Draw Me In

by Megan Squires

  “What am I doing here?” I drew my chin back, accused. “I was sent home on a plane a week ago, remember?” I tried not to let the anger seep into my voice, but it was hard to differentiate between the sound of anger and the sound of surprise in this situation. It seemed astonishing to me that he’d wonder why I was home when he knew full well how Leo had sent me packing.

  “Right,” Walker nodded, tufts of his fake hair swishing in the wind.

  “But what are you doing here?” I asked again. Last I knew, he was back in Italy at the Villa, probably hanging out on some nude beach with Sofia. At least that’s what I’d hoped he was doing. I didn’t like the thought of him being in New York, because it hinted at the idea that maybe someone else was here too, trying to keep hidden just like Walker. Masked. Covered up.

  “I got called back for a show.” Waving his claws over his face, he asked, “Isn’t that obvious?”

  I supposed he was right. Reality crashed in, hitting me square in the gut. It drew acid up into my mouth. “Yeah,” I conceded, feeling defeat wash over me. “I see.”

  We stood there for a few wordless moments. I think Walker could sense the disappointment in my eyes, because he stooped down to meet them and said with more empathy than I would expect from a beast, “You haven’t heard from him, have you?”

  A lump caught in my throat and I tried to force it down. I couldn’t hold our eye contact for fear of crying, so I shoved my gaze down to the gritty pavement and shook my head. “No. I haven’t.”

  “Dammit,” Walker growled. I could immediately see how he was perfect for the part. The animalistic sound vibrating out of his chest made the fine hairs rise on my flesh. “Leo,” he hissed, as though his name was a curse.

  “It’s alright,” I waved him off, shrugging.

  “No, it’s not.” Walker’s broad shoulders pulled in frustration. He slipped his canvas bag from his shoulder to retrieve his phone and passed it to me. “Gimme your number. I’m gonna get some answers for you and call you tonight, okay?”

  Hope bloomed. I bit my bottom lip between my teeth and nodded so quickly I’m sure I resembled a bobblehead. I punched my number into his cell and handed it back to him. “Thank you, Walker. I really appreciate it.”

  He flashed a grin and took my small hand into his oversized, gloved one. “Of course.”

  I hoped for more, but that’s all he offered.

  “I gotta get to rehearsal,” he finally said, pointing his thumb over his shoulder to indicate the actor’s studio I knew to be a block away.

  “Yes, of course.” I didn’t want to leave, because being close to Walker, even though I hardly knew him, felt like being close to Leo. But I guess I hardly knew him, either. “I’m glad I ran into you.”

  “Me too,” Walker smiled underneath the mask. “Take care, okay?”

  What seemed innocent enough felt like a goodbye, and even though he’d promised to get to the bottom of whatever was going on with Leo, I didn’t allow myself to cling to that hope.

  Leo said you couldn’t put your hope in things. Well, I wasn’t so sure you could put your hope in people, either.

  I was starting to wonder if you could actually even hope in anything at all.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  “Bloody hell!” Ian screamed, gripping onto the sides of the mattress as his body trembled. His face was buried so deep into his pillow that I thought he’d suffocate if he wasn’t careful. I’d had experience with that, and it was a pleasant one.

  I lowered my volume and seethed, “Would you hold still?”

  “She’s almost done,” Joshua comforted with his voice and his hand gently placed on Ian’s bare shoulder. A sheen of nervous perspiration gathered along Ian’s spine and I took a nearby towel into my hands to wipe it off.

  “He’s right. I am. But you have to hold still.”

  I could hear his teeth grinding behind his lips as I started up the needle again and pressed it into his flesh. Ian’s body tightened under the pressure, and that sweat developed once more as his shoulders shook in an erratic rhythm of what looked like agony. I only had one small portion to shade before the roll of film that twisted between his shoulder blades was complete, but if he kept up with the protesting like he had been, it would be midnight before we were finished.

  Luckily, Ian either passed out from the pain or gave up in his attempts to get me to stop, because his body stilled and I was able to work quickly to put the final touches on his newest tattoo.

