The train screeches to a stop as it reaches the station. The distorted images of people in the glass windows soon phase back into reality as the ghostly voice over the PA announces that we have reached the capital.
 
With haste I squeeze past the double doors, just barely avoiding the waves of flesh and suits. The pristine white tiles were blank, like the canvas of the old atelier where we last spoke. It reminded me of her, untouched by people yet so close to them.
 
It has been seven years since I saw her.
 
I ascended the gray staircase that lead to the city above. The slippery pavement, the splashing of raindrops in the puddles of rainwater echoed. That last afternoon we spent, echoing in the same sky and the same rain we walked under so long ago. More people, faceless people, obscured by the umbrellas they held to protect their faces and themselves from the pouring rain. Close, but never touching. She liked the rain.
 
I walked straight, not really knowing where I was going. Going where ever the street and pavement lead me. Skyscrapers, office buildings, and streets full of souls peppered the eye of my mind. So much to see, so much being said.Within minutes I realized I was lost.
 
The letter said that she would be at the studio. 0 Gull Avenue. Of course. How could I forget? She was an artist, after all.
 
But where? Where was the studio?
 
Funny. That lost feeling. The city was a cold, concrete maze. Comfort, understanding and simple human companionship. Things that I learned that I should not expect, yet should never turn away, from others.
 
I stopped to ask directions from an older man, who lit a cigarette under a building scaffold, taking shelter from the rain.
 
“Sure. Gull Avenue, is it? You’d better turn around.”
 
“Why?” I asked.
 
The old man shrugged and looked at the ground, taking a puff from his cigarette. “You’ve been walking the wrong way the whole time.” He looked towards me again. “Gull Avenue is all the way north.”
 
I thanked the man before I turned around. And so I trudged back the other way, back into the rain.
 
