Pam is drawing wheat. That is the assignment. Actually, that is her assignment. To be fair, she wasn't assigned wheat per se; she was assigned "plant life." But, sitting in her apartment, on her yard sale couch, Pam can't get her mind off of him. He is forever in the forefront, staring at her, whispering to her, imploring her, distracting her. It shouldn't be such a hardship. After all, he was always in the forefront before he.....left. But sitting on her yard sale couch, she can't concentrate on plant life, and if she draws, shades, or paints his smile, his eyes, his arms or hands, she'll fail the assignment, and even worse, find herself knocking on pathetic's door.

How does one bring something new to "plant life?" How is she going to bring something new? She starts with roses and hates herself immediately. She moves to vines and is disgusted. Beets are not even a possibility. She feels a little more hopeful about the birch trees, but really Bev Doolittle has done for birches what Georgia O'Keeffe did for flowers, and Pam feels so far removed from those giants, that it's just too depressing to do anything reminiscent of either of them. Lavender bores her; dandelions are prosaic; she contemplates vegetables, but feels ridiculous when she starts sketching tomatoes and cucumbers and finds herself blushing. Mind out of the gutter Beesly. And that does it.

She can't not work on his image any longer. She can't restrain herself, but she doesn't want to be that girl, so rather than starting with his eyes or good Lord those forearms, she starts with an eyebrow, concentrating on the orbital ridge and each individual strand that makes up the whole that is his left eyebrow. She works upward and focuses on his forehead and the marks concentration left between his eyebrows. Eventually, she strokes and shades his hair onto the page.

She contemplates that page for a while, then slowly, turns the pad over.

So, Pam is drawing wheat. A wheat field to be exact. Because the shades and motion of wind blown wheat remind her of his hair.

A week later she turns in a piece entitled "Wheat: A Study of Movement and Light," medium: watercolor, color pencil and pastel.

A week after that her professor fails to return her project at the beginning of the class, which is either good, or very, very bad. When he takes the drape off of the easel holding her piece, he smiles at her and makes a statement that causes her to blush out of sheer pride and private embarrassment. "Miss Beesly, would you care to enlighten the class about this piece? You have accomplished something I never thought possible. You've managed to bring a profound sense of eroticism to this field of wheat. Can you tell us what was your inspiration?"

Pam smiles, blushes, glances down to hide the tears that fill her eyes when she thinks about how proud he would be of her for the steps she has taken to change and grow.

She looks apologetically at the professor and politely declines.