The Sketch By the Lake

The morning air still carried winter’s sigh, despite spring’s slow arrival. 

Halewood Lake lay like a silver sheet of glass, untouched and perfectly still. Ducks floated quietly near the far edge, too drowsy to quarrel. A narrow gravel path circled the water, marked by benches painted in once-bright greens and blues that time had since muted.

The sun had just begun its ascent, draping the trees in amber. Dew caught the early light, scattered like crushed stars across the grass. Every leaf, every ripple on the lake, wore the golden hush of a day not yet awake.

It was early spring when Simon first saw her.

She was seated on the edge of a weathered bench, leaning forward, completely still except for the movement of her hand across a page. Her sketchpad rested against her knees, and every line she made seemed urgent, almost desperate, like the paper might disappear if she hesitated.

She didn’t notice him.
Just kept sketching. Still, focused.
Like a statue of someone lost in thought.

A streak of graphite smudged her cheek. A war wound from whatever world she was sketching. Her hair was pinned up in that careless way that made it fall in perfect disarray, sleeves rolled to the elbows, worn boots tucked under the bench like she’d been there for hours.

There was something… unreachably distant about her.

And yet—when a toddler’s ball rolled near her feet and she paused, smiled softly, and nudged it back with her boot—the most beautiful smile he’d ever seen.

Simon didn’t usually walk the lake this early—especially not before coffee. His sister’s beagle, Frodo, tugged insistently on the leash, nose to the ground like he was tracking ghosts. Simon followed with one eye half-closed and the other on the trail ahead—until he saw her. Her eyes were the kind of brown that held stories—warm, weathered, and quietly sad.

He walked past her.

Simon didn’t know why his chest felt tight as he kept walking. Maybe it was the way she looked like she belonged in that silence. Or maybe it was the feeling that he’d just walked past the most honest moment of his day.

He didn’t speak to her—not that day. But he found himself adjusting his morning route so that their paths might cross again. Something in him had already decided: he would see her again.