Oleander: A Great Expectations Reimagining

by Scarlett Drake

The fire had been lit and crackled softly behind the guard as I approached. I had an inkling of what I thought might be inside, but it didn’t prepare me for what I found when I peeled off the thick paper. My own face, fey and dreamlike, stared up at me. He’d filled it in with watercolour, a palette of pinks, greens, and blues. Light caught on my rosy lips and cheeks, and sunlight poured through the window. Behind me was a view out onto the estate, rolling dips and hills which I knew led all the way to the sea. He’d added something too, something that wasn’t in the room with us that day: a delicate pink flower that sprouted from deep green vines curled around the composition so that it stood in as a kind of frame. The art itself had been mounted inside a thick, white ornamental frame, giving it a sort of delicate grandeur. I stared at it for a long time, imagining his hands moving over the curves of my skull and the bone structure of my face. His delicate fingers tracing each eyelash and freckle. I thought about what I’d have said or done had he given me this in person, and I was suddenly glad he wasn’t here. At the very bottom, in the smallest, most elegant script, it read: Jude in the window, by C.L.D. Everything I’d tried to ignore suddenly fell away, and I wanted him, again, desperately, ferociously. It made every loose, easy, calm thing inside me turn hard and pointed and violent. I lost myself in that ocean of feeling for a few trembling moments before I tore open the...