The Summer We Let Go

Chapter Seven

Leo

          The page rips from the scrapbook and crumples in my fist. I can't get her out of my head. The way her eyes gleamed daringly as they looked up into mine. The way her voice caressed me like a warm breeze lifting my soul after so many years of feeling nothing but the cold. Seductive and promising. I can't lose my control like that again. Ever. But I'll be damned if I can't just draw her the way she looked last night.

          If I could only get the eyes right. They were narrowed, but in an intriguing and daring way; when I draw them she either looks like she's trying too hard, or she's sleepy. And her head was tilted just slightly, her mouth had the tiniest hint of a quirk.

          I need to get this right. If I can't do this, it'll be on my mind for the rest of the day, and I'll feel the persistent itch in my fingers to grab a pencil and start sketching. And honestly, I'd rather not spend my entire day thinking about her. Or any day. Or any minute. I really can't lose control like that again. She'll think I'm interested. I'm not. I just have to get these eyes right. That's it. Once I'm done with this, she'll be out of my head, and I'll have to make sure she keeps things professional at work. And out of work. Actually, I shouldn't ever see her outside of work at all.

          With a deep breath, I brush off a new page and set the pencil tip to it. I try my best to keep the lines as light as possible, to create a better outline of how it needs to look. It needs to be the right curvature. The right angle and depth. And the shading. That's the most important. It's what brings life to a drawing. Without it, you're left with a shitty cartoon figure.

          It takes maybe fifteen minutes of carefully scraping granite over the blank surface before I realize. This? It's still shit. If I keep trying to get it right, she'll have kohl-lined eyes, and Carter doesn't even wear eyeliner. Or, at least she wasn't at the time. I tear the page out.

          Two hours and six torn-out pages later, I get it. The eyes. There's still a whole face left to draw: the hair, the ears, the sharp edges of her jawline. Those are usually the easier parts, especially the hair. The mouth plays into emotion—a purse of disappointment, a grin, or a snarl—but it's the eyes that hold the most emotion. The set of the brows, the narrowing of the lid, any small detail. Now that I've finally got that part right, I swear if I mess up on something as mundane as the jaw line I will burn this house down.

          My phone rings before I get the chance to see if any drastic actions need to happen. I ignore it, picking it up and hitting the end button without checking the contact. It's probably Mom, calling to ask me if I took the chicken out of the freezer to thaw. I did. She worries about everything. Is the meat for dinner thawed? Did you do the dishes? Is the lawn mowed, are the weeds whacked, did you take a shower this morning? I press the tips of my fingers into my temples and squeeze my eyes shut. Focus. I have to focus and get this image out of my head so I can move on with my day in peace.

          I manage to get the jawline and nose done, and just started on the hair when she calls again. I pick my phone up and press ignore.

          The best part about drawing hair is that the first fifty or so strokes are basically just flinging your pencil around on the paper. It's long and uncoordinated, so long as the strokes go in the general direction of which the hair would go. Hers was an up-do; it usually is, actually. Then you have to kind of outline the hair, give some strays, shade it at the temples, and so on. The problem with hair, though, is that I always get caught up in adding too much detail, and it takes attention away from the face. But not enough, and the image almost looks dull.

          It hasn't even been ten minutes and my phone goes off again. I set the pad and pencil down, rubbing my eyes before picking up my phone. Turns out it wasn't Mom calling me. It's my sister. "What do you want?"