Trust

Our apartment is only a few blocks from the gallery, so walking there isn't a stretch. What it is - is the first time I've been alone in days, the first time I've breathed in the air around me and nobody else has exhaled it first. Tonight - right now - it's not second hand. I've been back and forth, back and forth continuously in the past two weeks, always cabs. Tonight I want to count the steps.

There's a shop front at the halfway point, nestled in between something run down and something forgotten. It catches my eye and I breathe into my hands, the fog of my breath seeping out between my fingers as it warms them. Dozens of teapots are displayed in the window, each one different to the next, each one with a distinct kaleidoscopic pattern. Moroccan? It couldn't be more out of place on this street, or more out of place in my evening, which somehow makes it perfect. I move on.

The outfit I planned weeks ago, the one Octavia winked at, crossed her legs, nodding her head at me like she could eat me whole, is hidden under a layer of jacket and scarf and held together by frozen fingers as I squint into the space cleared by the bodies traipsing ahead of me. I have no need to hurry. I'm conserving energy for later. Drafting.

In two blocks, I'll be back breathing in other people's laughter, other people's sighs, and the thought of that alone makes me want to stand on the spot, feet still moving to spite the cold, but marking time, marking time, marking time, and breathing in something first hand which only exists for me. My attendance is a formality tonight. It's my work people go to see.

The snowfall is half-hearted at best. It's as though it's thinking back to March and trying to remember what it looks like, what impression it wants to make on us, and on the ground. Next week, it might find its groove, but tonight it barely dusts my coat, it barely settles. Just a skiff.

Normally, the first week of December is a delicious limbo between Thanksgiving and Christmas. I enjoy every last thing about it. That pocket of freedom when my plans are still my own and not determined by obligations or by long stretches of time with people I adore in smaller helpings. It's making decisions by firelight, its Octavia's mulled wine. Its thick blankets which we piled over the back of the couch, and the weight of them on our knees when Netflix gives us fifty excuses to stay indoors. This year, it has been decisions and consultations and sleepless nights and obsessing over millimetres like never before. Next year, I'll enjoy it.

From one street away I can see the gallery space lit up. It's a white box which stretches back into the next city block, and all by itself it looks like the first week of December, a delicious limbo, and I decide that maybe, just maybe I haven't missed out on much at all. It's crisp and clean and precise, walled by a bar, which is still open, and a gift shop which closed hours ago. This gallery knows its place.

Once I walk inside, the peace and quiet will be over. The space for me will be collapsed into the room left between guests and the markings taped to the floor which look like chalk drawn lines to ensure people don't stand too close. I need a box like that drawn all the way around me. I don't find comfort in crowds.

The wait staff look like snowflakes as I make my way across the intersection, all different shapes and sizes, each one unique and flittering through the crowd virtually unnoticed besides the chill they offer as they pass.

Octavia spots me in the moment before my foot hits the threshold, that one step which will turn the volume from background city traffic sounds and shoes pattering on sidewalks, to glasses clinking and conversation which competes with the hip hop tracks Raven is spinning in the booth in the corner.

Octavia keeps her hand on the other side of the door for a moment longer than necessary, she's giving me time for one more clean breath - her smirk one of my favorite things about the world - before she wrenches it open, dragging me inside with it. The bass tones of the track which has people tapping their toes and bobbing their heads as they speak, reverberates through my feet and crawls immediately inside my veins.

She's undressed me, scarf and jacket, and has a glass of champagne in my hand before the door has fully closed behind me. Standing back she surveys me head to toe and I know my smirk matches hers when the whistle I can't hear is timed with another wink.

"We got that right, babe. Really fucking right." She kisses my cheek and squeezes my shoulders with her free arm before taking off to dump my stuff up behind Raven. Without losing her rhythm for even a second Rae salutes me with a kiss on two fingers and I reciprocate, one hand in the air before sipping the drink I hold in the other.

For all the blacks and greys of the guests, for all their winter coats and turtle-necks, there are splashes of colour everywhere I look. I'm head to toe in black, the opposite of the illuminated white box which houses us, the opposite of every snowflake, real or delivering champagne by the tray, and I love it.

