Page 137 of Brazen Deceits

So I do.

Chapter 63

Walker

We made it through finals, but all our minds lingered on what happened in Chicago. And now that the semester’s over, it’s time to clean out my art studio. It’s also time to stop keeping pieces of myself from Clara.

I can’t remember the last time I was truly nervous. Between all the cello competitions, debate tournaments, and chess matches, my parents conditioned nerves out of me.

Glancing at Clara in the seat beside me, the last thaw before real winter leaving icy puddles on the road, I’m too nervous to remember what we were talking about.

I pull up at the loading dock, putting on my hazards, not able to say anything, irreverent or not. She smiles at me, and my heart thrums in my ears. Maybe we should just turn back around and spend the afternoon in bed? Hers or mine, it really doesn’t matter.

She leaps out of the car before I can suggest it, so I have no choice but to follow.

“Lead the way, master forger!” she says, linking her arm with mine.

God. Why am I doing this?

Forcing myself to nod, I key us into the art building and bring her up to my tiny rented studio space. But I pause outside the door.

I don’t think I can do this.

“Walker?” she asks, her hands coming to my cheeks.

“Ready to clean up a semester’s worth of art junk?” I ask, instead of turning and going the other way.

“Definitely.”

Opening the door, the sharp sting of paints and cleaners hits my nose, the faint dust of chalk and charcoal in the air. It smells like a second home to me. But what about to Clara?

I flip on the light and look around, the piles of half-finished portraits evidence of the only thing that occupies my mind.

Her.

Stepping up to the easel, she finds the one piece I completed, the one I turned in that earned me the highest grade in the class.

In it, she’s looking away, her profile telling a story, the squint to her eyes full of suspicion, the twist of her lips a mockery of laughter, the tilt of her jaw determined and confident. But on the other side of her mass of curls, another profile, one of freedom, laughter, joy.

I named itUnmasked.

But it’s not just about her. It’s about me, too.

“It’s me,” she says, her fingers hovering in front of the canvas, afraid to touch it.

“Yeah. It is.” I swallow. “They pretty much all are.”

It takes effort for her to drag her eyes from the canvas to the rest of the room, but she can see them all. Studies of her eyes, her hands, her mouth, her curves.

Even when I wasn’t with her, she was here with me.

“Walker,” she says, her hand now hovering in front of those perfect lips.

I tuck my hands into my pockets. “Yeah. I guess, well, I met you, and I couldn’t get you out of my head. So I drew you. A lot. But then, everything got all fucked up and I, I was so scared, Clara. I could feel this, this piece of my soul that belonged to you. What if you didn’t want it? What if you held onto it, but then found someone better and gave it back?”

“Walker—“

“I…I need to say this, Clara. Please?” She nods, and I swallow. “I got so scared, I couldn’t draw. Not just you, but anything. I tried. I tried so goddamn hard. That whole pile over there is failed attempts.” I motion to discarded canvases, eyes with too small, wonky pupils, lips with creases so deep they could be crevasses. “And I got mad. Mad at you for taking not just my soul, but my art, too. I knew it was dumb, but yeah.”

---