Pink Skies

PART 02

PART 02

            I wish I could say that I trudge back through the snow to my spot the next day, bundled up in seven layers, with the pure intention of finishing the drawing I had began the day before, but, of course, it’s not all. A part of me hopes to see that boy with the camera again. Crossing the log, I find that my intuition had been right. He sits in the same spot I had found him in yesterday. Sensing me approaching him, he looks up with a corner of his lips tilted up. I want to draw him, my fingers are twitching.

            :I knew it,” he says as I come to stand a few feet away from him, next to the cherry tree. His left leg dangles off the side of t he trunk, and he leaps down only to lean against the white wood. His camera is in his bare hand, strap hanging down, but he is tall enough that it doesn’t touch the snowy ground.

            “Knew what?” I ask, glancing at his naked hands. Is is just me or do they look just a bit blue? “Do you need some gloves? I have an extra pair.”

            “You would come back because you though I would come back. And why the hell do you have an extra pair of gloves?”

            “Wow, okay, that’s a bit cocky, don’t you think? Who ever said I came today because I thought you’d be here? And it’s in case I lose my first pair, it’s happened before. Or in case I ever come across some idiot not wearing gloves,” I say pointedly, and he grins, shoving his hands in his pockets.

            “I can’t work my camera right with gloves on,” he says. “I love winter, it gives you the best shots.” He looks at me and I do my best to not look back. It takes a lot of effort.

            “Are you going to come here everyday?” I blurt out and despite the cold, I can feel my face heating up. I stumble on my words as I try to shove them out in little puffs of visible breaths. “’Cause, I mean, I am. And, uh, I prefer working alone.” This is true, but another truth is that I wouldn’t mind if this boy stayed around. Or talked to me. Or kissed me. Whatever.

            “As long as it takes for me to figure out what I’m doing,” he holds up his camera, small smirk in place. It’s as if he is always smiling some form of a smile, always amused. He would fit right into the cast of SUITS.

            I frown. “I found this spot first.”      

            “Or maybe I did,” his smirk grows.

            “Finders keepers,” I grin in a juvenile manner and I hear the exhale laugh.

            “I guess we both keep it then.”

I scowl at him and it takes all my effort because he’s so pretty, but he doesn’t even blink, smirk in place. Sighing, I give in.

            “Okay, fine. I’m still sitting on the trunk thing, though.” He motions me forward and I sit on the bottom carefully, and when I glance back at him he’s sitting at the top again, scribbling something in a tiny notebook. Feeling my eyes, he glances up and meets them. I can’t look away and his eyes suddenly widen and excitement takes over his face. It’s fucking adorable.

            “I have a proposal for you,” he declares, and I set the pen I had just put to the paper down, closing the book around it to keep my place. I look at him swallowing. My finger draws him on my leg. “This college I really want to get into is having a competition for all t he art students and winner gets a scholarship. And I need a subject for my project,” he waves the small notebook at me, “and at first I thought I was looking for something vast and general, yet brilliant, like…like Petra Collins’ The Teenage Gaze, y’know?” I have no clue what he’s talking about and it shows on my face, it must, seeing as I’ve always been quite shit at hiding anything, but he keeps going, anyway. “But now I’ve seen you and you don’t hate getting your picture taken, and it would be amazing if you’d be my subject.”

            Well. That escalated quickly. Clearing my throat, I look for words, unsure how to respond. Then, “I, uh, what’s in it for me?”  

            “What do you want?” he asks immediately. "I’ll give you almost anything.”

            I look at him, at his clouds for eyes, charcoal for hair, freaking annoyingly beautiful smile. But I want you, I want to say. Instead, I tell him, “I want to draw you. And not, like, a photograph of you. I want to draw you. In person.”

            “Done. I mean, I was gonna offer you money, but this is okay, I guess. No one’s ever drawn me before,” he muses. I doubt that, I almost say. “I’m Isaac,” he says and I blink because I hadn’t realized that I don’t know him and  nor does he know me and he could very well be a murderer, but I guess not because he wants to photograph me and I want to draw him and his name is Isaac and Isaac is gorgeous.

            “Vinnie,” I tell him.

            “Vinnie,” he repeats, my name dancing on his tongue. I nearly die. “Is it actually Vinnie?”

            Hesitating, I shake my head. “No, it’s Vincent. I was named after Van Gogh.”

            “That’s so perfect,” he says and I blink again. Isaac has no filter, apparently. “This is all so perfect, how have I not met you before?” Raising the camera, he snaps a photo and I can’t speak. Guess who has forgotten to breathe again.

            (SPOILER ALERT: me)

            I look down at my hands, fingers peeking out of my gloves. There is red oil paint under my nails from two days ago. Even my fingers are blushing.

            “Did I scare you into silence, Vincent?” Isaac asks, and even without looking up, I know he is grinning, I can hear it in his words. I’ve never liked my real name until now. “Sorry.” He doesn’t sound sorry in the least. “Wait, are you blushing?” Click. “Holy shit, where has your face been all my life?”

        When I look up, he’s not smiling and I nearly topple over in surprise. His lips are part and his cloud eyes watch me as if I’m a painting in a museum. Realizing a second later that I am looking at him, he blinks himself out of some pocket of existence he had just tucked himself away into, and that already so familiar smile is back. “You are what my camera has been waiting for. It doesn’t know whether to photograph you or marry you.”

// honestly idk what i just wrote or what happened in that last paragraph but i wanted to end it in a cute way so thereyago i guess. thanks so much for reading xx

dedicated to chloe bc even though she might not think she's cut out for the publishing life i sure frickfrackin do!!

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- nova. //