I knew I wouldn’t.
Cameron
By late afternoon, the sky had turned the colour of slate.
From the north-facing windows of the studio, the light looked metallic, making everything sharper: the charcoal lines, the shadows on the model’s skin, the quiet scratch of graphite against paper.
I hunched over my sketchbook, trying to focus. The model held a steady pose, all angles and soft muscle, easy enough to draw. But every time I moved my pencil, something went wrong.
The shape of the shoulders wasn’t quite right. The jawline was too defined.
I tore the page out and started again.
It happened once more.
A rumble of thunder rolled somewhere far off, and some of the students murmured uneasily. Then it rumbled again.
“It’s moving closer,” Dan murmured.
Next to him, Emma frowned. “How do you know that?”
“’Cause I can count.”
Outside, the rain began to fall in steady, cold sheets.
“Okay, folks.” Nora raised her voice above the sudden noise. “Five-minute break. Stretch your hands.”
I flexed my fingers, smudged with charcoal. I was thinking about leaving early when Nora stopped beside me, glancing down at my pad.
Her eyebrows arched. “Who is he?”
I blinked. “What?”
“The man you keep drawing.” She tapped one of the pages, where the model’s torso was right, but the face wasn’t. It was narrower, more serious, the eyes half shadowed.
“You’ve nailed the body,” she said. “But our model doesn’t look like that. So who are you seeing?”
I stared at the page. I hadn’t even noticed until now. Theo’s expression looked back at me, focused, restrained, all quiet intensity. I’d drawn him over and over, unthinking, as naturally as breathing.
I swallowed. “Just… someone.”
Nora smiled faintly. “Someone, huh. Well, whoever he is, tell him he’s a good muse. You’ve never been this precise before.”
I tried to laugh but it came out thin. “Yeah. He’s… something.”
“And youmightwant to think about doing a life drawing or painting for your next piece.” Nora smiled once more. “You know there’ll be an exhibition of all the pieces, right? I think you’d attract a lot of positive comments, generate a lot of interest.”
Rain battered against the windows, turning the city beyond into a blur of silver.
“Nora, the amber weather alert has been upgraded to red.” Ozzy held his phone up. “They’re talkin’ strong winds, flash flooding, train delays...”
Nora clapped her hands. “Okay, everyone. Get home before we have to fish you out of the Thames.”
I packed my sketchbook carefully, slipping the newest page inside without looking at it again. The hallways were already echoing with hurried footsteps. I pulled up my hood and stepped outside.
By the time I left class, the sky had cracked open. Umbrellas flipped inside-out along the pavement. People sprinted to buses, drenched before they crossed the street. London rain wasn’t usually violent, but this was. Sheets of water blurred the city into grey. The gutters overflowed like broken fountains.
I tugged my hood and hunched my shoulders, clutching my sketch folders beneath my jacket. Within seconds, I was soaked through. Wind shoved at me from every direction, cold water sluicing down my collar. The streets were half empty; even the buses crawled under the weight of the storm.