<div style="text-align: center"><i>She dreams out <br/>
of windows<br/>
<i>because she needs to live<br/>
in both worlds:<br/>
within and without,<br/>
alone and together,<br/>
past and future:<br/>
all right now.<br/>
<span style="font-size: 10px">- Mike Essig</span></i></i>​</div><br/>“Hey, Nella, it’s your mom again. You have to call me when you get this, your sister is getting married! Isn’t that wonderful? Anyway, we have a lot of planning to do, and a good sister would-” At this point, Nella pulled the plug from the wall. Nothing new was coming anyway, just the usual. Nora was the successful sister, and she was the one who had to admire her for her success and when needed, elevate it by being there and answering questions.<i>‘Oh, you’re Nora’s little sister! I hear you’re an artist, how interesting! Say, how does it make the living? How do you pay your rent?’</i>It’s not nearly as interesting when you get to the point where she tells them she’s a barista too.<i>‘That’s nice.’ </i>There, Nella’s job is done, she’s made her sister look good and she can sit there the rest of the event looking pretty. Put on a pretty dress, smile, appear beside your sister.<i>Be a good girl, Nella, haven’t we given you everything you have?</i><br/><br/>The thought made her stomach turn, and as always when that happened, Nella made her way to her small studio. Her apartment was roomy for its price range, perhaps because there was a nightclub downstairs. She had two rooms, one of which she had turned into a studio, and the other being her bedroom. On top of that was a small kitchen and bathroom with a small tub, fitting for her 5’1” body but anyone taller would have troubles fitting in it.<br/><br/>The studio was Nella’s pride and joy. She had a wide window giving her lots of light, with pale green curtains that moved when she opened it to get fresh air. Her easel was placed near the window, and often she found herself painting what she saw out of it. Cars, people, even just the window next door. At times Nella felt that her life was that window, she was shut inside the studio and everything that was happening outside it was her life. As depressing as that sounds, it gave her some comfort. The wide world and thought of having to walk it on her own made her anxious, but so did the thought of having to share her most intimate thoughts with another person.<br/><br/>Nella dipped the brush in green and started. She glanced at the window and for a brief moment saw her own image in the glass. A small, petite girl dressed in a pair of shorts made out of old pair of jeans, and a t-shirt tucked underneath. Perhaps the shirt had once been white, but now it was covered in colourful splatters of paint. Her work uniform was thrown on the back of an armchair by the door to her studio, as were her shoes. From the glass looked back a face that could be described as pretty enough, a small nose, eyes perhaps slightly too far away from each other but wide and colour similar to the green on her palette. A pale green, with a small hint of cerulean blue. Nella’s hair was ashy blonde and pulled up from her face on a bun, and then with a scarf around her head working as a hairband. Usually on summer her face and shoulders were covered in freckles, but this early in the year there was very little of the sun she so much missed.<br/><br/><i>She and Nora used to count freckles from each other’s shoulders as they were children. Nella had more, so they used her brushes and paints to draw more on Nora. A silly thing that made their mother angry, but they didn’t care, they were in it together.</i><br/><br/>Perhaps it had been a bad day, Nella thought to herself and looked through the window at the other window, to see the other girl there. She couldn’t tell if she had lived there for long, but only recently had she noticed the girl. Nella herself often leaned out of the window, smoking and drinking coffee, and she had even seen the girl grab a coffee at her workplace, but they never shared a word. Still, the thought of looking into this other girl’s life through her own window was a fascinating one. Had she noticed Nella, thought of her as much as Nella had thought of her? No, couldn’t be.<br/><br/>Because who would notice Nella?