Chapter 12 — What remains in the sketchbooks

The next day, the balcony officially became more serious than I was.

At 6:07 p.m., Liora’s father arrived with a drill, a Plexiglas panel, a box of screws, two brackets, a level, construction tape, and the particular concentration of a man who had decided a problem would not survive his presence.

He also had a pencil tucked behind one ear.

An entirely consistent detail.

Liora was with him.

Obviously.

“I’m here for moral support and unnecessary commentary,” she announced as she stepped onto the landing.

“You can also hold the panel,” her father replied.

“So I’m indispensable.”

“Temporarily.”

“I’ll take it.”

I opened my door with the impression that I was welcoming a small feline-security company.

Eugène immediately tried to get out.

Because the irony was entirely lost on him.

Or because he understood it far too well.

I pushed him back with my foot.

“No.”

He looked at the Plexiglas panel. Then at Liora’s father. Then at me.

New obstacle. Distracted humans. Possibilities.

“Not even in your dreams,” I said.

Liora smiled. Her father merely nodded, as though the sentence were part of the protocol.

The installation took forty-two minutes.

I knew because I checked the time at the beginning and again at the end.

Forty-two minutes during which I discovered that I knew how to hold a panel, pass someone a screwdriver, search a box for a drill bit, and respond yes to simple instructions without looking completely useless.

Progress.

Liora’s father worked well.

Obviously.

Precise, calm, and not talkative except when explaining what he was doing. He checked every measurement twice, adjusted the panel by a few millimeters, stepped back, returned.

“There,” he finally said.

Transparent. Solid. Discreet enough not to turn the balcony into a detention cell. High enough to discourage Eugène, or at least force him to submit a more elaborate escape plan.

“He won’t be able to cross,” Liora said.

Her father looked at the cat behind the glass.

“He’ll be able to try.”

Eugène was sitting in the middle of the living room, perfectly still.

As though taking notes.

“He already understands,” I said.

Liora leaned toward the glass.

“Eugène, you have been defeated.”

He blinked.

“He refuses to accept it,” I added.

“Great minds never surrender immediately.”

“He’s a cat.”

“Exactly.”

Her father packed away his tools, refused coffee, accepted a glass of water because his daughter stared at him insistently, then returned home with the quiet satisfaction of a man who had made the world slightly more compliant with how it ought to be.

Liora stayed.

Not officially.

She lingered on the threshold, one hand on the frame, the other in the pocket of her sweatshirt, her eyes already searching for Eugène.

Visible pretext.

Increasingly unconvincing.

“Is he okay?” she asked.

I looked at Eugène, lying in front of the glass door with the solemnity of a deposed monarch.

“He’s going through a difficult period.”

“Can I offer my condolences?”

“You’re allergic.”

“To fur. Not compassion.”

“I’m not sure science agrees.”

She smiled.

But she didn’t move immediately.

Her gaze drifted toward my desk.

The screen was on.

So were the five images for the exhibition.

I realized this approximately one second too late.

Too late.

“Are you working on the exhibition?”

“No.”

She slowly turned her head toward me.

“Aurèl.”

“Yes.”

“You just said no while standing in front of a screen displaying five drawings.”

“I could be working on something else.”

“You could.”

Silence.

“But you aren’t working on something else.”

I sighed.

“No.”

This time, she properly entered, closing the door behind her carefully.

Not the way she closed doors at home.

In my apartment, she paid attention.

I didn’t want to notice that.

I noticed anyway.

Demitrius lifted his head in his corner.

Liora stopped immediately, six feet away from him.

“Hello, Demitrius.”

He didn’t move.

“Is he still angry with me?”

“He hasn’t issued an official statement yet.”

“So he’s thinking.”

“Always.”

She smiled, then turned toward Eugène.

“And you, political prisoner?”

“Don’t give him vocabulary.”

Eugène moved his tail.

Liora remained standing in the middle of the studio.

Long enough for me to feel the room through her eyes again.