  It was my idea to pull out my tattooing kit from the depths of my closet, and Ian had been a willing volunteer. I wasn’t sure if it was my desire to go back to my roots from the summer I spent drawing on naked men, or if I subconsciously wanted to inflict pain on the male species as a whole, but Ian didn’t question me. Well, at first he didn’t question me. But once the needle began etching on his skin, he started threatening me, and I realized that pain wasn’t what I was going for.

  Because when it came down to it, it hurt to see other people hurt.

  Maybe that’s why it has been three weeks and I’ve yet to hear from Leo. Avoidance was the best way to shield yourself from the fact that you’d caused someone else’s heartache. Watching Ian squirm under the tip of the needle was difficult to witness, and that was just physical discomfort. Bearing witness to someone’s emotional pain had to be even harder to endure.

  So that’s what I figured Leo was doing, and it’s also why I assumed Walker had never contacted me.

  I was left in the dark. Left alone to deal with my own questions that I would never have answers to. Left alone to process that week of bliss and the following weeks of utter confusion. I was alone. Just me. Just my thoughts. Just my pencil and paper to help me move forward. Or in this case, a needle and a back’s worth of skin.

  I didn’t like being alone. Being alone completely sucked.

  I wanted to hate Leo, and even Joshua and Ian tried to help me get to that point. We spent one entire evening making a list of all of his flaws, but the list was so incredibly short you couldn’t even call it a list. More like a li- because there wasn’t even enough to rightfully label it as one.

  He was a liar.

  That was all I could come up with.

  And while Ian wanted to convince me that lying was some unforgivable sin, I knew that wasn’t true. People lied for all kinds of reasons. Sometimes to protect themselves. Sometimes to protect others. And at the heart of it, I didn’t for one moment believe Leo was lying to me about his feelings. There were times when emotions were felt so much stronger than words, and that’s what Leo had done. He’d spoken his truth to me through his actions, through his touch, through his kiss. I knew he loved me, without a doubt. His being told me that.

  I just didn’t know why he had stopped.

  “How does it look?” Ian craned his neck back to glimpse his body art. I pulled the handheld mirror from my desk and held it up for him to see. “Wow! Looks amazing, Jules!”

  It did. I was good at this. Maybe I should consider opening up some hole-in-the-wall tattoo parlor after graduation. I was definitely skilled when it came to drawing on the human body.

  I was also skilled at drawing on wine labels.

  Last week I’d been shopping at our local grocery store when I first saw it. It wasn’t much different from the prototype, just a minor font change and an added color gradient, but it caught my eye, which I guess was the original goal. That night I added twenty-seven new bottles to our overflowing wine rack, and Ian didn’t question me for even one second. I’d bought out the store’s supply. No one else would be able to share in this achievement of mine. At least no one that shopped for their wine on 27th street. I owned them all. Until they got a new shipment in, I supposed.

  “You want one, Joshua?” I offered, angling my needle his direction.

  “No, thanks. I’m good.”

  That was probably a good choice because I was tired and my hand was feeling the effects of the weight from the tool. If I gave Joshua a tattoo n
ow, it wouldn’t be my best work. And there was no eraser when it came to this type of art.

  There was also no eraser when it came to the art of relationships. You couldn’t take things back. You couldn’t smudge out what had happened. So maybe that’s why nothing had happened between Leo and me. Maybe he knew that you couldn’t go back, so he decided not to go forward.

  Damn that man and his effect on me! In less than a month he’d turned me into a black wearing, tattoo drawing, angsty female who should probably be composing her own “I hate men” anthem just to round out that stereotype.

  But I didn’t hate men. Like I said, I didn’t even hate Leo. It was hard to maintain this hurt, wounded front because it wasn’t in my nature to be like this. Sofia had said one of Leo’s faults was that he was quick to forgive. At the time, I couldn’t understand how she would perceive that as a fault. But now—now that I was the one with the speedy willingness to forgive every hurt and heartache—now I could kind of see the fault in it. Now I could feel how others would think it was wrong to forgive these transgressions. But the truth? If Leo waltzed through my door right now, I’d probably take him back without question. I’d probably even make out with that face without even hearing an explanation first.

