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I blinked "Mia said she’s been here"

"She stands in the doorway, as does everyone else I don’t like having people in this space"

"Do you want o stand over at the door?"

"No Just--if you don’t touch anything, that would be good"

I was a bit overwhel able to enter the artist’s temple when his closest loved ones could not Did that reveal a certain level of special trust? A lueted in my spot, then stuffed my hands in my pockets as if to reassure him that I would behave "Deal"

He went to one of the easels and reround Then he opened up a big cabinet and flipped through a few boards without looking at the for and exactly where it was

Moving from the cabinet back to the now-eot a look at as on that board, I about fell over in shock I most certainly couldn’t breathe

It was an absolutely exquisite acrylic painting of ht be lurid, in reality, it wasn’t at all The iover my bare shoulder I had no shirt on, but as I was turned away from the viewer, there were no anatomical details Even if he had chosen to be more explicit, I could not have felt as hi on

It ly detailed--the glint in my eyes, the strands of hair splayed across my shoulders, the curve of my earlobe I labored to drawa photo of me Ho did you do this?"

He seemed confused by my non sequitur question but answered anyway "I don’t paint from photos Photos are two-di in three dih to recall the details in order to create this ie"

"So is that the reason you didn’t do a full-frontal depiction? Because you haven’t seen ed

I couldn’t take e inside--special, like a queen Janja, ti si kraljica Those words in Papa’s voice popped into ain until this moment I sed

"Do you like it?" he asked

I was blinking tears fro I’m just so…"

"What?"

"Overwhel, Wil"

He didn’t reply, but he did turn back to look at the canvas

"Would you paint hed at his shocked face, which was good It helped those strong emotions dissipate, and I welcomed that Because with those memories came pain And I didn’t want to remember Not now