I shade the jawline too sharply, smudging the eyes until they vanish into the page. The drawing begins to look like something I shouldn’t be making—a secret, a confession. But I keep going, because this is how I hold him. Not in conversation, not in touch, but in graphite and silence.
Each stroke is a tether, each shadow is a choice. I draw him the way I feel him; precise, unreadable, dangerous. I almost want someone to see it. If they ask who it is, I’ll lie. But if he sees it, I won’t have to say anything at all.
The pencil slips from my hand when my phone buzzes.
I glance down. Eli Dawson.
I hesitate. He never calls during the day. Not unless something’s wrong, or he’s checking in—his version of parenting, ever since Mom stopped trying and Dad stopped pretending.
I wipe my fingers on my jeans and answer. “Hey.”
His voice is warm, steady. Too steady. “You in class?”
“Do you think I would have answered if I were? Studio.”
“You sound weird.”
“I’m fine.”
“You sure?”
I pause, the sketchbook still open on the drawing of Julian’s mouth, his wrist, the tension I can’t name. “I’m just… focused.”
“Focused like normal, or focused like you’re spiraling?”
I almost smile. Eli knows me too well. He’s the only one who ever noticed when my focus stopped being productive, and started being compulsive. When I stopped sketching for class and started sketching to breathe.
“It’s not like that,” I answer, though I know he can hear the lie in my voice.
“River.”
“I’m managing it.”
“You always say that right before you stop.”
I close the sketchbook, not because I’m done, but because I hate how well he knows me.
“I’m fine, alright? I have to go,” I stare at the screen long after I hang up.
He’s right. I’m not careful, not when it comes to this. Not when it comes to him.
I open the sketchbook again. The drawing hasn’t changed, but I have. My pulse is faster, my thoughts are louder. I darken the shadows beneath the eyes, smudging the mouth until it looks like it’s about to say something cruel.
I know this isn’t healthy.
I know what Eli would say.
But this isn’t about health, it’s about control.
Julian Kincaid teaches literature like it’s a seduction; every lecture is a test, every text is a mirror. And I want to be the one who breaks it.
I draw the line of his throat, the tension in his jaw, the way his hand curls when he’s holding chalk. I’ve seen that hand in dreams I don’t talk about. I’ve drawn it a hundred times.
But this time, it’s different.
This time, I’m not drawing him to survive. I’m drawing him to claim him.
I open the sketchbook again, but I don’t draw. I just stare at the page; the mouth I shaded too dark, the hand I gave too much tension, the version of him that only exists in my head.
