Not Who You Thought (BxB Drama-Romance)

Tell Me About You

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."