Then
It took me two days to draw Charlie.
We sat on my back patio, sitting in plastic lawn chairs. I told him to wear the same thing each day and he did, a chunky pink sweater that was too big in the shoulders. It was bitterly cold that November, consequently our breath left clouds in the air. He never complained once about the chill, even though his ankles had goosebumps where his pants hiked up from sitting and exposed his skin. I wore gloves with the fingers cut off to ward off the cold, and became so absorbed in my work that I didn't notice the temperature.
Charlie was the best model I'd ever had. He sat for the three-hour sessions, trying to angle his head in the same exact way. When I reached over and took him lightly by the chin to reposition his head when it began to dip down, he was pliable beneath my fingers.
Because I was drawing his bust, we couldn't converse normally, and I ended up doing most of the talking. Charlie could give a slight nod or a whispered word between barely parted lips, but that was it. After the first day when we sat in focused silence, he asked me to tell him about myself.
So, I told him about myself. It was strange talking at him instead of to him. I wouldn't know if he was listening or not except for the almost indiscernible nod of his head and the flicker in his eyes. I told him that I wish I got to meet my dad, despite him being an asshole who abandoned my mother. I told him that I hated being Mexican because I felt like the token brown kid at our school, and that I didn't like getting selected for the promotional pictures or yearbook images only because I was one of the few minorities. I told him all about Kylie and that sometimes I missed her even though our relationship sucked.
I think it was while I drew him that I realized how beautiful he was. My specialty was figure drawing and realistic oil paintings. I drew him exactly as he was. For some reason I wanted my drawing to be perfect, so I was hyper-focused on the fine details. Maybe I felt the need to impress him.
I drew the curling lashes, the dip of his lips, and the vein in his neck. Charlie looked otherworldly in the dying light, a fairy plucked from some fantasy land. His eyes were ice and his cheeks pallid. While I drew him, I had the sense that he didn't belong here, in the same way, that I felt I didn't belong in the countryside with all the conservative white people who'd probably never eaten anything actually spicy once in their lives.
"Okay," I said after we had been sitting on the patio for three hours. "I think I'm done."
"You think?" He asked. "Can I move my head?"
"Yeah." I was suddenly nervous to show him the final product. "You can relax."
"Oh, man." He breathed a sigh of relief and stretched his arms above his head with a groan. "This feels great." His breath made a cloud. "Can I see it?"
"Sure." I sounded more certain than I felt.
I turned my sketchpad slowly, facing the drawing to him. I thought it might have been one of my best drawings yet, which was unfortunate because it wasn't an art project for school. My hyperrealistic drawing of him came into being because I drove Charlie back to his house from school for the first time a few days ago, and asked if I could draw him. He said yes.
Charlie was silent. His eyes went down to the drawing and then up to my face, then back to the drawing and back to my face. I thought he hated it and was about to defensively close the sketchbook when he spoke in a quiet voice.
"Is this what I look like to you?"
His eyes looked misty. It must have been the cold.
"Yes." I explained, "You look like this. I did my best to make it realistic."
"Wow," he was whispering. "That's really, really good. You did a great job, Lucas."
I reached over and gave him a punch to the arm, trying to lighten up the mood. The space between us felt electric and I almost shuddered when my knuckles bumped his upper arm. He rubbed his arm and smiled shyly at me.
"You can keep it, it's all yours."
He hesitated.
"What? Don't you want it?"
"I do want it. It's amazing, I want to look at it all day." He gave me an apologetic expression. "Can I keep it here, though?"
"Why?" I was confused. I didn't know then to not ask so many questions. "Take it home, Charlie. I didn't draw it for myself, it's a gift for you."
"My dad doesn't know I'm here." He kicked the toe of his shoe against the patio. "Sometimes he gets weird about certain things. I don't want him to ask where this is from and get suspicious."
"Suspicious of what?" I asked in surprise. "Tell him a friend drew it for you."
"I don't have friends," his voice was tiny and I could tell I was upsetting him. "Okay? He's going to know it was from a guy. Let me keep it here."
"Oh." I felt like an asshole. "Sorry, that's fine."
"I really do love it." He swallowed, his Adam's apple bobbing in his throat. "You made me look good."
I felt close to Charlie after studying his face for hours while I drew him. When I told him about my life, I told him things I'd never shared with anyone besides Kylie. I felt closer to him than I was with any of my other friends.
It wasn't because I sucked his dick in the bathroom that I was beginning to like being around him, it was because he was a nice person. The first day I drove him to my house, he bought me an iced coffee from the deli by our high school, and a panini that we shared in my car. We kept bumping elbows while we ate the sandwich because he was left-handed and I was right-handed. The day I drew him and he asked me to tell him about myself, he squeezed my hand when I was done sketching and told me he liked hearing about my life.
Charlie was the sweetest person I'd ever met.
"You do look good. You're a very handsome person." My word came out before I could think about what I was saying, like vomit. "I enjoyed drawing you. It was nice to spend time together."
He smiled when I said that.
"Sorry." My fingertips felt frozen as I scrubbed my knuckles into my dry eyes. "That was weird."
"No, not weird." He still had that smile on his face. It was a hopeful smile and I was about to crush it. "I didn't think so."
"Listen." I took my hand from my eyes. "I need to be honest with you, Charlie. Is that okay?"
"I'd rather you be honest than lie." He tilted his head to the side and his hair fell against his cheek. "Go ahead."
"I'm not...gay," I gulped. "What we did last week at the party wasn't something I'd ever done before. I think you're a cool guy, don't get me wrong. I've never, ever been attracted to another dude. Not in real life, anyways."
"Oh," he said, sounding perplexed. He maintained the same expression, but I could see rejection forming in his eyes. That was one of Charlie's biggest flaws, his expressive eyes gave everything away.
"I don't have a girlfriend right now because I don't want to get distracted from school," I informed him. "I'm an all-or-nothing person. It's balls to the walls for me, no matter what I do."
"Okay." He dropped his eyes to the drawing. "That's fine."
"We can still hang out, though." I cringed at how much I sounded like a douchebag. "I'm not interested in being in a relationship with a boy, that's all. Don't get me wrong, I liked what we did. I didn't think I'd like it but I did."
"You think I'm attractive," he stated. "I think you're hot."
"Oh, come on," I muttered.
He grinned at my discomfort. "I'm messing around with you," he said easily. "Sure, Lucas. Let's be friends."
"It's hard to tell if you're being sarcastic or not."
"I'm not," he promised, a hand held solemnly over his heart. "I could use a friend."
I looked at Charlie and he looked at me. Something passed between us; a mutual understanding. I didn't realize then how hard it would be to be friends with someone like him or how entangled our emotions would become.
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Author's note: shorter chapter today! What do you think will happen to their friendship?
Fair warning things are going to get kind of crazy...