His Muse

The repercussions of madness: a memoir by Nic

Copyright © 2018. All Rights Reserved.

Nic was certain he would have been fine. He wouldn't have continued to draw Kieran, or paint him, color him, or whatever. That session with Kieran did wonders on the itch he had to draw that boy's beautiful face, and that smile, now that he knew it so well.

But that all changed because he couldn't stop thinking about how his two and three dimensions drawing class meant he already paid the modeling fee, for after their still life section of the class. This last drawing would be their final part in still life, which would mean... stress dreams about Kieran showing up in nothing but a robe and—

Holy shit. Nic couldn't think straight for the life of him.

He couldn't believe the vividness of his stress dreams. If he thought the ones before his session with Kieran were awful, these were just horrific. He'd wake up in the morning in a panic, and slap his hands to his face so Leo wouldn't see how red he was just from thinking back on it. How would he ever stand not knowing whether or not Kieran decided to take nude modeling classes? And on top of it, how could he stand not knowing whether or not he'd get to class one day and find Kieran there? He started to come up with terrible excuses to tell his professor, saying that he couldn't possibly stay for the class session because he had uncontrollable diarrhea and it was a mistake even leaving the dorm.

They all ended in embarrassment, even if he did stay and suck it up.

His conclusion was to stop dreaming altogether, which meant an all-nighter that knocked him out in the middle of lecture on the following Monday. He was startled awake by the familiar guy that usually sat next to him, but was now getting up to leave.

"Hey, you all right man? You're lookin' kinda rough today," Milo commented, and noted Nic's empty notebook. "No sketches today, huh?"

Nic rubbed the sleep from his eyes and sniffled a little. Why did it feel like someone stuffed his head with a brick and left it there to weigh him down? "Nah, no more sketches. I actually... met up with Kieran last week. I painted a portrait of him," he confessed, voice stuffy as he pulled out his phone to show Milo.

Milo was an all-around okay guy in Nic's opinion, at least from what he knew of the guy. He seemed to take a liking to Nic because new sketches were always fun, and sometimes drawings and other visuals were just... more interesting than the actual notes on the front projector in the lecture hall. So it just seemed like a daily ritual at this rate to just show Milo the sketches or else be prodded about them later as they left the class.

He let Milo hold onto his phone while he packed up his notebook and pencils. Milo flicked through the pictures, finding the closer-up shots, and the detailed color here and there. "Shit, you made this? How long'd it take?"

"I dunno. Like, almost four hours I think," he confessed with a shrug. Milo hummed in appreciation, handing the painting back.

"So did he like it?" he asked, and Nic nodded. "You don't look happy about it."

"I am! We just... talked about something and I can't stop thinking about it. That tends to happen a lot," Nic admitted, and saying it out loud made it infinitely more true. Why did his brain have to function like this? It was seriously starting to ruin his otherwise flawless complexion. The red puffiness under his eyes was starting to make it look like he was constantly crying, but that just wasn't the case. He was constantly internally crying over the idea of Kieran modeling in front of his entire fucking drawing class.

When Milo inquired about the topic, Nic knew he should just keep his mouth shut. Milo knew Kieran—they were lab partners. And he shouldn't just trust strangers with this kind of information. It was horrific, thinking about the consequences of letting something like that get out and spread like wildfire among everyone Kieran associated with.