Page 39 of Fruit
“Fuck.”
“It’d be two years…you submit a portfolio…”
“Pay a shit-ton of fees…”
“Yeah. Although you can do it part-time, keep your current job.”
“Then it’d be longer.”
“Yeah. I guess it’s just weighing the pros and cons.”
“Urgh. I can’t think about this right now. And I’d have to submit a portfolio.”
“Iva, that’d be the least of your worries.”
“How would you know? You haven’t even seen any of my paintings.”
“I just know. I only have to listen to you talk about art to know you’re good at it.”
“That’s—”
“It’s true. Art isn’t just about technical application, it’s about having something to say and knowing how to say it in a way that will reach other people. You’ve got that.”
I blink at him, a little floored. “I mean…thanks?”
“I would like to see one of your paintings, though. If you didn’t mind.”
Sebastián’s eyes are dark and steady. For some reason, my heart starts beating quicker. The way he’s looking at me, digging under my skin, makes my palms sweat. Part of me wants to refuse him, the raw fear of being exposed. A larger part of me, however…
“I…I have some pictures on my phone. I mean, it’s not the same, I guess—”
“Can I see them?”
I hesitate for a moment. I’m the furthest thing from a shy person as you can get. But here, now, with Sebastián so close, this feels like stripping in a quiet moment. Like revealing something which might say more than you intend.
“Okay,” I say nevertheless. I take out my phone, thanking my foresight for not taking pictures of the painting I’d done of him. The memory of it, though, has my skin warming.
I click on the right folder and tilt the phone towards him. “You can swipe,” I say, and he takes the mobile from me.
I watch his face. Those serious brows, the easily flattened edges of his lips, the curve of his jaw. He pauses on each picture, zooming in on them. A few from my last project—scenes from a ransacked but hopeful Puerto Rico, and then to the ones I had been painting lately. Fruit, painted in obscene detail, cracked open and dripping, making your mouth water to look at them. He takes a long time looking at an open pomegranate, its vulnerable pulp, its staining liquid, its sensual shapes.
He lifts his eyes and they meet mine. I can’t breathe for a moment, they’re so dark. I know that look. It makes the hair on the nape of my neck raise in anticipation. I feel my tongue run across my bottom lip, and his eyes flicker down to follow the movement.
The stillness hangs. We look, but we don’t. The moment stretches too far and breaks under its own pressure.
“See? I knew you’d be great,” he says, and his voice is too low. Intimate.
I look away. I search for a joke, coming up empty. My mouth is dry. “Thanks.” It’s all I can think to say.
The thing is. The thing is—I always go in for the kiss if I know the person wants it. I never second-guess myself. It’s just a kiss. Sex is just sex.
Now though, my hands are shaking a little with adrenaline. I feel like I’ve just stepped away from a brink I should have leapt from.
I feel completely rattled, and I’m not sure why.
*****
I guess it’s ironic that I go home and paint the moment. Not his face or my shaking hands, but the feeling of it. That gut-deep rush, the tremble across the hair on my arms. The wanting, like the scent of something delicious in the air. The deep, deep red of it, bruising into purple as you press at the ache. The clotted pigmentation at the base of your throat, the orange itch at your fingertips. The rich black as you close your eyes and imagine for a moment.
