Page 25

Denying the Moon

Seventeen Years Old, Tennessee

I don’t tell Paloma, Meagan, and Sophia about Art Club. They’ll wonder when I don’t show up in the library, but I’m not ready to tackle questions about why I’ve randomly decided to join a club more than halfway through senior year.

I send a quick Can’t do the library! text to them, then head toward the outskirts of campus. By the time I’m slipping through the door of Ms. Robbins’s garage, the bell trills. A couple dozen heads swivel to see who’s arrived, a sea of unfamiliar faces—with the exception of Isaiah Santoro’s. He’s at his usual spot, alongside Trevor.

“Welcome, Lia,” Ms. Robbins says from up front. “Pick a seat, and we’ll get started.”

There’s an empty place at Isaiah’s table. He notices as I do and flags me down, sliding the stool out with his foot.

“I hear you gave my boy a ride home the other day,” Trevor says as I get settled.

“I did,” I say, trying to decide whether it matters that Isaiah told his buddy about the ten minutes we spent in my car.

Isaiah sends a grin my way. “Saved my ass.”

My cheeks flush warm.

Ms. Robbins explains the day’s activity: blind line drawings. “You’ll draw while focusing on your subject. Don’t look at your paper until you’re finished.” She holds up examples: landscapes and fruit bowls that look like they were drawn by first graders. “It’s a great exercise to help you learn to draw what you see, rather than what you think you see. We’ll start with portraits and continue at our next meeting, so no need to rush. I’ll hand out materials while you sort yourself into pairs.”

Before I can panic about who I’ll work with, Isaiah drags his stool closer to mine.

“Really, dude?” Trevor says. “You’re gonna do me dirty?”

“Make a new friend,” Isaiah tells him. “Like I have.”

Trevor looks between us, then affably rolls his eyes and saunters toward a table of three by the glaze closet. Isaiah and I sit in unwieldy silence until Ms. Robbins stops by with newsprint and pencils.

“No peeking,” she reminds us.

He pushes a sheet of paper toward me. “You want to draw first?”

“Promise not to be offended if I make you look like an ogre?”

He smiles. “Promise.”

I square the paper and choose a pencil, centering its point near the top of the page, where the crown of a drawn head should be. Then I look up, appraising Isaiah’s features; it’s not the worst thing, being instructed to study his face for as long as it takes to sketch his dark hair and strong jaw and imperfect nose. He’s looking back at me, statue-still, eyes extraordinarily bright.

He asks, “Aren’t you supposed to be drawing?”

The room is noisy, full of activity, but his question arrives as though it traveled a direct line to my ear, two cans linked by a length of string.

“I—yes. Yes, I am.” Flustered I glance down at the blank paper, my hand poised, white-knuckling the pencil.

“Hey, now,” Isaiah mock-scolds. “No peeking.” With two pointed fingers, he directs my attention back to his eyes. “Look here.”

I huff out a laugh, as if this is the silliest of exercises, as if I’m not deeply uncomfortable connecting with him this way. But as the moment lengthens, I settle into his gaze and begin to draw. I don’t have to look at the paper to know that my attempt is nightmarish. But I press on, sketching wavy hair, a square chin, and prominent brows. I try to capture his eyes: round and slightly upturned, fringed by dark, thick lashes. Purple smudges live beneath, the telltale sign of a bad sleeper. Lightly, I shade them in. Wondering what keeps him up at night, I move to pencil in his asymmetrical nose.

He breaks eye contact long enough to assess my work-in-progress. When his gaze returns to mine, his mouth is lifted in a smirk, so I draw it, full lips, curved mischievously.

I think I might be finished, but I scrutinize his face for another moment to be sure. That’s when I remember his scar. Today it’s hidden beneath his hair, but leaving it off feels wrong, like denying the moon because the sun is shining. With the lightest touch, I add it to my portrait.

“There,” I say, putting down the pencil.

I slide my work toward him, afraid to look.

He lifts the paper to give my effort careful perusal. I expect him to guffaw because the examples Ms. Robbins shared were bad and my finished product must be too, but he says, “This is good. I mean, it’s absolute shit, but you added details that make it obvious it’s me.”

He places the drawing between us and, yeah, it’s dreadful, but also, I understand what he means. He points to the shadows beneath his eyes. “You made me look tired. And my nose. You fucked it up in the most accurate way.”

I smile . “Has it been broken?”

“Repeatedly, yeah.”

I point to the graphite scar on my sketch. “What happened here?”

He pushes a hand through his hair, uncovering the real thing. “Smacked my head into the corner of a coffee table.”

I gesture to the outer corner of my left eye, where there’s a scar the size of a lemon seed. “When I was four, I was jumping on my parents’ bed and my foot caught on a pillow. I hit my face on the headboard. Had a shiner for a week.”

“It’s a bad-ass scar, but let’s give you a cooler story. How about…you were in a bar fight on your way to preschool.”

I laugh, relaxing into our banter. “That is better.”

Isaiah grins. “I’ll remember to add your scar when I do your portrait.”

“You’re planning to make me look like a goblin, aren’t you?”

His smile sweetens, honey in hot tea. “Even if I wanted to, that’d be impossible.”