By Meredith Alder

This Story Won Third Prize in Our Contest

Learn More About Our Contest Here

As soon as Victor begins to snore, I vanish into the glow of my phone.

Most nights it’s solitaire. Sometimes, it’s blackjack or this game where you can bet on virtual horses with names like Firefly Circus and Moisturize with Mustard. I play real money games on my phone for hours.

Victor buys us an adjustable bed. He likes to sit upright while grading essays and dozes off with his fingers still resting on the keyboard, his glasses tilted down his nose.

Usually, I drift off with my neck cranked at some unnatural angle that leaves me sore and grouchy the next day. My lack of sleep softens the edges of reality until waking moments bleed into dream sequences. 

When I close my eyes, I see cards fanned out in solitaire hands.

Thursday, on the bus home from work, a dark-haired girl rushes down the aisle, leaving a faint aroma of cigarette smoke and gardenia. She glances over her shoulder as something slips from her bag. It slides to my feet, and I pick it up just as the doors close. 

The girl is already gone.

What she drops is a sketchbook. Spiral-bound, with an amethyst suede cover.

I open it.

The drawings are spare, jagged comic book portraits. Each has a caption written in puffy letters across the bottom of the page.

There’s a balding man slouched over a barstool, one hand cupped to whisper into his drink.

The Man Who Tells His Secrets to Whiskey.

There’s an older woman with birds nesting in her hair, her coat too large for her narrow frame, eyes shiny like dimes.

The Woman Who Keeps Everything.

I keep turning pages, then freeze.

It’s me.

My tattered gray coat. My frizzy hair stuck in a messy ponytail. My face tilted toward my phone, grasping it tight, with one finger poised above the screen.

The Woman Who Forgets to Be Alive.

My stomach flips, like I’ve missed a step in a familiar stairwell. I close the sketchbook and tuck it into my bag. I’ll return it to the girl if I see her again.

That night, I win three hundred dollars and lose seven hundred more. I try to break even for so long my hand goes numb. My phone drops to the floor, and I don’t bother to pick it up. 

In the morning, the sketchbook is open on the nightstand. I don’t remember touching it.

My portrait has changed. My eyes are wide and my lips parted as if I am about to protest. In my bleeding hand, my phone has a cracked screen.

The Woman Who Loses Everything.

The next day, on the bus, at work, and after dinner, I check the sketchbook. It’s become my new secret habit to replace solitaire. I barely look at my phone.

The sketches warp throughout the day. 

The man’s whiskey glass shatters. His ear drips blood. He takes out his wallet to pay, but it’s empty.

The birds vanish from the woman’s hair, leaving her wrapped in a black-feathered coat. She sits down on a park bench and cries. Her teeth fall out.

My own sketched face looks flushed, twisted. Both hands are pressed to my scalp in distress. Tears flow down my cheeks.

The Woman Who Realizes Too Late.

When we get ready for bed, Victor remarks that I seem different today. “More present,” he says, as if that is a gift I chose to give him.

But what if I’m not supposed to be here?

I don’t tell him about the book. That night, I fall asleep as soon as I get into bed.

On Saturday, I wake before dawn.

The sketchbook is back on the nightstand. Today, it shows me on a train platform, head tipped upward, eyes open. Behind me, Victor is blurred away.

The Woman Who Walks Away.

It’s still dark when I leave the house and bring the sketchbook with me.

The weekend bus is nearly empty. Passengers sit far apart, gazing out the windows in silence. Their outlines look faded, as though they are holograms.

I sit in the seat where I found the sketchbook and open it, waiting for instructions.

But the page with a drawing of me is blank.

Then the paper starts to ripple under my hand, like shallow water. New lines appear: me hunched over my phone, eyes hollow. Only this time, the phone has become a mirrored compact. Where my reflection should be, there’s a flurry of black cross-hatching.

The Woman Who Gambles Herself Away.

The lights flicker. The bus merges onto a street that leads toward the train station.

I turn to the next blank page. My fingers curl. A pencil waits in my coat pocket, though I don’t remember putting it there.

I begin to draw.

I draw a woman who walks in my neighborhood park, her face tilted toward the clouds. I give her wavy hair like mine, and try to draw my own face with its small eyes, freckles, and slightly crooked nose. 

Beneath it, I write:

The Woman Who Chooses to Return.

The bus makes a U-turn.

When I get home, Victor is still sleeping.

I delete every game on my phone and drop the phone into my bag. I make tea and sip it while it’s still hot. 

Outside, the window is beginning to glow with daylight. The trees are lit in gold, branches restless with birds.

The sketchbook lies open on the table, waiting.

I turn to a fresh page, place my hand flat on the paper, and begin again. 

I draw myself sitting here at the kitchen table, awake, tea beside me. When I’m finished, I admire my work. 

Beneath it, I write: 

The Woman Who Writes Her Own Story.

I close the book. 

On Monday, I’ll leave it on the bus. The sketchbook knows where it belongs.