  Maybe that made me pathetic. Maybe it made me some cheap excuse for an independent woman. Maybe the feminists would come pounding down my door and demand my woman-card back. I didn’t care what it made me. It made me human, and that’s all I needed to be. A real human that had real feelings and real emotions and wasn’t afraid to live my life based on those. One who wasn’t afraid to lead with her heart.

  I often thought back to my grandma and grandpa. When Grandma’s dementia crept in and her memories slid out, I knew it was hard on Grandpa. He tried not to let it show, but I could see the pain in his eyes as she looked at him with her vacant expression, withholding any sign of recognition or remembrance on her tired, aged face. It gutted him, I’m sure. But he continued to feed her, to wipe her drool, to bathe her and to tuck her into her own bed at night because they couldn’t share the same one anymore. He was nothing but a stranger to her now. In these moments, I’m sure everything in my grandpa’s brain told him he didn’t have to do it. That she wasn’t the same woman he’d married when they were practically kids. That no one would fault him if it was just too much and if the better option was to put her in a home where someone could care for her without experiencing the emotional struggle he faced every minute of every day.

  But he didn’t do that. You know why? Because even though his own head and everyone in his life tried to reason with him, he didn’t allow that to lead him.

  He led with his heart.

  Because you could shut off your thoughts. You could tune out the voices that attempted to rationalize and justify and give you an out when you probably actually needed one. But you couldn’t tune out your heart. Because when you did, it stopped beating.

  My heart would continue to beat. And I would let that pulse lead me.

  ***

  I slammed the drawer to the cash register.

  “Dustin’ll have that right up!” I smiled as I drop Harold’s change into his palm.

  He curled his fingers around the coins and frowned. “I’m not sure his coffee will compare. I’m used to the best.”

  “Oh, he’s actually pretty good.” I glanced over at Dustin who was making his typical sound effects as he dolloped a generous heap of whipped cream onto a white mocha. Ka-pow! “I’ve taught him all he knows.”

  “An apprentice of sorts?” Harold asked with an appreciative look. “I might start calling you Professor Thornton.”

  I waved my hands at him and dismissed his generous compliment. “Oh no. I’m not deserving of that title. I think I should at least graduate before I earn the right to any sort of label. All I can wear now is struggling-artist-slash-poor-college-student.”

  “This look okay?” Eva asked from behind me, holding out a mug of coffee for me to evaluate. She’d done a fantastic job with the steamed milk and had the perfect frothy canvas to begin her drawing.

  “Yet another one of your protégés?” Harold asked as he nodded his head toward Eva. She blushed under his recognition and a little liquid sloshed over the lip of the cup onto the saucer. I steadied her hand and guided it toward the counter.

  “She is. At the co-op, and here at the coffeehouse.”

  Cara mentioned she was looking for another hire a few days ago, and I knew of Eva’s mom’s financial situation. To both of us, it sounded like the perfect fit. Eva agreed too, and she happily joined our new coffeehouse crew. It was funny how life worked out like that. Almost like serendipity when the pieces fit so nicely together.

  Other times life was crap.

  Mine still felt a little on the crappy side, although I allowed myself to be happy for those that didn’t have the crap in theirs. Someday mine would be crap-free, I was sure of it. In fact, I was allowing myself to get to that point. Life went on without Leo. Maybe that was all the closure I would ever get. I think I would actually be okay with that. I’d have to be.

  I turned to the next costumer in line and pasted on a grin as Harold moved toward the barista counter to wait for his drink. The patron was a tall brunette with wire-rimmed glasses perched on her upturned nose. Her jacket was smart looking and the matching gray pencil skirt made her seem like a business professional that belonged behind a desk answering phones. “And what can I get you today?”