I don't mingle. I detest the word. It feels superficial and that's the last thing I can be when everyone else inside this space is trying to make a connection. Even the boyfriend that gets dragged along and pretends to like art is trying. Even the teenager whose mother won't let her drink and who hates art and hates photos is trying to find something she can criticise, something to prove my show is a waste of her time. Both of those things take effort. So with one glass downed and the next in my hand, I circulate.

I like to go unnoticed for as long as possible, I like to hear only snippets of conversations as I walk past, collecting words like thrown confetti and letting them shape my impression of how others perceive the show. I pick up my pace when I hear talk of dollar signs, it's my least favourite part of the nights. I move on.

Octavia finds me again, knocks back one of the two champagnes she carries when she sees I'm already holding one, places it on a snowflake's tray as they pass. She shrugs, mischief from ear to ear, and as proud of the exhibition she has put together as I am about the work on display. She's a master. She knows this.

Together, we move. We linger a little longer as a pair than I would on my own, interacting more too as her excitement permeates the space around us, guests turning toward us as they feel it hit their skin. Her energy is contagious. She introduces me to a few people, those she chatted up early on when I was taking my time arriving, surrounded by the chill.

I shake some hands, repeat names like a question, look them in the eyes because I want to remember later, I want to make that impression. I could let the photographs do that for me but without a connection there's no reason to come back. The internet made sure of that.

Two women who look like they've stepped out of the pages of Vogue stand before my portrait of Eden. It's the largest one in the room, one half of her face visible, one eye and all those curls as she clutches Raven's fingers, her arm stretched above her head, a white knuckle grip on her Mama's hand. It's my favourite. It would be even if someone else had taken it, if I'd seen it as part of a poster torn and flapping against a wall in the subway. Each of the freckles across her nose tells a story. She's only seen three summers and still the season has made its mark there, just like she has made hers on each of us.

Hand to my chest, I shake my head as Octavia slings an arm across my shoulders. I can smell the faint undertone of alcohol on her breath and the coconut and lime body wash which fills our bathroom each morning. I stare at chestnut ringlets which reflect streaks of caramel in the light. Another gift of summer.

"Did Mom bring Eden in earlier? Did she see herself?" I raise my voice above the Timberlake/Timberland beat which Raven has just eased us into, and lean close to Octavia's ear, her breath sailing past mine as she responds.

"That kid, babe, I tell you what, about five of us got pics of her face while she was looking at herself. You should have been here with your gear set up. I've never seen anything like it. I don't think I've seen your mom smile like that since the day E was born, either."

Every word out of Octavia's mouth makes my heart happy, and no matter what words I collect like confetti from the people I pass by tonight, those I invited with my question, the only ones I've asked for, are better than I imagined. Those, alone, will define this show for me.

I look past Octavia's grin and see the Vogue models watching us. One of them eyes wide, animated in her expression, grins at us, tapping the other woman on the arm. The other smiles so subtly I only notice because of the way it reaches her cheeks and her eyes for a split second before falling away. She looks to the ground when I smile back and there are feet and inches and guests and snowflakes with trays of champagne between us, but I want to reach out and touch her face, catch her gaze, even for just another moment. I want to take her picture.

They cross the space, eagerness and reluctance matching each other step for step, and Octavia is nudging me like she knows I want to stand a little closer, look a little longer.

She and the taller of the two women go through a flurry of introductions in which I catch neither of their names and instead hear the word tattoo thrown into the air a dozen times. It rains back down on Octavia, lands on her skin like the ink which resides there, and as they talk I step forward and reach a hand towards the one with the world's most incredible eyes. I wait for her to notice, wait for her to reach forward. If it were anyone else I'd have dropped it by now, embarrassed, arms crossed over my chest, hip jutting out as I stand, but not with her.

Those green eyes meet mine at the same time her fingers slide along my palm to jigsaw puzzle their way into a handshake, and I lean forward, breathe her in and introduce myself with a single syllable. Clarke.

