Through Glass by Rebecca Ethington

through the years. I had pulled the pictures from frames, from albums and every other place I had found them in an attempt to fill my walls. I had ripped faces out of other pictures; the jagged edge of the pictures the only white that remained in my world.
    I could lay down in my bed in the small sanctuary I had built, look at the smiles and pretend I wasn’t alone. I had only placed the smiling pictures on the wall, not the ones of angry brothers or scowling mothers.
    Only the smiles.
    I fell down onto my bed, my body protesting the exertion of the small amount of energy I had saved up by going down for breakfast. I kept the groan inside my throat as I turned to face the picture of Cohen and I that I had placed right at eye level. The picture was one from his high school graduation. He was smiling at the camera as he held me against him, both of our grins wide and cheesy.
    I raised my hand to touch the photo, my fingers hovering above it as I pretended to touch his face. I kept them there, away from the surface, not letting my gritty skin come in contact with the precious picture. As much as I wanted to hold the picture, to press it against my chest and run my fingers over the surface, I didn’t want to ruin it. I didn’t want to lose the memory.
    Everything tightened inside of me as I looked at it. Cohen’s hand was against my arm, his other wrapped around my shoulder. We both grinned widely as someone—my mom, I think—took the picture.
    Touch.
    Sometimes I would go to sleep trying to remember what touch felt like. What his touch had felt like.
    I reached my hand underneath my flattened pillow and pulled out the black ink pen I had found in the old office during my scavenge last week. I pressed the tip against the dirty skin of my wrist, the ink dragging onto my skin as I pushed the point down, tracing over the lines that Cohen had put there all those years ago.
    I followed the swoop of the lines, my fingers having done it so many times I no longer needed to watch; I knew where the pen needed to go.
    I let the ink cover my wrist, making the drawing I had been left with darker than it was before. I had gotten really good at keeping my left hand steady as I drew on my wrist. As I traced, I let my memory flow back to that night; to the way his fingers felt against mine, the taste of his kiss…
    My revelry was cut short by the deep buzzing that sounded through my room. The low sound was as loud as a fog horn in my ears and I jumped up, hitting the pillow that housed the old wind up alarm clock in a quick attempt to turn it off. The buzzing stopped automatically and I tensed, my body waiting for one minute, waiting for the screech that would herald my death, but it never came.
    My shoulders relaxed and I slid off my bed. My tired body pulling itself onto the large desk before I opened the heavy curtain that covered the window.
    Cohen was already there, waiting for me. His eyes shining through the darkness that we were both surrounded by. His lips twitched in a smile when he saw me and his hand moved to press against the glass.
    I moved my hand to do the same, my skin pressing against the cold, smooth surface the same way we did every day. I looked at his hand, the forever stained fingertips from his charcoal, the calluses. I longed to touch it, to be with him, but it was impossible.
    So many others had proven that.
    My eyes moved to meet his, my smile small against my lips as I watched his hand move up to form letters; it was the slow movement of the sign language we’d had to resort to after our markers had dried up.
    “How is Frances?” he asked, his lips turning up as if he had discovered a great joke.
    “She’s a diva,” I signed back, exaggerating my facial expressions as I played along. “Still pouting that she didn’t listen to my web choice.”
    “Diva,” he agreed, his eyes rolling dramatically as he signed the word.
    “She is!” I signed quickly through a smile. “Whoever thought an eight legged