Plain Jane beautiful 2

"Jane, It's after 3 am...What are you doing?"
"I'm being inspired."

Charcoal crumbs disappeared from my fingers as a drew a luminous figure on my wall.
Father always saw my talent but did not quite understand where it came from and why at such stupendous hours of the mornings.

"Jane you have school in the morning!"
"I know, Father. I am almost finished."

He closed my door after standing there in his old man underwear, awakened by the light from my room that spilled out into the hallway. I often imagined that it had snuck in under his door and tickled his nose to wake him. It always woke him.
I looked up at my figure, a faceless man in a toppled hat, that hid behind my door when it was open, but watched over me as I slept. He kept me company when I was was left to my own devices in my room.
I looked at my hands.....black with soot.
I wiped them on my shirt and went to bed. My mother would be mad at my laundry somewhere down the road. She always found paint or something there.

She came into my room and saw the figure behind the door
"Oh My Gad!"
My mother didn't like him.
"Where's his face , Jane?"
I drew it faintly because in essence he knew how I felt....how people looked at me...how I sometimes wanted to look at myself.
" It's there mother, You just have to picture it for yourself."
"Oh"....she stared and then commented that i had better clean my room before my father got home from work.
...Then she left.

"
Jane....She doesn't like me..." He said.
"She doesn't have to..... You belong to me anyway.....I like you. Is that not enough?"

"Why do I have to stay behind the door, Jane?"

I closed the door and gave him full access to my room.
I opened the curtains too.

"This is your place when I"m at school."
"You can have it."

"Mrs. Johnson won't let me draw you at school. She says you look evil..."
"SO I'm keeping you here and giving you more space than a piece of paper."

He stood over 6 feet tall, his hat slumped because of my ceiling, his back slouched to fit.
He smiled at me.

In my heart he had been given something, given life, a heart, character and he was full of questions...
He wasn't a voice in my head...he was someone that I created. fictional, yet real .
And I loved him....so he could love me back.....
because so many couldn't....

Much like me...created.... to be loved....Plain Jane, yet beautiful.
with a heart and character.
with so many questions.....
Despite the librarians in the mirror or the voices at school.
My mother painted over him years ago....but I still see him behind the door.
It's still his room while I'm gone.

"I've missed you, Jane."
" You look beautiful!"

I smiled at him.
His hat slumped....his smile wide.
"I am beautiful!"