Lexa reaches my ear before I pull away, and her hand is still clutching mine and for every cliché I'd like to avoid right now, I don't want to let her go. I say it's nice to meet her like she's any other person here tonight. It sounds the same leaving my lips, but it means something entirely different, and for all the words in my head I can't find a single one which explains why.

She speaks as though she's not used to doing so, as though she's experimenting with sound for the first time, and I thank the lord and Beyoncé for everyone else chatting above Raven's beats because we're so very close right now.

"My sister has been a fan of your work for some time. We have one of your early pieces hanging in our loft."

I turn, taking in the woman who is laughing with Octavia as if they are old friends, as if somewhere among the ink on their skin there's something which matches, like they got it together on a dare at sixteen. I smile back at Lexa. "Your sister sure seems happy to be here."

Lexa laughs and covers her mouth for a moment before nodding and looking back over. There's admiration there, I think. That and something else.

"She's a tattoo artist." Lexa leans forward and I feel her breath on my cheek again as she offers the profession by way of explanation, like that's all I need to know about the sister.

I paint onto each of the people I photograph. I brand them temporarily, place something impermanent against their skin even though it will remain forever in the picture. The green painted vine which runs up Eden's arm in the biggest portrait in the room is also laced between each of Raven's fingers. Three different shades of green. I was forewarned. Children and animals. That kid squirmed on me for hours.

I'd like to talk to the sister, I'd like to see her work, actually, but right now she has an audience of one with Octavia and that's all I need to know. And something is pulling me back, pulling me back to these green eyes and I want to know another hundred things about Lexa. As much as I enjoy our proximity, I motion with my head over towards Eden, the people in the space around her portrait having dispersed momentarily, and we move across the room together because I want to really hear her well when she speaks again.

I don't think I've ever seen eyes quite like hers before. I mean, this is a lie if you take me literally. I studied art for years, I've had an obsession with portraiture for longer than I can name, but in real life, in the here and now, the day to day, I can honestly say I've not stood before someone with eyes quite like these. I want to tell her.

"Can I ask which piece you have in your loft?" Her eyes widen, as if hearing my voice more clearly was unexpected, and she smiles again. It's something on the periphery of shy, but she holds my gaze in a way that nearly makes my knees weak. I had her pegged for reluctant, I had her pegged for reserved, but this look right now, this look has the force of an army behind it. She's a warrior with no intention of backing down and I feel myself lengthening my spine and standing prouder just to be worthy of her. I push my shoulders back and wait for her to speak.

"I wouldn't be surprised if there's another after tonight." She points across to where O and the sister are standing before another piece, pointing and nodding in agreement over something, and when I look back at Lexa she's biting her bottom lip like she can't decide how to answer my question. "It's the one of your father at the table."

And she may as well have known me all my life in this moment. I breathe in her hesitation and nod my head. She's read the story, the one displayed on the plaque beside the piece, the one Octavia would have packaged when it was taken down from the wall. I can taste her understanding in the air, and we're not here to discuss the past, but I feel cold in my bones and warm in my heart that she knows.

I swallow and she turns to Eden and points at her, and again I place my hand on my chest because for all the fresh air I breathed over seven blocks on the way here, this kid can take it all away any day of the week.

"I think I like this one the most, Clarke." She looks at me, looks at my hand pressed against my chest, and I let it drop, not sure what to do with it instead.

"So do I." I'm short on words again, hearing her repeat my name, hearing the dominant sounds click from her throat. They're unfamiliar, and I imagine the way they felt for the first time, a sharp echo against her tongue.

"She has incredible eyes. Well, the one I can see, anyway." Her smile hits her own in a heartbeat, and I can't stop myself from saying what I've been thinking for the past few minutes.

"So do you."

She turns her head slowly at that and I bite the inside of my cheek waiting for a scoff or an eye roll, or any kind of deflection which my wound my sincerity.

Lexa looks over to where her sister and Octavia are trying to fit a lifetime into a single evening, and when our eyes meet again I notice a color to her cheeks which would take me hours to match with paint.