She already knew the place, but this time she was entering after I had seen her family’s apartment. The larger living room. Her father’s questions. Her mother’s remark about holding many things together in very little space.

The studio hadn’t changed.

It was still small.

Except now I had seen how it looked from another world.

I walked toward the computer to close the folder.

Bad reflex.

Liora noticed immediately.

“Are you hiding it?”

“I’m putting it away.”

“You never put things away that quickly.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I’m learning.”

A very bad development.

I kept one hand on the mouse without clicking.

Ridiculous.

Closing the window wouldn’t undo the fact that she had seen the screen.

“It isn’t final,” I said.

“I didn’t say anything.”

“Exactly.”

“You’re defending yourself against my silence?”

I released the mouse.

“Maybe.”

She looked at the images from where she stood. Not close enough to see everything. Close enough to understand that they were a series.

“Can I look?”

A simple question.

Not show me.

Not her usual open-door energy.

I looked at the screen.

Then the sketchbooks.

Then Eugène.

No support.

“It isn’t very interesting.”

She tilted her head.

“Bad sign.”

“What?”

“When you say that.”

“Sometimes it’s true.”

“Not this time.”

“You don’t know.”

She lifted one shoulder.

“I’m not your father.”

The sentence struck a place that was far too precise.

She seemed to understand that afterward.

Her expression changed slightly.

“I mean...”

“I know.”

Silence.

Demitrius chewed something.

His dramatic timing was questionable.

I rolled my chair backward.

“You can look.”

Liora approached.

Not too quickly.

She leaned toward the screen. I moved aside slightly, then farther, then too far.

She glanced at me.

“I’m not going to bite your computer.”

“It isn’t personal.”

“Yes, it is.”

“Yes.”

At least that was clear.

She smiled into her sleeve, then looked at the first image.

The kitchen.

Chair out of place. Late-afternoon light across the tile. A mug beside the sink. No person.

She stayed silent.

I waited for her to speak.

She didn’t.

I realized that was worse.

I almost preferred it when she commented too quickly. At least that gave my panic a direction.

Here, she was looking.

Actually looking.

Her gaze moved across the image, returned to the chair, the mug, the light. She wasn’t searching for a clever sentence. She wasn’t pretending to understand the technique. She didn’t narrow her eyes the way people did when they wanted to look cultured in front of a painting.

She looked the way she had looked at Eugène on the first night.

Attentively.

Objectively dangerous.

“It looks like someone just left the room,” she finally said.

I didn’t answer.

The sentence had reached the center without asking for directions.

“Not long ago,” she added. “Just... now. Two seconds ago.”

I looked at the image too.

The kitchen.

The chair.

The mug.

I had drawn it because it had seemed right. Because the light had landed that way one evening. Because the chair was out of place. Because something remained.

I hadn’t found a better way to explain it in my statement.

She had.

I moved to the next image.

The hallway.

Long. Narrow. Shoes beside the entrance. A jacket hanging crookedly. The light came from an open door outside the frame.

Liora leaned closer.

Her shoulder moved near mine.

Not against it.

Near.

Close enough for my body to receive the information before my brain.

“It isn’t empty,” she said.

I turned my head toward her.

She was still looking at the screen.

“It’s only quiet.”

I didn’t know what to do with that.

With her shoulder.

With the sentence.

With the fact that both had arrived at the same time.

“That’s the hallway from my old apartment,” I said.

“The one before this place?”

“Yes.”

“Did you like it?”

I looked at the image.

“Not really.”

“But you kept it.”

“In a sketchbook.”

“That counts.”

Yes.

Unfortunately.

I moved on.

A partly open window. A balcony. Not mine. A window from somewhere else, blended with several others. Thin curtains. A potted plant. A patch of light on the wall.

Liora almost smiled.

“Windows appear a lot.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

I shrugged.

She looked at me.

I sighed.

“Because they let you look outside without leaving.”

I regretted it.

But not completely.

Normally, Liora might have made a joke about neighbors, spies, or my emergency-exit face.

