.  Everyday she did her best to come in, spread out her papers and notes, and pretend like she was engrossed in her work.  He plagued her mind.  She casually watched him out of the corner of her eye and became a perpetual klutz in the hopes that he might once again pick up something she dropped.  Nothing seemed to work.  He simply sat there scribbling or doodling or drawing or something on the paper in front of him.  As inconspicuously as possible she watched him.  Everyday his hand would fly across the paper, he'd drink his coffee, and then crumple the paper up, throw it away and leave.  After two weeks of watching, curiosity finally got the best of her.  She waited a good ten minutes before she got up to throw something away and casually took out his crumpled piece of paper.  She walked back to the table with the paper tucked in the palm of her hand resting against her leg so no one might notice.  Then she pretended to work again for a couple of minutes, her irrational thinking that she shouldn't open it up right away in case anyone noticed and was watching her.  She stared at the drawing.  Her hand reached out gingerly to trace the lines of the face that stared back at her.  She bit her bottom lip to keep the tears and the emotions that were suddenly bombarding her at bay.  So engrossed was she, she didn't notice the cafe employee standing next her.  "I think this one is his best by far."  She looked up at the employee.  "He draws everyday he's here.  The rest of the staff and I have been collecting them.  We have them hanging in the break room if you want to see."  She opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out.  She nodded and stood.  He led her back behind the counter through the kitchen into a small room.  There covering the surface of the walls were dozens of drawings.  She gazed from one to the next.  It didn't take long for her to realize they were in chronological order.  Holding the drawing she had skimmed from the trash next to the first, she marveled at how much the face had changed.  The emotions depicted in the first verses the last were so spot on and complete polar opposites.  With the crumpled drawing in hand, she went around the room holding it next to each image.  It didn't take long to spot the change.  She knew exactly what day that picture had been drawn and was entranced by how well the emotions were captured.  She stepped back from the walls and moved toward the door where she could take it all in as a whole.  The employee, gathering that she was done, spoke, "I admit I always thought it a shame that you never noticed."  She just shook her head as almost four dozen pairs of her own eyes stared back at her.