"How do you suppose your girlfriend would feel about your opinion on my eyes?" She quirks an eyebrow. It's a challenge, her spine is made of steel. She won't avert her eyes and I forget her question, need a moment to replay and take it in. She blushes further as I laugh.

"Octavia? She and I are not together." I bite my lip, eyebrows knitting at her confusion.

"Oh, I just thought-" she gestures toward Octavia shrugs and shakes her head, her throat bobs as she swallows the embarrassment I caused with my laughter. "Thank you." Her half smile works like a marionette puppet, drawing my mouth into the very same, and I could watch the light reflecting off those eyes for the rest of the night.

"Clarke." My name is softer from Octavia's lips. She's yelled it and whispered it so many times over the years. She's stretched it out and lived amongst the sound as comfortably as if it were her own name. It fits. "Babe," she curls her fingers around my neck and draws in close before she speaks again, and I see something like disbelief across Lexa's face, "-Anya has 'Trust' hanging in her living room, can you even fucking believe it?"

She whispers that Anya is equal parts kooky and awesome, and that she knows I could speak with the one with the eyes forever, but I really need to mingle. I cringe. My hand barely fits into the back pocket of her jeans and I eye Lexa as I reach for one of the cards I know Octavia is keeping in there, and I don't want to say there's jealousy there now, but it's damn near close.

My smirk is unnecessary. It's not returned.

"I'm going to be direct." I look Lexa in the eyes and ignore the way her gaze travels through me. What I can't ignore is how dry my mouth feels because of it. "I would really like to take your picture. I know that seems forward in a way most people aren't used to, but it's what I do." I hand her the card I stole from Octavia's stash. "The address of my studio is right there. Call, or don't, you can just come by anytime."

She licks her lips and I hadn't thought of them, but, god, I'm thinking about them now. I force my eyes back to hers, watch for any change, some kind of recognition, but instead she extends her hand, expressionless.

"It was nice meeting you, Clarke." Click.

I accept her hand, hold it longer than necessary, only drag it away as Octavia slings her arms across my shoulders and nudges me. I step back as Anya and Octavia share a glance, eyebrows raised like they're sharing a secret. Old friends.

"She'll think about it." Anya mimics Octavia's pose, an arm across Lexa's shoulders, and Lexa shoots her a look which says they'll discuss it later before turning to me with the faintest smile. It says probably not and maybe and tells me she's still not convinced about the Octavia thing, but it's a smile. It's the sort which will get me through the rest of the night.

Eden takes up so much more space in my lap now. It's like she hasn't noticed she's grown, still curling into me as she did when she was smaller, when she had less words to explain the world the way she sees it. When her words were just sounds.

Raven carries her daughter like she hasn't noticed the change either. Like she's still carrying the bundle she and Mom bought home from the hospital and placed in my old crib. Eden sits on her hip now, supports her own weight, but Raven still watches the world like the sky might fall, like she has a plan to protect her just in case.

I'm drowning in a sea of coloring. Sheets of printed paper and books and pencils and crayons - the entire contents of the bag Raven packed to occupy her - surround us. She keeps within the lines now, mostly. She colours one spot for so long she breaks through the paper, and when she concentrates she purses her lips and is every bit Raven in those moments.

I look over my shoulder at Raven, fixing some wiring at Octavia's request, full pout as she reaches into her toolbox for something. My smile is so big she can't help but notice, and when I gesture to her daughter who has scurried out of my lap and is on her stomach on the floor, she smiles just as big and shakes her head like she can't believe love is a thing she can touch as well as feel.

I don't hear anyone come in the front door and when Raven lifts her chin, eyebrows raised, I swear I see her smirk in the split second before I turn my head.

She startles me and I stand quickly, brushing my hands against my jeans too look…occupied?

"Lexa?" It's her, standing a few feet away. It's her, more than a week after she popped my card into the pocket of her coat and strutted off with Anya like they were both being paid to walk that way. It's her.