Instead, she gave a quiet:

“Oh.”

Not empty.

Not heavy.

Just enough not to crush the sentence.

I scrolled faster.

“Wait,” she said.

“What?”

“That one.”

I stopped.

A table after a meal. Two plates. A crumpled napkin. A half-full glass. A knife lying at an angle.

The image wasn’t part of the final selection. I had kept it in the folder by mistake.

Or through hesitation.

There was something less polished about it.

Less composed.

Closer.

“You didn’t want to show that one,” Liora said.

“It isn’t the strongest.”

“I don’t know what that means.”

“Visually.”

“I still don’t know.”

I smiled despite myself.

“It’s less constructed.”

“Maybe that’s why.”

“Why what?”

“Why it works.”

I looked at the image.

I wouldn’t have used that word.

It works.

Not successful.

Not strong.

Not interesting.

It works.

Like a door opening.

Like a silence holding.

“You should keep it,” she said.

“You’re not an exhibition curator.”

“Thankfully. I’d have a badge and too many opinions.”

“You already have too many opinions.”

“But no badge.”

I laughed softly.

The studio relaxed slightly.

Or I did.

Difficult to establish the difference.

Liora moved away from the screen and looked at the sketchbooks stacked beside my tablet.

“Is that where you prepare everything?”

“Among other places.”

“Among other places?”

“They’re sketchbooks.”

“Yes, thank you. I had identified that.”

I placed my hand on the top one.

Reflex.

She stopped.

Her gaze moved from my hand to my face.

“Can I?”

A question again.

Not taking.

Not intruding.

She was being careful.

That was worse.

It was difficult to push her away when she was careful.

“Not the one on top.”

“Okay.”

She withdrew her hand before she had even placed it anywhere.

I picked up the top sketchbook and moved it onto a pile of papers.

Bad idea.

Now it looked important.

Liora looked at it.

So did I.

Fine.

Wonderful.

I picked up the second sketchbook and handed it to her.

“This one.”

She accepted it almost cautiously. The paper was less fragile than my tolerance for being observed.

She sat on the edge of the couch, ready to leave if necessary.

I remained standing.

Mistake.

It looked as though I were supervising a medical consultation.

I sat in the chair near the desk.

Too far away.

Then stood again to pick up my empty mug.

Again.

She turned a page.

“You can breathe,” she said.

“I am breathing.”

“Technically.”

I put the mug in the sink, then returned.

She was looking through the pages slowly.

Corners of rooms. A door handle. The bottom of a window. Plants. The kitchenette in my studio several times. The lamp beside the bookcase. The couch without Eugène, then with Eugène. Demitrius reduced to two ears behind the line of a piece of furniture.

“There he is,” she said.

She pointed at Demitrius.

“Yes.”

“He looks like he’s spying on you.”

“That’s probably what he’s doing.”

“He has a complex inner life.”

“You are forbidden from using my own sentences against me.”

“Too late.”

She continued.

Eventually, I sat on the couch, not too close.

The sketchbook between us.

A safe distance.

An absurd distance, considering she was literally holding pieces of my mind on her lap.

She turned one page.

Then another.

Sometimes her fingers followed a line without quite touching it.

I noticed her hands.

The small marks across her knuckles. One slightly broken nail. The unexpected delicacy with which she turned the pages. Her calm breathing. A strand of hair beside her cheek.

I should have been looking at the sketchbook.

I was looking at the sketchbook.

Partly.

“There,” she said.

I returned to the page.

A window.

Mine.

At night.

The desk lamp reflected in the glass and, in the background, the blurred shape of the glass door leading onto the balcony.

“This is here.”

“Yes.”

“After the first time I came over?”

I froze.

She looked up.

“Am I wrong?”

“No.”

She looked at the page again.

There was no one in it.

Only the couch, the light, one corner of the coffee table, a sheet of paper out of place.

But she had recognized it.

Or guessed.

“How did you know?”

She lifted one shoulder.

“I don’t know. There’s something.”

