Free I'll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson Page B

against the wall, the sketch of him facing out. He recaps the bottle.
    â€œCat got your tongue? Or wait—do you Americans even say that?”
    I nod.
    â€œRight, then. Good to know. Only been here a few months.” He gets up, using the wall as support. “So let’s have a look,” he says, walking unsteadily over to me. He fumbles a cigarette out of a pack that was in his robe pocket. The sadness seems to have evaporated right off him. I notice something remarkable.
    â€œYour eyes are two different colors,” I blurt out. Like a Siberian husky’s!
    â€œBrilliant. He speaks!” he says, smiling so that a riot breaks out in his face again. He lights the cigarette, inhales deeply, then makes the smoke come out his nose like a dragon. He points to his eyes, says, “Heterochromia iridium, would’ve had me burned at the stake with the witches, I’m afraid.” I want to say how supremely cool it is, but of course I don’t. All I can think about now is that I’ve seen him naked, I’ve seen
him
. I pray my cheeks aren’t as red as they are hot. He nods toward my pad. “Can I?”
    I hesitate, worried to have him look at it. “Go on, then,” he says, motioning for me to get it. It’s like singing the way he talks. I pick up the pad and hand it to him, wanting to explain the octopus-like position I had to be in on account of not having a stand, how I didn’t hardly look down as I was drawing, how I suck. How my blood doesn’t glow at all. I swallow it all, say nothing. “Well done,” he says with enthusiasm. “Very well done, you.” He seems like he means it. “Couldn’t afford the summer class, then?” he asks.
    â€œI’m not a student here.”
    â€œYou should be,” he says, which makes my hot cheeks even hotter. He puts his cigarette out on the building, causing a shower of red sparks. He’s definitely not from here. This is fire season. Everything’s waiting to go up.
    â€œI’ll see if I can smuggle you out a stand on my next break.” He stashes the bag by a rock. Then he holds up his hand, points his index finger at me. “You don’t tell, I won’t tell,” he says, like we’re allies now. I nod, smiling. English people are so not asshats! I’m going to move there. William Blake was English. Frances freaking-the-most-awesome-painter Bacon too. I watch him walking away, which takes forever on account of his sloth pace, and want to say something more to him, but I don’t know what. Before he turns the corner, I think of something. “Are you an artist?”
    â€œI’m a mess is what I am,” he says, holding on to the building for support. “A bloody mess. You’re the artist, mate.” Then he’s gone.
    I pick up the pad and look at the drawing I did of him, his broad shoulders, his narrow waist, long legs, the trail of hair on his navel going down, down, down. “I’m a bloody mess,” I say out loud with his bubbling accent, feeling giddy. “I’m a bloody artist, mate. A bloody mess.” I say it a few more times, louder and with more and more gusto, then realize I’m talking with an English accent to a bunch of trees and go back to my spot.
    A couple times in the following session, he looks right at me and winks because we’re conspirators now! And on the next break, he brings me a stand
and
a footstool so I can really see in. I set it up—it’s perfect—then lean against the wall next to him while he sips from the bottle and smokes. I feel way cool, like I’m wearing sunglasses even though I’m not. We’re buds, we’re
mates,
except he doesn’t say anything to me this time, nothing at all, and his eyes have turned cloudy and dim. And it’s like he’s melting into a puddle of himself.
    â€œAre you okay?” I ask.
    â€œNo,” he answers. “Not okay at