Never knowing where you are, where she is and what we were looking for. It’s like she never left.
 
~~~~
 
By the time I finally reached the studio it was 4:00. The rain had not ceased. The studio was white on the outside, made of marble and finely cut granite. Aside from it’s opulent building blocks it was a humble establishment. No fancy lettering or elaborate decorations. Not even a rug outside the revolving doors.
 
The lobby of the studio was cold and empty, except for the receptionist typing away at the computer at the polished oak desk in front of the entrance.
 
“Good afternoon. I am here to see Ms. Rin Tezuka. Do you know where she is?”
 
The receptionist gave me a puzzled look. A somber one. “I’m sorry, Ms. Tezuka is no-”
 
“I have an appointment with Ms. Tezuka.”
 
The receptionist looked away, unsure of what to say. “Of course, sir. Ms. Tezuka is in the 1st multi-purpose conference room. You’ll be able to see her, but only be until tomorrow.
 
“That is fine.”
 
I walked away silent as the corridors and halls of the studio began to unfold before me.
 
Rin and I did not speak much before, even after that last moment we spent in the rain on the day after her exhibit.
 
I open the double doors of the massive multipurpose  room. Aside from the pristine marble floor, the room felt like a conference hall. The walls were adorned with paintings.
 
We were walking down the street. I remembered that it was a rainy afternoon. Under my umbrella we walked, our footsteps splashing in the puddles forming before us. Her sandals did not do much to protect her feet from the cold.
 
I guess it didn’t matter. Her feet were her hands, the instruments with which she created her world. The way she touched the world around her.
 
The splashing of our footsteps were uncoordinated, unmatched.
 
“Why did you have the exhibit?”
 
She shrugged. I noticed that she was starting to drift away from the umbrella. Always staring at the sky, the rain that fell like heaven’s tears. As if she could touch them with the arms, the hands that she did not have.
 
She walked faster, creating a gap between us. I struggled to pick up my pace, vainly trying to cover her with my umbrella. It was no use.
 
It was always like this. Ever since that night we spent watching the fireworks on her mural outside the dormitories. The night I found her, cold and starving in the old atelier, struggling to find inspiration to paint.
 
The way she broke down during the exhibit. How she ran away and yet returned to it. How she told me she didn’t want the exhibit. Even having the exhibit in the first place.
 
What was she trying to accomplish with the exhibit? Whatever it was, it was clear that she failed. A dream that she thought could come true.
 
It’s okay to dream. And it’s okay to be disappointed.
 
But that doesn’t justify pushing others away. You can’t just bend the world, and people, to what you want them to be. That’s not how the world works. It’s selfish.
 
But Rin was never one for words. I would never stop trying to bridge that gap between us. But it was hopeless. Whatever she was looking for, it was something I fooled myself into thinking I could give her.
 
Suddenly, the rain stopped, sun shining from the parting clouds. As I fumbled to close my umbrella, I failed to listen to the footsteps going away from me.
 
“I wanted someone to understand me.”
 
She turned around, staring at me with her green eyes. The green eyes that once burned with passion and determination were gone. There was nothing but sadness.
 
The raindrops on her emotionless face. They were tears.
 
“I wanted someone to say ’I understand how you feel’ so I wouldn’t have to be alone anymore.”
 
“Wouldn’t that be great?”
 
“Yes…but why is it so important?”
 
She stared at the ground. “Because otherwise, I’m not sure I can do this.”
 
For once, I was the one left speechless. My heart, my mouth froze with her words.
 
“When someone laughs, you laugh with them right? Because that’s what you’re supposed to do, a joy doubled is a joy tripled…”
 
She paused. Her eyes darted left and right, as if the right words would pop out of the alleyways. The sleeves of her shirt, tied at the stumps of her arms, sunk lower from the water.
 
“When someone is sad, you comfort them, you hug them becau-”
She stops. There was nothing I could say.
 
“I don’t know why I can’t laugh or cry when I should. I don’t know why I can’t say the right words. I don’t know why they won’t come out. I feel like I’m going to burst from all the things I want to say and I can’t do anything.“
 
No. “But at the exhibit…everyone wanted to talk to you! Everyone was there for your art.  For you!”
 
Rin shook her head. “No.”
 
“They wanted to see the artist. They saw the art but they didn’t want to know it. They didn’t want to know me. No one does.“ She looked up at me, with those green eyes. Those watery eyes could not belong to the Rin I knew.
 
“Who would ever want to feel like that?”
 
She chokes back her tears. “I don’t. I don’t want to feel like that.”
 
As she said those words the rain poured on us. I didn’t bother opening the umbrella. It wouldn’t stop the tears. We stared at each other. Her expressionless face and mine locking eyes for the last time in seven years.
 
It was only until I looked away from the absolute sorrow in her eyes that I found my voice.
 
“Rin, everyone wants to be understood by someone.” Why couldn’t I look at her?
 
“But that is impossible. No one can understand anyone or be understood by anyone. Not even me.”
 
I couldn’t face her. I stared at the ground. Her feet, no, her hands, were wringing themselves in her sandals.
 
“You can only affect others and be affected by them, but in the end we can only see the world and people as we see them. We can’t hope to be understood in the way we want to be.”
 
The truth felt colder than the rain on the back of my neck. But there were no words I could say that could make her feel better.
 
I looked up to see Rin’s eyes meet mine. She stared at me, without blinking.
 
“How can you say that?” she demanded.
 
There was no more intimidation in her voice. I no longer felt fear when she spoke those words behind her emotionless mask.
 
“How can you say that when you made me believe otherwise?”
 
I couldn’t find the right words to say. I couldn’t find any words to say.
 
“I thought that I wouldn’t have to be alone anymore. I thought you could understand me.”
 
I couldn‘t tell what was rain and what were tears. “Because saying anything else would be lying.”
 
“Why?”
 
I wished she would stop asking questions. “Because I am no artist. I can‘t see the world you see. Because to understand you, I would have to be you, and that is something I can’t do, no matter how much you or I want to.”
 
“But I’m no artist.”
 
Even now, Rin bewildered me. The literal way she took the world and the words of others. But if there was one thing I was sure about Rin is that she was always serious.
 
“I just paint to show myself how I feel. It’s the only way I can do that.”
 
Her paintings weren’t a reflection of the world she sees, or the world she wants.
 
They were just reflections of her. Not who she was, but who she is.
 
I was wrong. Rin was not a deep, misunderstood artist searching for an unrealistic ideal, out toplay on my emotions and confusions as if I was a muse. She was a person. A friend. A friend who I failed to be there for.
 
A girl that I thought I loved, a girl I thought I could love, a girl that wanted to be loved.
 