"If this isn't a good time," she gestures to the mess at my feet and to Raven in the back corner, "-I can come back another day, I-"

"No," I interrupt her, "Today is fine. Right now is fine. I wasn't expecting to see you." I pull at my shirt like it's high school and the best looking person in class has just asked me out. I feel my cheeks burning and stare down at Eden, willing her to keep colouring, willing her not to notice, because she won't be able to contain the words if she thinks them.

"Yeah. Sorry I didn't call sooner, or…come by. The whole idea felt very strange, but Anya…well…I'm here." Lexa fidgets, hands clasped in front of her and looks between Raven, Eden and me. "Is this the famous Eden?"

Eden gazes up at Lexa as though she's just been awarded a prize and nods her head like she understands why people know of her now. "Did you see me in Clarke's picture?"

"I sure did." Lexa moves past me and sits herself down next to Eden, legs crossed as she reaches for a pencil. "Your picture was the most incredible one at the whole exhibition."

"She could have sold it ten times over, too." Raven walks up behind us and squats beside her daughter as she offers her hand. "I'm Raven. You must be Lexa. I -"

"You were the DJ the other night, right?" Lexa shakes Raven's hand, and apparently that subtle smile still affects me when she's looking at someone else.

"Are you done yet, Mama?" Eden pushes Raven into a sitting position and crawls into her lap. Raven rolls her eyes and answers her in the same sing-song tone as she begins to reach and gather up the piles of paper which surround us.

Lexa helps, arranging the coloring books and pencils before standing to face me. She pushes her hands into the back pockets of her jeans and rolls up onto the balls of her feet like she doesn't know what to do with herself and it takes me a minute to remember why she's here and that I'm responsible for the next part of this whole thing.

"We'll leave you guys to it." Raven picks Eden up, bending to grab the bag with her other hand. They each give me a kiss and Raven throws a wink over her shoulder. Eden waves until they're out the door and around the corner and she can't see me anymore.

And, just like that, we're alone. I forgot thank yous and goodbyes altogether, my vocabulary disappearing upon Lexa's arrival.

Without a word I walk over to my desk and grab my sketchbook. This is what I do, and yet as I walk back toward her and pull out a chair for her to sit on before taking mine beside her at the table, I can't shake the rolling sensation in the pit of my stomach, nor can I prevent the way my tongue is heavy and dry like sandpaper in my mouth.

"So…I've, um, I've done some sketches of an idea I had the night we met. Since then." I rush. "But if you're not keen on it, or on this whole thing at all, we can do something different, or…not." I correct myself like maybe English isn't my first language, or like this is the first time I've had a pretty girl at my table I've thought about painting on or photographing.

She smiles at me like she knows I'm thinking of taking to her with a brush, and I blush when she opens her mouth to speak because I notice her lips again.

"So, are you going to show me?" She leans her elbows on the table, brings her body closer to me and reaches over to my sketchbook nudging the pages with her finger and, god, I hope she's okay with how I've drawn her.

I try to smile but it's hard for my muscles to negotiate that and a furrowed brow, so I flip the book open to the double page dedicated to four pictures of her, and wait.

She pulls the book toward her as though it might break if she moves it too fast, as if the images will fade if she's not careful, and I hear her inhale. I hold my breath. I study the side of her face, her eyebrows knitting together, and I need her to talk, I need to hear her say they're okay.

"Wow." She breathes the word and I let go of the breath I was holding. I feel my lungs open back up as my grin stretches across my face.

"So, they're okay?"

"Clarke." She stops there, my name clicking like it does inside her mouth, and just looks at me. "These are incredible. How can…I didn't know…we only met one time." She shakes her head. "These are incredible. I didn't even imagine…wow."

In the top right hand corner I've sketched an image of her back on. The intricate design, which resembles hand carved leather corset armor, begins at the base of her neck and continues down the length of her body. The bottom of the same page shows the armor in greater detail, the Celtic pattern down the center fading to nothing towards the lacing at the sides.

On the second page, I've draw Lexa. Even I'm impressed with the likeness, with her seated here beside me. I feel heat in my cheeks again as she traces her fingers over her jawline as if she's in awe of the detail. That was kind of the idea. The armor continues over one shoulder here, covering her collar bone on the right side of her body and stopping at the top of the chest. The black tank top I've drawn her wearing fits over her left shoulder. It will need to be cut away at the back to expose as much of her skin as possible.