An unacceptable answer.

Extremely precise.

She turned another page.

Then stopped.

I understood half a second too late.

The figure.

Not a portrait.

Not Liora.

Not really.

A body on a bend. One shoulder held back. A leg driving forward. Tied hair following the movement.

The stadium page.

I reached out to take the sketchbook back.

Too quickly.

Far too quickly.

Liora lifted it slightly out of reach.

Not high.

Just enough.

Her gaze moved from the page to me.

“Oh.”

“It’s nothing.”

“Excellent answer.”

“It’s a sketch.”

“Yes.”

“An observational sketch.”

“Of course.”

“There were many people running.”

“And you happened to draw that one.”

“A silhouette.”

“A silhouette with my hair.”

“Many people have hair.”

She looked at me.

I mentally watched myself abandon all credibility.

“And my hair tie,” she said.

“Hair ties are common.”

“And my bend.”

“You don’t own the bend.”

“Almost.”

I closed my eyes.

Mistake.

When I opened them, she was smiling.

Not triumphantly.

Not mockingly.

A smaller smile.

Warmer.

The kind that said she had understood something and wasn’t going to force me to admit it.

Which made me want to admit everything and move away in the same second.

“Can I look?” she asked.

“You’re already looking.”

“Really look.”

I lowered my hand.

She returned her gaze to the page.

The silence changed.

She sat beside me with the sketchbook open on her lap. Her arm almost brushed mine whenever she tilted the page toward the light.

I could feel the warmth of her presence.

A physical fact that my body took far too seriously.

She stayed on the sketch for a long time.

Too long.

“You drew me as though I were about to leave,” she said.

I hadn’t expected that.

“What?”

She indicated the line of the shoulder.

“There. It looks like everything is moving forward. Even the part that’s left behind.”

I looked.

I hadn’t thought about that.

I hadn’t thought about much of anything while drawing.

That was exactly the problem.

“It was during the practice,” I said.

“I know.”

“I didn’t do it deliberately.”

“I know that too.”

Silence.

She turned the page.

I breathed.

Then she turned back to the previous one.

Betrayal.

“Did you draw more of them?”

“No.”

She looked at me.

“Aurèl.”

“Not many.”

“So yes.”

I stood.

“I’m going to make tea.”

“You’re fleeing toward the kettle.”

“It’s a proven strategy.”

“I respect it.”

She let me leave.

I put water on to boil. Too early for tea, too late to pretend the action didn’t have a defensive purpose.

Behind me, I heard a page turn.

Then another.

“Not the one on top,” I reminded her.

“I haven’t touched it.”

“I’m checking.”

“Your lack of trust wounds me.”

“Your curiosity puts me in danger.”

“That’s honest.”

I smiled despite myself as I took out two mugs.

Two.

I stopped.

I thought Liora did too.

Or perhaps that was only in my head.

I took the second one anyway.

Eugène chose that moment to jump onto the coffee table, drawn by the particular energy of scenes he could disrupt.

“No,” we both said at once.

He stopped.

We looked at each other.

Liora burst out laughing.

I almost did too.

Offended by this coalition, Eugène climbed down from the coffee table and settled in front of Demitrius, who backed away three inches with injured slowness.

“He’s jealous,” Liora said.

“Of a sketchbook?”

“Of the attention.”

“He can’t stand flat objects.”

“He sleeps on your sketchbooks.”

“Exactly. He neutralizes them.”

I returned with the mugs.

Liora placed the sketchbook open on the table, but kept her hand near the stadium page.

Not on it.

Near it.

As though hesitating to leave.

I placed her mug in front of her.

“Thanks.”

“It’s hot.”

“I’m an adult.”

She picked it up.

Immediately put it down again.

“Very hot.”

“I warned you.”

“That was information, not sufficient protection.”

“I’ll improve the labeling.”

She smiled.

Then looked back at the screen.

“Which ones are you showing?”

“I don’t know.”

“These?”

“Maybe.”

“The table, yes.”

