“Good. Now, don’t be surprised if this ends up in the Met,” I tease as I turn the easel around.
Cam lets out a deep laugh, putting his hand over his mouth.
I beam with pride, showing off my drawing of Cam dressed as a superhero. Cape and all.
“That is…”
“A masterpiece. I know,” I say cockily, adding my signature to the bottom.
Cam shakes his head. “You can draw that, but you can’t design an avatar?”
My smile fades. “Well, yeah. This,” I motion to my comic-like image, “isn’t realistic. It’s a comic.”
Cam’s eyebrows furrow as he chews his lip.
“It’s still good.”
I shake my head. “It’s not the same. The lines are exaggerated. I can’t draw this again. It’ll be different, not the same.”
Cam twists his lips. “Try again,” he says, his gaze holding mine.
“What?”
Cam situates himself on the couch, laying back on his elbows, propping one leg up as the other remains straight. He rounds his shoulders, angling his head, opening his mouth the slightest.
“Try again. Try drawing the outline first, in one swoop.”
I look at him, then at the easel.
“Don’t worry if it’s not perfect. Just… do what feels right. Don’t question it.”
I flip the pad to an empty page.
Tracing my finger through the air, I try my best to capture his outline. I practice the sweep a few times before I take the pencil and try with it. Cam doesn’t push or hurry me, which I appreciate. He just lays there, still as a statue, shirtless like it’s no big deal.
But I guess to him, it isn’t. He’s used to doing this with less clothes on, to be fair.
“Good. Now trace the same line a couple times. Get the feel for the flow. The motion of it.”
I do as he says.
“Now instead of trying to draw, just shade. Find the shadows and look at their shapes. Not their lines.”
Listening to him instruct me, I start to see the bits and pieces come together. When the pizza delivery arrives, I’m shocked to see I’m almost done.
I grab some cash out of my backpack, pay the man, and take the pizza. Cam is next to me in an instant.
He breathes deeply, letting out a groan. “Fuck, that smells so good.”
I pop the box open. “Dig in.”
As he does so, I follow through on my promise and pull up My Chemical Romance on YouTube, on the studio computer.
We used to blast this stuff in my car on the way home from school.
It wasn’t that long ago, but it feels like an eternity. Especially considering soon enough, I’m going to graduate, get married, and start my new life.
Sometimes, I wish we could just go back. Things were so much simpler then, in a lot of ways.