She goes back to the first picture, her thumb skimming the detail as she takes it in.

"You're going to paint this? On me?" She could have asked this from the other side of the room. I look at her to see if I can tell where her voice went. It was smaller than I've heard it before. There is color in her cheeks now and something like reluctance in those green eyes. I've crossed a line, maybe. I don't know where to look.

"I'm sorry. If it's not appropriate I can change it entirely or we could do a small portion or-"

"No."

"No?" I shake my head. I don't know which part she's disagreeing with and I want to pack up the book, thank her for coming and maybe wave as she walks out the door.

"No, I don't think you should change a thing, I just-" she pauses and runs her hands through her hair, moving her curls to the right as she leans her elbow on the table, "-I know this is what you do, I've seen your work, we own some of it, I just…hadn't considered anything more than a vine curling along my finger and over the back of my hand, you know?"

She smiles now. She's talking about the portrait of Eden. There's softness there, and I feel my face relax and my shoulders ease like I've removed a hiking pack at the top of a mountain. I nod my head.

"So when do we do this? The painting will take a while, I imagine." She leans back in her chair now, both hands in her hair and the distance between us drains any remaining tension from the room.

"Is it a safe bet to assume you work weekdays?"

She nods.

"Could you come by early Saturday? The painting will take a few hours and I'll have everything set up for the photographs, say, after lunch?" I chew on the inside of my lip as she takes a long breath before nodding.

"It's a date."

Since she came by Monday, Lexa has messaged me with fifty questions about what she needs to bring, do, prepare for Saturday and each time I've replied along the lines of 'nothing'.

Each time a new message makes my phone vibrate against the glass top of my desk I feel something like excitement buzz inside my chest, and I'm a teenager again, and I feel ridiculous and wonderful at the same time.

I've taken every opportunity to ask her something random, something which might be weird to ask someone in person, something which hopefully makes her smile, wherever she is, when she sees the message. I'm looking forward to seeing her smile tomorrow.

Octavia buzzes around me unnecessarily, leans over my shoulder to ask questions she could fire from across the room, checks her email on my computer despite her phone sticking out of her pocket, just to catch a glimpse of my latest exchange with Lexa.

"You could just ask me, you know?"

"Ask you what?" She feigns innocence, throws her hands in the air dramatically and crosses her arms as she comes to sit on the edge of my desk.

"You want to see what she has to say, read it yourself." I'm not at all angry as I push the phone along the desk toward her, but each time I glance at the clock to see it tick one minute closer to Saturday, a new butterfly creeps inside my chest telling me to feel anxious, reminding me that this isn't exactly just another day of work I'm preparing for.

Octavia can read all the messages if she wants. She may wonder why I asked Lexa if she has a seafood allergy or what her favorite TV show was as a child. It will make no sense at all that I asked her to name three people she had posters of in her room during high school, but I just want to make her smile.

She picks up the phone and places it back in my hand before leaning down to kiss my forehead. Octavia's smile is one which always manages to reset me, to help me find balance when chaos encircles us and threatens to throw me off course. This isn't quite like that. This is new, but I know she sees it, I know the hovering is probably less about prying eyes and more about presence, and the warmth in my chest has to be my heart expanding, right? Octavia has always made me feel as though I have more room to let the world in when she's around.

"I don't need to see anything, babe. Just let me know if there's anything you need me to do, okay?"

I roll the phone over and over in my hand as I smile up at her and nod my head. The butterflies have settled themselves for now. I shut down the computer. I'm more than prepared for the technical side of tomorrow, plans and paint and sets in place, and I allow Octavia to pull me up to standing and sling my arm across her shoulders as we walk out together. I grab the door as she gets the lights and the next time I walk inside, the girl who looks like she fell from the pages of a magazine will be half naked in my studio, and I know I can't spend another moment thinking like that or I'll go mad.

