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The gallery’s overhead lights click on when the solar laht, but barely pauses

Ithe work he’s done

The sculpture is beautiful, far more beautiful than raceful in her stillness than I could ever be when I move

“ Can you— ” he starts, then gets distracted by his sculpture, se in the clay I watch as his hands run over the surface He must be nearly finished—the sculpture looks so real now, as if this perfect earthen copy of me will lift her feet up and step from the narrow base

Luthor’s handsacross the sculpture’s brow, over her closed, delicate eyelids, along her cheeks, down the hollows of her neck, straining with a silent song, lingering on her collarbone and trailing, finally, finally, co to rest on her clay breasts

I take a shaky breath

“I like to make the lines smooth,” Luthor says, his attention still on his sculpture

“Everything has to blend together ”

“It’s beautiful,” I say, my voice softer than I’d intended

He pauses now, and turns to look at me “You’re beautiful,” he says

He lifts his mud-coated hands toward me, then stops I lean forward He touches me on my forehead, just as he touched his sculpture, and I close nore the clay he leaves onover my face, down my neck, across my collarbonebut he stops I open my eyes

He pulls me closer to him

And the kiss we share irl

6

I don’t go back to the Hospital until well after dark, and when I do, I leave Luthor in our studio He’s still working like h, to me, it looks complete