Page 62 of Refraction

He opened a tall cabinet next to the fridge, surprised to find a bunch of canvases inside. He figured maybe they were the ones Tucker was… what was the term Tucker had used? Like, the thing where you clean and recycle the canvas to be used again. He couldn’t remember that stupid word.

He pulled them out, frowning as he found them all painted, not clean and white and ready to go. He spread them out, finding five canvases covered with him—his face, his body.

Withhim? He didn’t understand. He picked one up, angling it to the light to see it better, his eyes tracing Tucker’s interpretation of the line from his ear, down around his shoulder. That wasn’t nearly as awful, though, as the look in his eyes, real enough to look right through him.

He dropped the painting back on the floor and stepped back from the group of them, rubbing his hands together like they’d lashed out and stung him. His heart was pounding again, but not in the wonderful way it usually did when Tucker was around. This was… something else.

Calvin had asked him not to. “You said you wouldn’t.”

“No, I didn’t. Those aren’t for you. They’re for me.” Tucker stood there, drying his hair with a towel. “I know you didn’t want to see them; that’s why I put them away.”

“Jesus.” He gasped, the way Tucker snuck up on him making him jump. “For you? I asked you not to do this, Tucker. What do you mean they’re for you? That’s so….”

Creepy. Obsessive.

“And then you hid them away? What the hell?”

Stalkerish. And kind of scary.

“You said you didn’t want to see them, so I made sure to put them up.” Tucker looked at him like he wasn’t making sense.

What? Is this a game?

“Come on, Tucker. Don’t be obtuse. I didn’t want to see them—I didn’t expect to see them because I didn’t want you to do them! I told you I didn’t like it. It’s… it makes me uncomfortable. Anxious.”

His eyes stung, and he marched away from all of it. He didn’t want to see them anymore. “You can’t do any more of these.”

“I paint what I paint, honey. You know that. I love you. I swear, no one will see them, but I have to paint.” Tucker carefully put the canvases back. “Did you get your coffee made?”

There was so much wrong with everything Tucker had just said that he didn’t even know where to start. “You don’t have to paintme, Tucker. What are you not understanding here? I don’t care if anyone sees them. I’m not one of your fucking demons. I’m standing right here, flesh and blood, and I’m telling you, I don’t like it. Don’t paint me anymore.”

Tucker winced, staring at the closed cabinet for a second, and then he took a deep breath. “I’m gonna get some clothes on.”

Calvin hurried over to him, getting in his way, stopping him with one hand on his chest. “Come on, tiger. Just promise me you won’t. It’s not that big a deal, is it?”

The paintingswerea big deal to Calvin, though. Every one of them felt like Tucker was seeing things Calvin didn’t like, or didn’t even know about himself.

“Please just promise?”

“I can’t. It would be a lie.” Tucker looked still, empty maybe. “I don’t want to lie to you.”

Calvin searched Tucker’s eyes, watching the blue go a little dim. His heart sank into the pit of his stomach. “I don’t want to be lied to either.” He got out of Tucker’s way and went to find his jeans, not knowing at all what to do. He had no recourse, no leverage over a flat-out no.

Tucker loved him, he believed that, but the man’s priorities were clear. Tucker couldn’t promise him the only hard thing he’d ever asked for.

Tucker grabbed a pair of jeans, slid them on without a word, then slipped into an old sweatshirt that was covered in paint. “Do you want…? What can I do, honey? I don’t want to fight.”

You can make me a promise to stop stealing little bits of my soul and bringing them to life in all their ugly glory on your canvases.

He sighed and wiggled his feet into his sneakers. “I don’t either. Neither of us is winning. I guess neither of us can.”

He scooped up his coat off the floor and pulled it on. He couldn’t look into Tucker’s eyes again. Everything,everythinghurt right now. “Let me know if you change your mind.”

The three steps it took him to get out the door were the heaviest of his whole life. He wasn’t sure he’d make it to the subway.

He made it down the flight of stairs, though, and turned back, looking up to see Tucker standing there in the window, watching him leave.

Watching him leave—and not trying to stop him.

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