be intimidated by them.”
This is the girl I’ll be: a girl who gets drunk, gets high, models nude, dates musicians.
“Can you maybe turn around while I take them off?” I whisper.
“Are you sure you’re okay with this?”
“Yeah . . .”
“You positive?”
“Yes. I want to do this.”
He covers his eyes and turns around, bumping into his easel.
Clothes are strange. They’re flimsy, but they shield you from so much. I’m wearing a yellow T-shirt with a faded rose print. I’ve taken it off in my room so many times. Just shucked it over my shoulders. I try to mimic that motion now. It’s difficult in a different way.
My bra is an ugly white. There’s a tiny ingrown hair next to my belly button. Gross.
“Let me know when you’re ready,” Cassius says gently.
You have to do things that scare you to become someone new. Someone capable of doing those things.
I reach behind me, unhook my bra, and unzip my shorts before I can change my mind, balling them up so he can’t see how big they are. I lie on my back. People look best on their backs. I cross my legs. Suck in my stomach. Fold an arm over my breasts. Make sure everything is smoothed out and arranged.
Will I be able to do this with Adam? Keep track of how he’s seeing me, every angle?
“Ready,” I croak.
Cassius turns around. I can’t look at him. I look at the ceiling instead. He probably sees the ripples my heartbeat makes on my skin. How all my blood is trying to escape.
I wait for him to give me a rating. Good or bad. Acceptable or not. But he doesn’t. I hear the scrape of him pulling a stool to his easel, sitting down, and then the scratching of pencil on canvas.
I’m doing this!
I work on relaxing my muscles, one by one, as he paints. Arms. Shoulders. After a while, my stomach aches from how hard I’m sucking it in. I let it go, a bit at a time. Does he notice? He’s completely focused. I think I trust him not to notice more than I want him to.
“Have you ever done this yourself?” I say, tiny.
“Done what?” He’s barely here. He’s not judging my body, he’s just taking it in. I relax a little more.
“Modeled, like . . . nude.”
“My skin’s too hard to draw,” he mumbles. “I don’t want people making me into some dalmatian.”
I’m not sure if I’m supposed to giggle or not. I do. It doesn’t feel wrong. He smiles. None of this feels wrong.
This would be a romance cliché. The artist and the model. But I’m not in love with the artist, I’m in love with the musician.
“Have you ever been in love before?” I ask. I’m naked. It’s not like things could get any weirder between us.
Cassius misses a stroke, frowns at his mistake. When he’s spacing out he’s so relaxed, but startle him and he tucks himself in right away.
“You ask a lot more questions without clothes on,” he points out.
I’m bolder without clothes on. This is the new Grace Morris. A girl with no shell.
“Who do you think is hotter, me or Joy?” It slips out. I should take it back. I don’t, even though I know the answer. We’re twins, but there’s too much of me. Girls are supposed to be sleek like glass slippers.
“I don’t get questions like that,” he says, after a long time. “To me, bodies are . . . I guess when you’re an artist, and you have to break things down into shapes, see how they fit together, how harmonious and functional it all is . . . all bodies are beautiful. Not in . . . a sexual way. They just work.”
He’s trying to say nicely that I’m not hot.
“People talk about themselves and their bodies like they’re separate,” he keeps going. “But people are their bodies just like they are their brains. I can’t think someone is a beautiful person without thinking their body is beautiful.”
His dreamy tone slips and so does his gaze, to the bottom of the paper. “I think you’re beautiful, Grace.”
I feel like he’s holding me, but he’s not touching me. I’m definitely not ready for someone to actually touch me naked.
“It’s hard to like yourself,” he murmurs.
I take a deep breath. “I never liked myself before, but I think you just have to make yourself into something you can like.”
He paints for another few minutes. Talking to Cassius means giving him time to think.
“What