Page 105 of Make Me Dream of You

“Um, yes.” She’s gnawing on her lip again.

She takes out her sketchbook from behind the easel, wedged between a couple blank canvases.

We walk over to the couch, and she opens it to the right page for me, handing it to me as we sit down.

I recognize the reference of her sketch immediately. “It’s The Kiss.”

The two figures are in the same position as the famous painting, bent over, embraced, him kissing her face. But these two figures are an angel and a demon. Her wings are large and drape around her, the tips touching the ground, while he has dark claws, hooves, a tail, and two, very large, twisted horns.

“This is spectacular,” I say.

“You think so?”

“Yes. This is amazing.” I look at her. “You are amazing.” I am in awe of her.

You love her.

I clear my throat. “May I?” I hold up the page as if to turn it, and she nods.

We look through her sketchbook in silence. She leans her head against my shoulder, her body pressed against mine as I flip through the pages. Every time I think I’ve found a favorite drawing, I turn the page and the next one is even better.

“Thank you.” I hand the sketchbook back to her. “I know you don’t like people looking through your stuff. But these are wonderful.”

“I don’t mind anyone seeing my finished pieces. I showed pieces all the time in school. It’s the unfinished and half-drawn, and abandoned things I don’t like to share.”

“Those are my favorite ones!”

She pulls back, that crease forming above her nose again. “Really?”

“Yes. I love the ones that are a bit messy, not finished and polished and perfect. I like seeing your hand in it—all the strokes, how your mind was working. They’re the most free and expressive. Besides, is anything ever finished?”

“In art? Some might say it’s finished when the artist says it is.”

“But we artists know the truth.”

She nods. “We could go on tweaking a project for eternity and still see more that could be done, fixed, changed. It’s never perfect.”

“Exactly. We’re all works in progress.”

We lock eyes. My hand is on her knee, and she puts hers over it and gives it a squeeze.

“They’d be proud of you,” she says, eyes glistening.

Fuck. My chest tightens and my eyelids start to burn. The sting of unshed tears becoming almost unbearable. But, while all these boiling emotions are churning inside me, she keeps my hand in hers. I am a storm, but she is calm. She is peace. She is warmth.

We don’t need words.

Livvy has been putting her drawing up on the back wall of the shop all shift. Her spot on the wall is right next to mine, right next to my station, and it’s taken all I have not to keep putting my equipment down and watch her create.

“It looks so good,” I tell her after my last client is finished up.

“Yeah?” She looks up at me with those green eyes and a smudge of white chalk across her forehead.

“I think it’s the coolest one in the whole shop.” I lean in. “Don’t tell anyone I said that.”

“Thanks.” Her cheeks turn bright pink, and she wipes her forehead with the back of her arm, smearing more chalk. “I need to go clean up.”

“I have to take care of a couple things in my office. Come find me when you’re done.”

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