Rose in a diamond frame on a forearm

I am writing this on the back of the reunion invitation because I could not find a proper card, and because you always said my handwriting looked like something spilt from a jam jar. I stood by the sports hall doors for ten minutes before going in. The floor polish still smells the same. Nobody has moved the glass trophy cabinet, though someone has put a tea urn on top of it.

I did not see you, which is why I am writing. I found our drawing instead, pinned under the glass in the corridor where they keep old art club work. It is the rose we copied from the cutting in Mr Pryce's greenhouse, the bloom in pencil and the stem running down into a diamond we had ruled with a set square because he said a frame would stop the eye wandering. You shaded the petals with dots, hundreds of them, because you said lines were for people without the patience to wait. I gave up after the leaves. Your thorns are still sharp. Mine are blunt and crooked.

The caretaker saw me staring and said the piece had been there since the summer we left, with nobody claiming it. I asked whether I could take it down and he said I would have to speak to the head, who has retired to Whitby. So I stood there with my nose almost touching the glass, counting the dots in the folds of the petals, which is what we used to do in the last lesson when the clock stopped.

I have posted you a photocopy. Keep the original if you turn up. If you do not, I shall go on counting.