She has been trying to capture his hands for weeks now. She used to think that she should stick to inanimate objects—she’s pretty good with office supplies and buildings. But there’s something about his hands, the way that they move over keyboards and desktops and blue silk, that she wants desperately to draw. And so she decides to be brave one night. She starts with a pencil, then tries charcoal and pastels and even water color. Nothing seems to work.

            Then she remembers how, when she was a kid, she would color a whole sheet of paper black with a crayon and then scratch images out of the wax with a paper clip. She spends the better part of an hour with that crayon, pushing so hard that there’s almost nothing left, and when she’s done a whole page of her sketchbook is black.

            She carefully unfolds the paperclip, making it as straight as possible. She stares at the black page for a few more moments. Then she starts to scratch the wax away.

            His hands seem to float out at her as she sketches them. Everything starts to feel right. She starts to see his knuckles, his fingernails, the tiny, almost invisible hairs that cover his fingers. And when she is done, she is pleasantly surprised to see how well she has succeeded.

            She hangs the picture on the wall of her bedroom and wakes up to it each morning.

            She decides to make a change. It’s not that she doesn’t like jelly beans; it’s just that no one has been eating them lately. When she has gone more than a week without refilling her candy jar, she throws the jelly beans in the trash. The next morning, she comes into work with a giant bag of Skittles.

            They are the hit of the office. She has to refill the jar twice before lunch.

            She does notice, of course, that Jim doesn’t stop to grab any Skittles. She knows he’s mad about Roy, and that he’s probably having a hard time with Karen this week, and that it might be awhile before things start to get better between them. But the bruise on his cheek has already started to fade, and he still won’t even look at her.

            But before he leaves that night, he pauses at her desk, carefully opens the candy jar, and takes five Skittles—one of each color.

            “They’re best if you eat them all together,” he says before tossing the entire handful in his mouth.

            She narrows her eyes and pulls out five Skittles of her own.

            “Oh, wow,” she says slowly. “That’s really good.”

            “You seem surprised,” he says.

            She shrugs and waves as he leaves the office. Then she grabs five more Skittles.

             She hasn’t been eating well lately. Really, she hasn’t been eating well ever since she moved into her own place. Cooking for one person is hard. She hates having enough leftovers to eat for a whole week; it just reminds her that she’s eating alone.

            So most nights, she grabs something fast on her way home—a burger, a sandwich, sometimes a burrito. She knows that she should go back to the way she was eating when she was planning her wedding. She should probably also start going to the fitness center in her apartment complex. But she’s always so tired when she gets home from work. The days have seemed longer, more exhausting, since Jim came back.

            She has a wedding to go to this weekend, an old friend from college. She stares at the invitation for a few minutes, trying to decide whether she has anything to wear or whether she can afford to go shopping for something new. She stands in front of her closet and fingers her clothes, finally letting her hand settle on a shiny blue dress that she hasn’t worn in almost a year.

            It probably won’t fit, she tells herself as she slips it off the hanger. I’ve probably put on too much weight. She carefully slips it over her head and pulls the zipper up her back.

            She glances at herself in the mirror and realizes that the dress still fits perfectly. It still makes her waist look tiny—which is why she bought it in the first place—and it still brushes against her legs with that soft sound that she loves. She smoothes the fabric over her hips then looks at herself in the mirror again. She’s surprised to see that her reflection is smiling.

            By the time her next art show rolls around, Karen has been gone for three weeks. She feels bad sometimes that things ended up this way. It had been nice to have a fried—an almost friend, at least—who was her own age and had a normal sense of humor. But Pam figures that the job in New York had been too good to pass up, and the relationship with Jim was probably just complicated enough to leave behind.

            This time when she stands in front of her artwork, she feels more confident. She hadn’t planned on telling the whole office, but she made the mistake of mentioning it to Kelly. And now Michael is here, and Kelly has dragged Ryan, and Pam finds herself proudly explaining some of her more abstract pieces.

            She has decided to bring the picture of Jim’s hands, which she leaves untitled.

            By the time the show is over, she is getting tired of standing, but she has had people talking to her about her artwork all night. She has a few business cards tucked away in her purse from gallery owners who’d like to see more of her work. A few people have offered her money for the picture of the hands, but that one is not for sale.

            She doesn’t expect to see him emerge from the crowd of people making their way to the door. It’s already nine o’clock and she’s supposed to start taking her pieces down. But she just smiles and lets him stare at the artwork. She knows that he’s focusing on one piece in particular.

            “Thanks for coming,” she says suddenly, and she throws her arms around his neck. “I’m really glad you’re here.”

            “Me too,” he says, and she feels the rumble of his voice in her chest. She’s hugging him too tightly. She tries to step back, embarrassed, but instead finds herself ducking her head a little to find his lips.

            Kissing him is not like she remembers, she realizes with some vague sense of surprise. It’s better.

For some reason, she has always imagined that he would toss and turn in his sleep. It's not that Jim is fidgety, necessarily; he just always seems to have this extra energy with nowhere to go. And she assumed he would have really vivid dreams, the kind that feel like they’re actually happening, the kind where you wake yourself up thrashing but in a good way.

            But he doesn’t. He sleeps on his back, one arm thrown over his head, and he doesn’t move except to breathe. She is surprised by his stillness, thrilled by his serenity. She watches him for what feels like hours, wondering if he’s ever going to move again. She wonders what he’s dreaming about. And when he stirs, just a little, she settles against his chest and smiles, knowing that she will wake up in this position in the morning.