Then I Looked Back At You

“Who wants to model today?” Exuberant hands shot up in the air as my classmates desperately vied to be the lucky one who wouldn’t have to spend 50 excruciating minutes making weak attempts at replicating the human sitting before them onto paper. Our teacher, Mrs. Claudia, scanned absentmindedly around the room before her eyes focused on Logan. “Logan, you know what to do, climb onto the counter and sit in the chair. Put your elbow on your knee and your chin in your hand.” As she fussed about, posing him, the rest of us got set up to begin the drawing. I did the same, distractedly, not exactly thinking about drawing.1

I’m not an artist. More than that, I don’t have any artistic talent whatsoever. Logan and I signed up for drawing class together as a means to satisfying our fine arts credits (I’m an even worse singer). The human form has proved especially impossible for me, my representations turning out more like balloon figures than living, breathing people. Nevertheless, I trudge to class each day and attempt to capture the essence of humanness that Mrs. Claudia so eagerly beseeches us to bestow upon our lowly drawings. 2

Today was no different. I looked at Logan, down at my paper, and then sighed. The emptiness of the page stared me down, intimidating me. I began to sketch a vague approximation of a circle, which was in turn meant to be an approximation of Logan’s head. It failed miserably, not even a laughable interpretation of the exquisiteness that was Logan. My inept artistic ability bothered me even more than usual today, as I wanted so plainly to create a representation of my lover that spoke something of what he meant to me. As it was, a viewer would find it hard to tell that what I was drawing was even a person and not some sort of fantasy inspired brand of alien.3

I glanced back up at Logan and lost all desire to replicate him. Why waste my time trying to recreate perfection when it was right before me? His eyes stared ahead of him, empty and unfocused, clearly not registering anything the rest of us saw in the room. I could tell from the downward twist of his mouth that he was thinking deeply of something that troubled him. I hoped it wasn’t me; I didn’t want him thinking too carefully about us, worried that I would finally not be enough for him to endure the condemnation of what we were. My throat ached in response to the unexpected beauty in the curve of his throat, the gentle way his hand cupped his cheek, the profundity in his brooding gaze. I was saturated with the incomprehensible knowledge that, for now at least, he was mine. 4

I've tried and failed to comprehend why every boy in the school hasn't abandoned heterosexuality to pursue him. How could any girl compare to contradictory elegance that is Logan? How could I ever hope to be straight when Logan existed? When Logan was an option? If I possessed the artistic gift I so lamented, I would spend my days in a vain pursuit of preserving Logan; sculpting, painting, drawing. As it was, I let my paper and charcoal lie forgotten in my hands; hands which were preoccupied by itching to brush Logan’s cheek, and lips which ached to trace the contours of the throat that exposed his beauty, vulnerably, for the whole class to see- if only they knew how.5

He was the perfect model, so wrapped up in the intangible thoughts manipulating his attention that he didn’t move once in the entire 50 minutes. As the final bell rang, I was roused from my transfixed state into one of irritation, yet one easily erased when mine were the first eyes Logan’s sought out as he was excused from his pose. An unconscious smile spread across my lips as I passed my paper, filled only with one misshapen excuse for a head, to a disapproving Mrs. Claudia. She disapproved now- if only she knew…6