“You haven’t let that go.”

“No.”

“Why?”

She thought.

I liked it when she thought before answering.

I shouldn’t have liked it so much.

“Because you can feel the people without seeing them,” she said. “But not sadly. It’s more like... they could come back.”

I kept my eyes on my mug.

Steam rose from the tea.

Very useful for blurring someone’s gaze.

“Maybe that’s too simple,” she added.

“No.”

She turned toward me.

“No?”

“It’s right.”

I didn’t say more.

She seemed to receive it carefully.

As though it were fragile.

I didn’t like that certain sentences between us were beginning to carry that sort of weight.

Or maybe I did.

That was the problem.

She picked up the sketchbook again.

Farther on, there were other drawings. The desk lamp. The edge of the balcony after rain. Eugène from behind. Demitrius inside a cardboard box.

Hands.

I froze when I saw them.

Not hers.

Well.

Not explicitly.

Hands resting on a railing. Two sides of a divider. A few quick lines drawn after the night on the balcony.

I had barely looked at them since.

Liora stopped.

Obviously.

“Oh,” she said again.

“You say oh a lot.”

“A lot is happening.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“They’re only hands.”

“Exactly.”

She wasn’t smiling as much anymore.

The scene seemed to tighten around the sketchbook.

I could see her profile, the light across her cheek, her hand beside mine on the coffee table.

Our fingers weren’t that close.

Close enough that I knew the exact distance between them.

Two inches.

Maybe two and a half.

Ridiculous.

She finally lowered the page.

“You draw quickly sometimes.”

“Yes.”

“Like you’re trying to catch something before it leaves.”

“You’re unbearable tonight.”

“Why?”

“You say things that are too accurate without using any specialized vocabulary.”

“Sorry. I can add ‘the dynamics of invisible presence’ if you’d like.”

“Absolutely not.”

She smiled.

The silence that followed was lighter.

But not entirely.

The sketchbook remained there.

Open.

Between us.

Not like a barrier.

More like a shared place where neither of us wanted to put a foot down too heavily.

“Your father asked whether the exhibition was paid,” I said.

I didn’t know why I said it.

Maybe because the sentence had been waiting since the previous day. Maybe because Liora was looking at my work while her father had looked at its stability.

Liora lowered her eyes.

“I know.”

“He wasn’t wrong.”

“I know that too.”

She didn’t try to argue.

“It annoyed me,” she said.

“I noticed.”

“Because he did it in front of you.”

“He was asking normal questions.”

“Maybe. But I don’t like it when people reduce something to what it earns.”

“He wasn’t necessarily reducing it.”

“No. But sometimes that’s where he starts.”

I looked at the images on the screen.

“Many people start there.”

“Do you?”

“When I panic, yes.”

She turned toward me.

I kept my eyes on the screen.

“Since yesterday, I’ve been looking at my drawings as though they need to justify their place on a spreadsheet.”

Silence.

Liora didn’t answer too quickly.

Good.

Or dangerous.

“And are they failing?” she asked.

“On a spreadsheet, probably.”

“Wrong software.”

I smiled.

She placed her mug on the table.

“You don’t only make useful things, Aurèl.”

“That isn’t very reassuring when you put it that way.”

“Wait.”

She searched.

I watched her search.

Not for a phrase.

Not for a compliment.

For something true.

“I’m not saying money doesn’t matter. I count things too. Hours, shifts, practices, classes, the things I can accept, the ones I have to turn down, the months when I can replace my shoes and the ones when I keep wearing them.”

I didn’t answer.

She hadn’t complained.

Not for one second.

She had only opened a small window.

“But when I look at your drawings,” she continued, “I don’t think, Does this make money? I think you see things I move through too quickly.”

The studio became very quiet.

Not actual silence.

Eugène was breathing.

Demitrius was chewing.

The kettle was cooling in the kitchen.

But something around the coffee table stopped.

I didn’t know where to look.

Not at her.

Especially not at her.

I looked at the sketchbook.

The hands on the railing.

