On Rotation(8)

“Thanks,” I said numbly, finally letting myself look at him. Good god, was he hot. Maybe not to Nia, who would probably say he was too lean, but he was exactly my type—tallish, with thick, black eyebrows and an unabashedly sunny smile. He was some kind of brown, maybe South Asian, probably Latin, and dressed simply in black joggers and a burgundy hoodie that was, embarrassingly, almost the exact same color as my shirt. He had his longish hair pushed back and secured with a thin headband; his inevitable girlfriend was probably desperate to cut it.

“Are you okay?” he asked, and I winced. “I don’t mean to bother you, but . . .” His smile became sympathetic. “You looked like you needed bothering.”

“I’m fine,” I said, stretching to my feet.

Now that the initial shock had worn off, I was wary. That a boy had approached me in the wild was not particularly unusual. I was still my mother’s daughter, after all. Men finding excuses to stop me in the street had ceased being a compliment and become more of a nuisance not long after I hit puberty, and I had since perfected the art of wheedling myself out of unwanted conversations. Every now and then, though, I wouldn’t want to escape. I would find the guy charming, and we would banter and flirt, exchange numbers, and talk for a good length of time before he abruptly ghosted, or worse, I discovered that he wasn’t actually on the market.

This was not one of those times. Cute Boy was attractive, but he had atrocious timing.

“It’s okay if you aren’t fine,” he was saying. He stood up too, shoving his hands deep into his pockets. “I won’t judge.”

I narrowed my eyes.

“So is this what you do?” I asked. “Hide out in the bushes like some kind of troll, and then pop out to offer comfort to all the crying girls who come into this garden?”

He laughed.

“Who’s hiding?” he said. He pointed at a bench a few feet away, only somewhat obscured by a row of delphiniums. Blood rushed to my ears; how had I missed him there? “I was just sitting there, minding my business. You’re the one who came barging into a public garden to have a cry.”

“You’ve been here this whole time,” I said, my stomach sinking.

“Well, yeah,” he said. “I was going to leave you alone, but you sounded pretty miserable. Though, I will admit, the whole thing was pretty cinematic, what with this backdrop.” Just as I was about to sink into the earth, he added, “Nothing to be ashamed of. I’ve had a couple good cries here myself.”

That gave me pause. Not just because he was making light of my breakdown, but because he’d offered up his own. I couldn’t remember the last time a man had told me that he cried without shame.

“You have?” I said.

“Oh yeah,” he said. “To answer your question, though, I usually come here to draw.” He ducked his head, suddenly shy. “And. Um. Actually, I was hoping to ask you a favor.”

Here it goes, I thought. Let me guess, the favor is going to involve me holding something for you. And surprise! That something is your dick—

“I was wondering if I could draw you.”

My heart stammered in my chest. It was a strange request but flattering all the same. And I could tell that he was serious; I could see now that he’d left a small book and a pencil pouch on the bench.

“Oh,” I said.

Cute Boy seemed to have used up all his bravado on his initial approach, because now he could barely meet my eyes.

“Sorry,” he said, “I know it’s kind of a weird thing to ask—”

“No,” I said quickly. When his smile faltered, I added, “I mean, no, it’s not weird. Okay, who am I kidding, it is, but I don’t mind. You can draw me.”

He smiled so widely you would’ve thought I’d offered to pay his rent. And he had dimples. Christ.

“Oh. Okay! Great!” he said, noticeably more animated. “My name’s Ricky, by the way. And you are . . . ?”

“Angela,” I said. “Angie.”

“It’s nice to meet you,” he said, then, all business, headed back to the bench.

At Ricky’s direction, I sat, cross-legged, in a patch of sunlight on the ground across from him. The foliage around me left dappled shadows across my legs but spared my face. He instructed me to put my hands on my knees, then changed his mind and had me fold them in my lap. When he was satisfied, he pulled his sketchbook onto his lap and began to draw.

The early summer breeze shifted through the trees, still carrying with it the sting of spring chill. Without my music, I could hear the loud stillness of the city, cars zooming down the street only tens of feet away, birds chirping, Ricky’s pencils scratching against paper. The places where the sun touched my skin felt warm and light, and I took in a deep, cleansing breath. I felt loose and liquid and languid. It was the most at peace I had felt in months.

“You can move, you know,” Ricky said after a while. I opened my eyes to find him looking at me with amusement.

“Doesn’t my pose matter?” I asked. He smiled, switching out his graphite pencil for a colored one.

“Not anymore, not really,” he said. “I just wanted to get your face right.” Then he stuck his tongue out, teasing. “This isn’t the Royal Academy; I don’t need you to stay put for six hours for your portrait.”