  I grabbed my permanent marker and hovered my hand over a to-go cup, because based on what she was wearing, I was certain she’d be heading back to an office of some kind.

  “A four shot, iced Americano.”

  In true Julie Thornton fashion, the cup slipped from my grip and clattered to the floor.

  “I’m sorry,” I apologized, scrambling for another cup. I scrawled out the order as my fingers trembled against the plastic. “Will that be all?”

  “Yes,” she answered. “Thank you.” Reaching into her black purse, she thrust a five-dollar bill my way.

  “Nothing for you?” I pressed a little bit, knowing this couldn’t be her coffee order. I knew in my gut it belonged to Leo. It just had to.

  “No. That will be all.” The five fluttered between us as she shoved it further toward me.

  I quickly tossed it into the register and gave her back her change, eyeing her up and down when I dropped it into her hand. Who was she? I didn’t remember Leo having an assistant of any kind when I stopped by his office on my first day at the internship. She looked new and the way her clothing appeared crisp and pleated hinted at the idea that maybe she was new, donning her first day best.

  I tried not to stare as she busied herself with her phone, looking much more important than I figured she actually was. Her manicured nails skated along the touchscreen at the same time the phone rang suddenly within her palm.

  The sound made my heart jump, and I leaned further over the counter so I could eavesdrop better. Yeah, I was real subtle.

  “Yes,” she answered without the need for a hello. “You’re all confirmed for tomorrow.” Just like I knew he was in New York when I saw Walker on the street, I knew it was Leo on the other end of the line. I could almost hear his voice as I guessed at what he was saying based on her responses. “I’m here right now.” Her dark eyes slammed into mine and my body reacted instantly, nearly knocking me over. I held tightly to the corner of the counter to try to steady myself. “Yes,” she nodded. Why did I feel like that answer had to do with me? “As soon as it’s ready I’ll bring it over.”

  Temptation pulled at me as I watched Dustin place her finished drink onto the counter. If I just followed her back, I’d see him, I knew I would. But there was a reason why Leo hadn’t reached out to me. And the more I thought on it, the more it made me think that he’d better have a damn good one. You don’t just ship the love of your life off to another country, then fail to mention the fact that you’re actually back in said country. I didn’t think love worke
d that way.

  I shook my head and shook off her gaze as she wrapped her hands around Leo’s drink and jammed a straw into the lid. Then she caught me off guard when she took a sip with her own lips and then crinkled her nose as though the bitterness of the coffee was something she wasn’t accustomed to. The thought of another woman’s mouth on something that was about to be in Leo’s made me just about retch all over the coffee bar. It made me sick.

  “You’re done for the day, Julie,” Cara said as she swiped a cloth over the nearby table. “See you tomorrow evening. Go ahead and clock out.”

  Still in a daze, I nodded and slipped my neck out of the loop on my apron. If I hurried, I could catch up with that woman. I could track Leo down. Maybe he had been at his office all along. Obviously, I’d thought of that, but the fact that I hadn’t made any effort to see for myself led me to believe one thing.

  Maybe I didn’t want to find Leo again. Because, when it came down to it, implied rejection was an easier pill to swallow than enduring the harsh reality firsthand. With my overactive gag reflex, that would make me choke.

  But I worried that never knowing would eat away at me, and to me, that might actually be worse than choking on the truth.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Mid-afternoon light funneled through the arched windows of the art studio, casting an amber-tinted glow over the stained concrete floor. Gold swirls of dust floated through the air and made the room feel almost magical, like something out of a movie. But I supposed what we did in here was a bit like magic. As my classmates slid into their desks and the metal legs of their chairs scraped against the ground, I dropped my bag from my shoulder and flopped down into my own desk at the front near the stool where our model would sit.

  We had another live one today, and I’d already double-checked to make sure it wasn’t Ian. I just wasn’t up for that. I’d drawn him enough lately, even to the point of drawing on him. Based on the course schedule, we were supposed to have a female model and I welcomed that change in subject matter. I needed to work on my feminine curves and contours.