He nods. “You did that very well, then. It’s definitely coming across. You have such an eye for light—the way you capture it…everything in the photo feels ethereal somehow. It’s your focus on thepeoplein the portrait that grounds the viewer in reality, but it makes that reality so much more beautiful. I think this could be a very powerful body of work, in the right hands,” he says. Thesoftness of his voice wraps around me, sends a thrill down my spine. “In your hands, specifically.”
I stare down at those hands. I know what he’s trying to say. Or at least what he wants me to infer from this.
To do this properly, I’d have to actually go back there. Not to Crown Heights, not literally, but…it might as well be the same thing. I have to stop holding this project at arm’s length. I have to let myselffeelit, let the memories well up like pools of silver nitrate solution. I have to stare directly into the past. I have to face it.
I have to faceher.
Wyatt reaches over and grabs my shoulder, squeezes. He leaves his hand there a beat longer than he should—but not nearly long enough. I can still feel his phantom touch even after he pulls away. “What are you thinking about?” he asks.
“I don’t know,” I start, even though I do. “I guess just…It’s a lot. It feels like undressing in front of someone you don’t know. The exposure, you know? If I do this project right, I’ll be making myself vulnerable.”
He hums out a wordless sound of agreement. “I know what you mean. All the best art is like bleeding in front of strangers. It’s terrifying. ‘Vulnerable’ is a good word for it. Someone could slip in while you’re raw and aching and twist the knife right where it hurts the most.”
I shift in my seat to look at him properly—how had I not noticed how close he is? If I’d leaned back just a little farther, his knuckles would have grazed my spine. I have to forcibly drag my attention up to his face.
“Is it worth it?” I say. My voice comes out scratchy. “After all the fear…I can’t stand the idea of doing all this for nothing.”
He nods slightly. “Yes. It’s worth it. It hurts, but it’s worth it. That’s why we do this, isn’t it? We want to say somethingimportant. But in art, you can’t just say what you want to say outright. You have to wrap it up in layers of meaning and symbolism and trust that your viewer will be able to unwrap them. Even when it’s scary. Even when it hurts.” A pause. “Especially then.”
He’s right. You can’t just say what you want to say outright. Not in art and not in life either. Not really. Because if you could, I’d open my mouth right now and tell him the truth about why I can’t face my past. I’d admit my sins and he’d recoil, and all that gentleness in his voice and hands would vanish into steam like water thrown on a hot pan.
Maybe that’s what I’ve been trying to do with my art all along. Beg for forgiveness over and over in as many languages as I can speak.
But I’ve spent so long tryingnotto think about my past that I can’t imagine letting it overtake me, pull me under like a tidal wave. Even now I feel like I’m drowning. Like if I opened my mouth, I’d find it full of seawater.
Art should scare you,someone told me once. Someone from an art residency back in LA whose name I can’t even remember. But their words have stitched themselves into my brain permanently.
Art should scare you.
I’m scared all right.
I haven’t told him what I did last night, and I don’t intend to. I’m used to keeping my mouth full of secrets. But something must show because a crease of concern forms between Wyatt’s brows.
“What is it?” he says. “You’re shaking.”
His hand catches my jaw, his thumb rubbing a soft, warm pattern just below my lower lip. And if I wasn’t shaking before, I sure as hell am now. That single point of contact smudges heat into my body, and a shudder unfurls down my spine.
He feels it too. He must. His eyes, initially wide with shock, have gone heavy. The dark fan of his lashes brushes against hischeeks as he draws in close, as I reach up to grasp his wrist, to keep him there.
“Careful,” he murmurs, but it’s not clear if he’s saying that to me, or to himself.
Either way, he doesn’t move. He stays right where he is with his hand on my cheek and his hips tilted in toward me. I don’t want to breathe in case it scares him off. But I couldn’t have, anyway. My chest is utterly empty, all the air squeezed out to make room for the all-consuming, the poundingneed need need.
Wyatt’s thumb shifts toward my mouth, exploring the terrain of my lower lip like he still doesn’t believe he’s kissed it before.
That thumb presses in against my damp lower lip until my mouth parts, ready to let him slide his finger into my—
“Is that you, Wyatt?” a voice says from behind us, by the door.
I almost topple out of my seat, but Wyatt—thank god—is a little bit more in control of himself. He straightens so slowly, as if he wasn’t about to kiss me right then, a cool little cucumber in comparison to the way my brain has become a helplessskreeof alarm bells.
“Hi, Ava,” Wyatt says, just as slowly.
Shit.I thought he had it under control. But nope. He’s only taking things slow because he’s desperately trying to figure out what to say.
“I’m surprised to see you in on a weekend,” she says.
“Haze wanted me out of the house,” Wyatt replies. “Some kind of secret cat thing.”
