No peacocking.
He has an amazing opportunity here. Either he’s going to build a bridge or build a wall. If he swaggers through this, he’s going to end things with Em here and now. I can feel it.
He gives me an almost imperceptible nod and drops his shorts. They are—oh, good lord—black silk boxers.
And then, the moment of truth.
One of his hands goes up to the back of his neck. “I’m gonna leave my boxers on. If that’s cool.”
He’s not swaggering. He’s not whipping it out for classwide fawning.
He’s…a little embarrassed.
A little vulnerable.
He’strying.
His statement is greeted with every single one of us loudly reassuring him that that istotally fine, wonderful, thank you, you’re the best.
I chance one more glance at Em and her eyes are not narrowed anymore.
Lauro is, of course, a fantastic model.
If he’s been doing this since he was fifteen, then he’s certainly picked up on what makes an interesting pose, a rewarding pose, a challenging pose. And, yes, duh, he’s beautiful. A pleasure to draw. He’s got shadows and hollows and grace and charisma. Each pose tells us a story. In one, he’s chest out and ambitious. In the next, he’s guarded and contracted. In the next, he’s buoyant and conversational.
Daniel walks a big circle around us all, with his hands clasped behind his back, eyes on all of our easels. He’s talking today, where he usually gives us silence. I think he’s doing his best to pillow Lauro’s (potential) discomfort as much as he can. “Yes, very good, Esther. More space there, up through the sternum. It’s not a single line, it’s a plane. Yes, wonderful. It’s fun to draw someone we know, isn’t it? It’s a special experience because you have to unknow what you already know and learn fresh everything else. Some artists believe that the very act of drawing is taking something apart in your mind and putting it back together again on the page. Or in the case of our beloved Lauro, taking someoneapart in your mind and putting him back together again.”
Em makes a sound, and it might as well have come from me. I know exactly what she’s going through over there, taking apart the man you love and reconstructing him using nothing but your two eyes, one hand, and bleeding heart.
Em’s been working with her pencils but she stops drawing on the wordsbeloved Lauro,chucks her pencils back in their bag, and switches to—be still my beating heart—a black fountain pen. And now Lauro is currently being immortalized in luscious, stark lines. He’s bleeding down the page. He’s wrapping himself in her heart right before my very eyes.
Excellent.
“It’s not really the final product that matters, is it?” Daniel goes on as he passes behind Em, and then me. “It’s the thought process that’sexposedby the drawing that compels us.” He pauses behind me, then taps my drawing with one finger, right over where I drew Lauro’s hand, decided it was in the wrong place, and then drew another halfway over the top of it. Daniel gives me a thumbs-up. “We want to draw, because we want to understand.”
A memory pops up for me, unexpectedly, yes, but also, it was right there at the surface. It’s blue tile, the screech of brakes, smashing glass, screams. It’s Vin on top of me. But…I’m not triggered and wretched and out of control. No. I’m drawing Lauro’s shoulder, arcing and overlarge, and trying to figure out how to connect a collarbone to a throat, but also, really, I’m drawing Vin’s shoulder, the way it looked over the top of me, my hand pressing his wet back and coming away bloody.We want to draw because we want to understand.
Tears pool and gloss over my vision because Idounderstand. Finally. Even if I didn’t understand yet, in my living room, while I was drawing Vin himself. I understand now, drawing Lauro and standing next to Em drawing Lauro, watching her draw him. I must have looked just like her. Whatever is drawn on her heart, she’s transcribing it onto paper before my very eyes. And isn’t thatjust it?
We draw what we want to understand. We draw what we want toknow.
Vin flashes before me, his pose in the living room on one knee, his unwavering love. I was drawing it before I even knew for sure it was there. But then, again, flashing, blue tile and him on top of me. Because there are the easy things to set down on paper: Vin’s boots andhome safe.They shimmer at the surface waiting for me to sketch them into plain black andwhite. And then there are the things that are buried deep inside me: the worst fifteen seconds of my life, culminating in Raff unconscious on a stretcher, Vin bleeding in my arms. Those things…they’re caustic and leaking battery acid somewhere deep inside. I have to dig them out. And I think the shovel…I think the shovel is this pencil in my hand.
The things I want to understand—need to understand—in order to live, are waiting for me in the blank pages of my drawing pad. I think…I have to dig them out. One scratch of the pencil at a time.
When the fifteen-minute break starts, I jump when Em grabs my wrist. I turn to her and see red, shiny eyes. “Talk to me,” she whispers. “So that Lauro doesn’t come over here.”
In a very un-Em-like move, she’s already covered up her drawings. I’m assuming so he won’t see them and know that her heart is his for the taking.
“Oh. Um.” What should I talk about? The bone-deep epiphany I’ve just had about trauma and art? No, of course not. I default to my factory settings. “What are you going to have for dinner?”
She chuffs out a breath, receives my awkwardness with gratitude. “Ramen. I always just go home after class and make a quick bowl.”
“Do you ever crack an egg into it? That’s Korean style. With kimchi. Or you can add green onion. And a swirl of sesame oil if you have it.”
She shakes her head. “No. I go plain. That sounds good, though.”
“Eggs and noodles. Nothing is better,” Shan says besideme.
