Between the Pages of Me
Words by Alexandria Mitchell-Pressman
Art by Fritz Von Eric *
Art by Fritz Von Eric
The attic smelled of cedar and forgotten things. It was late afternoon, and golden light filtered through the dust motes, turning everything hazy and dreamlike. The wooden floor creaked beneath Elise’s bare feet as she reached for the last unopened box. She had meant only to do some cleaning for just an hour, maybe two, sorting through the remnants of a life she had built without much thought. But something about the weight of the afternoon light, thick with dust and nostalgia, made her linger.
Elise ran her hands over the spines of old books, the silk of an evening gown she could no longer remember wearing, the cool, tarnished metal of a jewelry box that no longer snapped shut. Her fingers traced the edges of a box she did not recognize. It was small, made of worn leather, and when she lifted the lid, the scent of paper and ink rose to meet her. Letters.
With a slow breath, she pulled one from the pile. The paper was thinner than she remembered, the ink slightly smudged. The handwriting was unmistakably hers, but not as it was now. This was younger, more fevered, slanted with urgency. She turned the letter over. June 1993. She would have been twenty-four.
A strange shiver moved through her. She sat down on an old trunk, her fingers unsteady as she unfolded the page.
Elise,
Do you remember last night? Do you remember how the rain made the streets glisten, how your skin felt electric when you danced alone in your tiny apartment? You drank red wine straight from the bottle and painted until dawn, your fingers streaked with blue and gold.
Her chest tightened.
She did remember. Paris. That tiny flat with the peeling walls, the window that rattled in the wind. She remembered standing barefoot on the cold tile, her limbs loose with wine, spinning until the world blurred around her. She had painted then — furiously, compulsively — because it was the only way to translate the hunger she carried in her bones.
She read the letter twice, three times, as if trying to grasp something just out of reach. Then she reached for another. She had written these letters to remind herself of something, and then she had forgotten them in a box.
Why?
August 1995
Elise,
What would you say if I told you I almost kissed him? That on the bridge over the Seine, when the lights flickered on the water and the wind lifted my hair, he touched my chin, and I…God, I wanted to. But I didn’t. I walked away, shaking, wanting. Always wanting. Why do I run from things that set me on fire?
A laugh, soft and bitter, escaped her. She knew exactly who she had been writing about. Gabriel. The American poet with ink-stained fingers and a voice like honey. She had wanted him the way she wanted everything then. Recklessly, but from a distance.
She closed her eyes. The weight of time pressed against her ribs.
What had she done with that girl?
The letters consumed her for weeks. Each evening, she would disappear into the attic, bringing down a few at a time. She read them in bed, in the bath, by candlelight. They were fevered things, filled with longing for adventure, for love, for art, for a life that felt vast and endless. They smelled of ink and citrus, of old wine stains and the salt of the sea.
Art by Fritz Von Eric
Elise,
Tonight, I touched a piece of silk and thought of hands on skin. I watched a woman close her eyes as she sipped her coffee, as if tasting was a kind of prayer. I want to live like that. I want my life to be a slow burn, a poem in motion.
Elise,
I stood naked in front of the mirror and did not flinch. My body is mine, a canvas I am still learning. The curves, the scars, the places that blush under fingertips. I wonder if I will always feel this way. Like I am discovering myself for the first time, again and again.
She read them late into the night, her heart sorrowful. She had been so alive then, so aware of sensation, of color, of texture. She had written about standing barefoot on cool marble floors, of the way orange peels released their oil when pressed. She had written about kissing strangers in candlelit bars, about poetry whispered against collarbones.
And yet, somewhere along the way, she had put it all away.
The girl in the letters had been buried under years of practicality. Elise, at fifty-four, was composed, elegant. She had built a life of quiet success, of stability. But was she happy? Was she truly awake?
The letters asked questions she didn’t want to answer.
She pulled out a letter with a smudged corner, the ink slightly blurred as if it had been held by damp fingers.
October 1994.
Elise,
Tonight, I let a stranger touch me, and I think I loved him for it.
He was a painter, like me. He smelled like sandalwood and oranges. His hands were rough with calluses, but when he traced the inside of my wrist, I swore I felt worship there.
It happened in his studio, where the air was thick with oil paint and the faint, bitter scent of coffee gone cold. I was wearing that black dress, the one that slides off the shoulder if I breathe too deeply. He was shirtless, stained with colors I couldn’t name, and when he kissed me, I tasted sugar and the promise of ruin.
I let him press me against the canvas. He laughed, said he wanted to paint me in the way that lovers do. Not with brushes, but with touch. And so he did. He traced me with his fingertips, with his mouth, with the heat of his skin against mine. When he took me to the floor, I arched beneath him, my back pressed against something unfinished. By morning, I woke up tangled in sheets and streaked in shades of red and sienna. I looked in the mirror and saw myself turned into art.
I left before he woke up.
I don’t think I’ll see him again, but it doesn’t matter. Some things are meant to be brief, like a stroke of color across a canvas. I think I needed to be touched like that, to be reminded that my body is not just a vessel, but something to be felt, to be seen.
I hope you have not forgotten.
She had. Or rather, she had let the memory settle beneath the weight of years, buried under obligations, routines, the dull comfort of certainty.
But now, sitting alone in the soft glow of her bedroom, she could still feel the roughness of a painter’s hands, the way his breath had traced fire along her skin, the way she had let herself be something more than careful, more than composed.
She found herself standing in front of her mirror. She let her robe slip from her shoulders, watched as it pooled around her feet. Her fingers bruised against bare skin, tracing the lines that hadn’t been there before. Delicate creases at the corners of her mouth, the soft swell of her stomach, the faint silvering at her temples. The girl in the letters had believed in worship, in reverence. Could she believe it now?
She closed her eyes and thought of silk, of warm hands, of the night air against her skin in a city that smelled of rain and cigarettes.
Her reflection had been something else entirely once. She had been taut, her body firm with the arrogance of youth. Nights had been filled with fingers pressing into the small of her back, teeth grazing the curve of her shoulder. Now, she watched herself with quieter eyes. There was softness where sharpness had been, wisdom where wildness had lurked. Her fingers drifted across her collarbone, down the slope of her breast, over the gentle curve of her hip. She thought of the girl she had been, of the woman she had become, and the space between them.
Art by Fritz Von Eric
She exhaled, long and slow.
In the morning, she painted. She hadn’t picked up a brush in years, but today she did. She filled a canvas with color. Deep reds, ochres, the blue of the sea at dusk. She painted with her fingers, smearing, blending, pressing herself into the work. It felt reckless. It felt holy.
And when she was finished, she opened a fresh page in her notebook, took a deep breath, and began to write.
Elise,
I’m finding you again.
She let the words settle, then picked up another letter, the final one in the box.
December 1999
Elise,
If you are reading this, promise me you will not shrink yourself. Promise me you will taste life the way it was meant to be tasted: messy, full of flavor, without fear. Let yourself want.
Her throat tightened. She pressed the letter to her lips, as if she could kiss the past and taste herself again.
And then she went downstairs. She poured herself a glass of wine, turned on the music, and just as she had done thirty years ago, she danced.
And this time, she did not stop.