A girl I failed to be a friend for. The one looking into my eyes, searching for a friend that wasn’t there.
 
“If even you say so, then It’s settled. I am leaving.”
 
Again I was surprised. “What?”
 
“I am leaving. Teacher recommended me to an art school in the capital. It’s a very prestigious school, I’m su-”
 
“Hold on. Why didn’t you tell anyone?”
 
She was puzzled. “I just did. You are the first one I’ve told.”
 
“Don’t you want to be with us? With everyone?”
 
“Everyone who? You said we were all alone.” She was twisting my words.
 
“Won’t you even try?”
 
“Their lives aren’t mine. I am not everyone. I am not you.” She tried to wipe the raindrops from her forehead, but it was hard without arms. “You said it yourself. I have my own life to live.”
 
I could feel my frustration and anger boiling inside of my heart. She twisted my words. I can’t let this happen.
 
But I made it happen. Those were my words. And now we stood silent again. Staring at each other. The shadows of our bodies grew longer as time went by, but never meeting. Never touching. We broke our gaze, with both of us staring at the floor. Looking at the same thing but never at each other.
 
“Do you hate me?”
 
“No. I am your friend. I promised you that.”
 
“Can you ever hate me?”
 
Before I could answer, Rin throws herself across the gap between us. Her damp shirt, soaked and laden in rain, melded against mine. Rin’s body was cold against mine. Like the night I found her starving in the atelier, yet her breath was warm. I struggled as she lifted herself higher like a bird into my chest, resting her chin on my shoulder. I draped her in my arms, holding her as tightly as if I could stop her, stop us from separating.
 
“No.”
 
She broke off slowly, creating that gap between us again. She stared at the stumps of her arms.
 
“I can’t hug anyone. Not like you. Not like anyone else. I’m a bad person for that.
 
That’s why I have to go. I will be a real artist. And maybe then I can hug people in my own way.
 
But then I won’t be me anymore.”
 
I waited. This was it. Rin found the words she needed to say.
 
Her emotionless mask cracked a faint smile for a faint hope. A dream, the same dream she wanted to fulfill. To be understood, to understand and to feel.
 
The rain stopped, yet I could still feel it falling on my cheeks.
 
“That’s why I want you to forget about me. And I’ll forget about you too.”
 
She turned around, walking off into the distance. Back to her atelier. Our shadows grew farther apart until she crossed the horizon.
 
There were no words left for us.
 
~~
 
I could never forget. And today was the day I would see her again.
 
From the distance I could see her. She was alone in the vast room. She didn’t stir when I walked in the room. But somehow, she knew I would come.
 
I looked around the room. No one else came.
 
As I walked through the large room I saw paintings hung on the wall, leaning on it, even placed in the wooden pews lining the aisles. Without a doubt I knew they were Rin’s.
 
A genderless face, with blank black eyes and a open mouth. I couldn’t tell if it was screaming, crying, talking, or whether it was happy or sad.
 
A crookedly drawn woman without hands, connected at the shoulder to a man’s right shoulder. The man had no eyes or ears. Both were screaming. The woman’s eyes and ears were humongous. The man’s right arm had two hands, an extra one where the woman’s had would’ve been.
 
A blue woman in the distance, kneeling and clutching the earth, with a male figure in the foreground, staring into a chasm that somehow looked like a wall as well.
 
Her paintings haunted me. There was something similar about each and every one of them.
 
It would seem that she didn’t forget me either.
 
Every step I took seemed like an eternity. At the end I found myself at the same distance, that same gap that would always be between us.
 
She still had her messy auburn hair. Her expressionless face. That cute nose.
 
“Hello, Rin.”
 
She didn’t respond. She didn’t look at me. Rin never was one for words. It didn’t matter. After seven years, just being here would be fine.
 
“I came like the letter asked. It didn’t bother to me that you didn’t write it. You made quite a name for yourself, everyone at the college was excited when they heard that you were going to be an artist in the city. I’m happy you finally became a real artist.”
 
Nothing. She still stared into open space.
 
“I’m here because I promised you that I was your friend. I never forgot about you, because doing so would mean I would have to stop being your friend.”
 
Maybe there was a smile on her face. Maybe there wasn’t. I believed that there was.
 
“Look, I can’t take back the things I said seven years ago. But I can say that I’ve always wanted to fulfill that dream of yours. To understand you. To make sure you never have to be alone. To be the friend you wanted me to be so you wouldn’t have to be sad anymore.”
 
“And I tried, but I ended up making you push me away. In trying to understand you, I tried to take you away from what you wanted. To be understood.” Did that make sense? Were those the right words?
 
“Those paintings. You always painted what you felt. But when you took that job, when the teacher told you to make paintings, you couldn’t. You needed to feel something.
 
That’s why you wanted me to stay away. So you would miss me and have those feelings. You wanted to know that you could feel, you wanted to feel. So you pushed me away.
 
But no one else saw that. No one else understood you behind the paintings. All they saw were the brushstrokes. The colors. Any artist could have done that. But no one saw you underneath the paint.”
 
The words I should’ve said seven years ago. The words that could have made her stay. I didn’t care that she didn’t stir or say anything. Whether she was listening or not, these were words I will never take back.
 
“I know I didn‘t.”
 
“You wanted someone to understand you. You wanted to hug others and be hugged in return. You wanted me to understand you.
 
But I couldn’t do that. Because I let you go. Because I let you go and change into someone you didn’t want -- need -- to be. It was my fault.”
 
“But I’m here now. And I’m sorry I couldn’t be there for you. I’m sorry I left you alone.”
 
“You never forgot about me. You never left me. I can see it -- feel it, feel you, in the paintings. Why couldn’t I say that to you before?”
 
I froze, staring at her emotionless face for what seemed hours. Just like the last time we spoke.
 
“Now I can’t find the right words. So I’ll hug you. Because now I think I understand. Like you wanted me to.”
 
There was no one around to see us. It wouldn’t have mattered to me. This was the least I could do for her now.
 
I draped her in my arms again. I must’ve been imagining it, because she was the one who felt warm against my skin. Even though I knew she would never look at me again.
 
And yet I still gazed into her eyes, searching for the world she saw behind the pale eyelids. Not the eyes full of longing and sadness, but the ambitious green eyes that I longed to see again.
 
To see her smile again, just once, knowing that she will be all right. But this was enough. This would be all right.
 
“I have to go Rin. But I’m here now. I’ll visit you whenever I can.”
 
I left the flowers on her chest before I walked towards the double doors. I stared back at the girl I knew, draped in white and silent as snow. At the paintings that were a testament to her existence, to Rin Tezuka. Somehow, I knew she was still there.