“I don’t know how to answer that,” I said.

“You don’t have to.”

“Do you ever leave a sentence unfilled?”

“Yes.”

“Since when?”

“Since I became very mature.”

“So today.”

“Approximately.”

The laughter returned.

Quiet.

Necessary.

Liora turned a few more pages, then stopped on a drawing of my own studio. No person, only the couch, the displaced blanket, the glass door, and Eugène curled on the cushion.

“That one.”

“What?”

“It should be in the exhibition.”

“It’s too personal.”

“You’re exhibiting your drawings.”

“Yes, thank you.”

“So being personal isn’t evidence against it.”

“You’ve decided that?”

“Yes.”

“By what authority?”

“Regular allergic visitor.”

“Questionable status.”

“Status earned in the field.”

She was wrong.

Or right.

Or an irritating combination of both.

I looked at the image.

My studio.

Small.

Too full.

But not closed.

On the page, it didn’t look insufficient.

It looked inhabited.

I couldn’t tell whether the drawing did that, or the way Liora looked at it.

“Maybe,” I said.

She raised her eyes.

“Is that a yes?”

“It’s a genuine maybe.”

“Enormous progress.”

She closed the sketchbook gently, but not completely. She left one finger between the pages.

“Can I see the one on top now?”

I closed my eyes.

“No.”

“Okay.”

She said it without insisting.

Which was obviously a far more powerful technique than insisting.

I opened my eyes.

She was looking at me with imperfect innocence.

“You’re extremely manipulative.”

“I’m respecting your no.”

“Too well.”

“Is that a criticism?”

“Yes.”

She smiled, then removed her finger from the sketchbook and placed it on the table.

A clear gesture.

She wasn’t going to take more than I gave her.

I hated how much that made me want to give her more.

I picked up the top sketchbook.

Kept it in my hands.

Liora didn’t move.

Didn’t speak.

I opened it in the middle.

Not at the beginning.

Especially not at the end.

Several pages of research for the exhibition. Notes. Crossed-out sentences. Composition experiments. Sketches of the balcony.

Far too many sketches of the balcony.

I saw her notice them.

She didn’t say anything.

Again.

I turned the pages faster.

Then stopped.

“This one,” I said. “I was thinking about redoing it on a larger scale.”

An almost empty room. A door open onto a balcony. A mug placed beside the window. No figure. But two sources of light. One from the studio. Another, fainter one from outside, as though the neighboring apartment existed without being shown.

Liora leaned closer.

Too close.

Her shoulder almost touched mine.

Almost.

The word suddenly became far too important.

I could smell her shampoo, a trace of detergent, the cold from outside.

“There’s someone there,” she said.

“No.”

“Yes.”

“There’s nobody in the picture.”

“I know.”

She raised her eyes toward me.

We were too close for the kind of conversation we were having.

Or too close for me.

She didn’t move back immediately.

Neither did I.

Very poor coordination.

“You can feel someone,” she said.

Her voice was low.

Not deliberately.

Proximity reduced the volume.

I looked at the page.

Then her face.

Mistake.

Her eyes were on me now.

Not for long.

Just long enough.

My body reacted before thought did.

A slowing.

An attention.

A dangerous focus on her mouth, then the distance between us.

I straightened slightly.

Not abruptly.

Enough.

“Maybe it’s too obvious,” I said.

Normal voice.

Almost.

Liora lowered her gaze to the sketchbook. A very slight smile passed across her face.

Not mocking.

She had understood that I had moved away.

And she allowed me that movement.

“Maybe,” she answered.

Then added:

“Or maybe it’s good that it can be seen.”

I closed the sketchbook.

Gently.

“I’ll think about it.”

“Another improvement.”

“Don’t push it.”

She laughed.

Eugène, judging that the tension had exceeded an unacceptable threshold without his involvement, suddenly jumped onto the couch between us.

Not beside us.

Between us.

Heavily.

With remarkable precision.

Liora startled, then reflexively brought one hand to her nose.

