Page 39

Even the doorbell feels louder than I remember it as I push the small button and give a weak knock to the front door. When Laine answers, her hair is tied up in a messy bun, and her fingers are once again stained with vibrant tones of colors you could only find in the jungle.

One side of her overalls is unclipped and hanging down by her side, while her pink pastel shirt is bunched up, resting on the side dip of the denim.

She looks a mess, but I can’t pull my eyes away from her effortlessly beautiful face, even with eye bags sulking down to her cheeks and her eyes puffy like she hasn’t slept in weeks.

“Hey! Uh- come in,” she says softly, opening the door and stepping aside to let me in.

As soon as I step inside, the familiar scent of her mom’s famous empanadas fills my nose. We walk through the kitchen to the basement door, and I spot her mom happily humming away by the kitchen counter, mixing some sort of meat in a bowl.

“Ay, Drew! Good to see you around again. Where have you been?” Marissa asks, whipping around to face me.

“Hi, Ms. Loveum! Oh, you know, just trying to get through this last semester.” I feed her the same line I’ve been telling everyone this past week.

“Laine, this is what you should be doing instead of doodling in your room all the time.” Marissa gestures to me as she shakes her head at Laine.

“It’s not doodling, Mother! It’s a personal project I’ve been telling myself I’d complete since I was young.” Laine argues back.

She looks hurt, and although my first instinct is to wrap my arms around her and tell her that I believe in her and her project and that I don’t think she’s wasting her time by doing what she loves, I side with my better judgment and decide against it.

Laine leads me downstairs to her room, and her sweet scent of strawberries and cinnamon floods my nose once again. I try to remind myself that the comfort attached to the scent isn’t there anymore, but inevitably, my body relaxes at the first whiff of it.

“You can take your shoes and shirt off and lie on the bed,” she says, nodding towards the bed and sitting on the floor. She swirls around so her back is towards me. “I’ve been working on the floor because it’s way easier to work on this big of a canvas this way.”

I can tell she’s trying to make casual small talk, but it feels uncomfortably superficial compared to the deep and vulnerable conversations we’ve had before. I untie my Converse and kickthem off onto her floor, nodding my head slightly even though her eyes are fixed on the floor, focusing on the array of brushes laid out on the tarp she’s covered the carpet with.

As I slip off my shirt and throw it in a pile on the floor onto my shoes, I glance down at the painting of a woman lying on her side on the canvas.

Instantly, I can tell Laine is far too hard on herself. The line that was once the torso is ever so faintly visible, but it looks perfect. From the curve to the ratio of it compared to the whole body, to the thickness of the strokes, it’s flawless.

It’s Laine’s.

I’m almost angry with myself for being able to recognize her torso solely from holding it in the lake, sitting against it on the log by the fire, and lying beside it at the playground. Angry for letting myself learn so much of her, knowing that none of it was promised. Angry for thinking I had something stable, something unchanging.

“You can turn around,” I say, quieter than I intended to, letting it ring out almost as a whisper.

Laine spins around and gets up on her feet, slowly walking toward me on the bed. She grabs my legs and gently spins them around to put them in a mermaid-like position behind me.

Just the feeling of her long, familiar fingers on my skin makes my heart pound incessantly, and I’m suddenly praying to the God that’s slowly taking her from me that she can’t hear it through my chest as she stands over me, leaning against the mattress as she positions my limbs where she wants them just as she did when she drew me at the cabin.

My legs stiffen as I try my best to lock them into place, which also happens to be my pathetic attempt to hide how much of my body is shaking with nerves under her touch.

Instantly, the reluctance to come here feels like a huge mistake, but I’m already too far in to quit now. The best I can do for therest of tonight is to act normal and lie still until she’s done. It’s just a side, how long could it possibly take?

******

Sixteen tries and two hours later, Laine claims to have finally gotten the curve right, though I believe she got it right fifteen tries ago. But what do I know? I’m not the artist here.

By now, there’s paint smudged all over her face, and her overalls are barely blue anymore. Her fingers, however, are still stained delicately to the point where it looks like the paint is supposed to be there. It feels surreal watching the colors accumulate on her skin after memorizing the way they looked so natural for so long, as if this is confirmation she doesn’t just wake up this vibrant.

I’m still lying on my side where Laine’s positioned me as she tilts her head sideways, looking down at the canvas intently. It’s almost completely painted, except for the torso she just fixed. My legs feel numb and tingly from lying at that angle for hours, and my abs are definitely feeling it from holding themselves up for this long.

Finally, she clicks her tongue against her teeth and slowly walks over to me. I stare up at her as she leans against the bed again, this time reaching out her colorful hand and tracing along the side of my torso.

Her eyes dart carefully between the canvas and my side, her warm fingers sliding up and down the curve of my side. She looks into my eyes as she touches me, and my insides feel warm again, like they do every time she’s touched me before.

Instantly, I forget everything I had been angry at myself for. I give in to her, melting into her warm embrace so comfortably like I had before at the lake, by the fire pit, at the playground.

My legs unstiffen, and my whole body goes limp as Laine traces her fingers up my side, eventually reaching my shoulder, then around to the back of my neck. She tenderly guides my neck down so I’m lying flat on my back atop her bed, and she swings one leg around me, her knee digging into the mattress.