“Eugène.”

“There. You have his critical opinion.”

“He wants to be exhibited.”

“He wants to be fed.”

“Artists often do too.”

“He isn’t an artist.”

Eugène lay down on the sketchbook.

Directly.

“He’s protesting your contempt.”

“He’s crushing my work.”

“A strong artistic statement.”

I ran a hand over my face.

“You’re all against me.”

“Demitrius is neutral.”

We both turned toward Demitrius.

He was half-hidden behind his cardboard tunnel, perfectly still, his ears slightly raised.

“He’s judging,” I said.

“Yes, fine. No one is neutral.”

Liora moved farther back on the couch, probably to limit her contact with Eugène. Her nose was already beginning to turn slightly red.

I saw it.

“You should move away.”

“From him or from your work?”

“Both, maybe.”

She smiled.

But she stood.

“I should go home before my immune system publishes an open letter.”

“Good idea.”

She picked up her mug, then put it down again.

“Can I?”

“What?”

“Come back to see the final choices after you’ve made them.”

The answer was yes.

Very clearly.

Too clearly.

So I said:

“Sure.”

She narrowed her eyes.

“Translation?”

“Yes.”

“Thank you.”

She picked up her sweatshirt from beside the door.

I hadn’t even seen her take it off.

The studio had already begun accepting her belongings without consulting me.

A bad precedent.

She turned toward me.

“And I want to come to the exhibition.”

“You already said that.”

“I’m confirming.”

“It isn’t a big deal.”

She remained beside the door with one hand on the handle.

The studio behind me.

The screen displaying the images.

The sketchbooks on the table.

Eugène lying on one of them like an official seal.

Demitrius in his corner.

Me, standing in the middle of all of it with an empty mug and limited escape options.

Liora looked at me.

Not intensely.

Not as though this were a scene where something had to be said more loudly.

Simply.

“For you, it is.”

She added nothing.

No explanation.

No smile to make it lighter.

No joke to give me an immediate exit.

Only the sentence.

Exactly where it needed to be.

I didn’t know what to do with it.

Maybe she didn’t either.

Or maybe she knew exactly what she was doing and had decided to leave me alone with it.

“Have a good evening, Aurèl.”

“You too.”

She left.

Closed the door softly.

The studio became quiet again.

Well.

Not exactly.

Her sentence was still inside the room.

“For you, it is.”

It was the perfect size to resist rejection.

Too simple to argue with.

Too accurate to put away.

Eugène lifted his head from the sketchbook.

“Don’t start.”

He blinked.

I approached the coffee table and gently pulled the sketchbook from beneath him.

He resisted through moral weight.

“You don’t have the rights.”

He finally stood, offended, and spread himself across the cushion instead.

I picked up the sketchbook again.

The balcony page.

The mug.

The light.

The apartment next door existing without being shown.

I looked at it for a long time.

Then I opened the exhibition folder on the computer.

I added the drawing of the studio to the selection.

Then the table.

Then removed a cleaner hallway.

More controlled.

Easier to defend.

I stood in front of the new selection.

The images were less perfect.

Less protected.

Closer.

I heard footsteps on the other side of the wall.

Liora at home.

Her voice for a moment.

Then a short laugh.

I couldn’t make out the words.

I didn’t need to.

I looked at the drawings.

The rooms didn’t seem more stable.

More profitable.

More capable of answering her father’s questions.

But they held.

And for the first time since the previous day, I looked at them without feeling as though they needed to apologize.

I saved.

Once.

Twice.

My hand hovered before the third.

I smiled despite myself.

Then saved anyway.

There was no need to turn artistic vulnerability into technical negligence.

The sketchbooks were still open on the table.

I didn’t put them away immediately.

The studio kept the traces.

A half-full mug of tea.

A turned page.

A displaced cushion.

A few strands of Eugène’s fur on the paper.

And something of Liora in the way I now looked at my own rooms.

I wasn’t reassured.

Not rescued.

Not suddenly certain.

But I had been seen.