"Buy me a drink?" Octavia's favorite bar is equal distance from the studio as our apartment is in the opposite direction, and she jumps and clasps her hands together at my request.

I tease her about Lincoln, the bartender she goes all heart eyes for, and she rolls them at me and laughs.

"Okay, fine. I get it. This is payback." She holds her hands up, and I don't know if this is her surrendering, or if she's trying to call a truce, but I pull her closer, our steps in perfect time and appreciate the way winter is still a little out of practice in early December.

I didn't expect the ink. I don't know why. Her sister tattoos people for a living, yet in all the ways I'd pictured her, I didn't see her with any. It's a shame painting over the piece on her spine, she said Anya's experimenting with some Xoil-esque designs and it's only halfway through. The muscles of her back flex against my brush and each time it tickles, each time she squirms, she apologises.

"It's a completely different sensation to the needle. I can sit for a long time for Anya, but that brush is something else."

I tell her I'll switch out to a smaller one once the background color is complete. She smiles. Her face looks different in the mirror I've set up so we can talk while I'm behind her. I regret it immediately, and appreciate it at the very same time.

The detail is the fun part, the fine lines, the intricate patterns and the shadows of colour which make the image take shape against her skin. Octavia comes by with coffee after the first hour, straddles a chair, arms over the back like Lexa, calls me babe enough times to make Lexa press her lips together like she trying not to vomit. Her nostrils flare a little.

"Babe-" I draw the word out through gritted teeth as I glare at Octavia, "-could you give me a hand with something out the back for just a minute?" I tell Lexa I'll be right back, pat her shoulder a little as I stand up and I roll my eyes at myself for doing so as I march through to the back room.

"Dude, what are you doing?" My hands are on my hips and I look down to see a line of grey across my white tank, paintbrush between my fingers, and roll my eyes again.

"What do you mean?" Her smirk tells me she knows, and as much as I love her I want to shake her right now.

"O, I really like her, okay. I mean, I really want to get to know her and I think maybe she likes me too, because she acts like a jealous girlfriend every time you call me babe and-"

"But I always call you babe-" She interrupts me to state the obvious.

"I know you d-"

"-and you always call me babe. It's been that way forever, babe." She smirks again and this time I kind of want to hug her because, yeah, it has.

"Okay, but you're laying it on a little thick this morning, maybe once I'm dating her this'll be funny." I wink and now it's her turn to roll her eyes. She grabs me by the shoulders and turns me, pushing me back through the door and Lexa startles, almost dropping her phone as she looks up at us.

I haven't looked at her from this angle yet and, god, she's stunning. Her face, sure. Those eyes, definitely, but looking at her straddling the chair like that…I have no words.

"I'll leave you guys to it." Octavia pulls me into a hug which is tradition and nothing to do with teasing Lexa, and she whispers good luck and babe quiet enough so that both are a secret, and I'm grateful. She leaves with a promise of delivering lunch in a couple of hours, which means I have two more with Lexa all to myself.

I smile at her reflection in the mirror and she pockets her phone, sighing as I start up again with the paint. The smaller brush sees her muscles tense and flex less, and although she's clearly more comfortable, I can't help but feel disappointed.

"Why this?" I look up to meet her eyes in the mirror and I pull my left hand away, my right still resting against her shoulder. "Why armor?" How do I tell her about the way her jaw flexes in the moment before she smiles? What words can I use to soften the fact that when we met her posture suggested she needs to feel as though she's in control?

"Are you also interested in why I painted the vine on Eden and Raven?" I cock my head to the side, raise my eyebrows a little. I'm daring her to persist even though I'm trying to change the subject. She knows.

"Okay, how about I let you tell me that story first, and then you need to break this down for me, alright?" She holds my gaze, motioning a hand toward her body, and drags her teeth over her lower lip. I busy myself with the tray of paints beside me, concentrating on the dirty shade of blue I've mixed, willing it to cool me as I breathe in.

I explain to Lexa how Raven didn't have much growing up. How she had a mother who would dump her on doorsteps when parenting became inconvenient, how she spent more time with uncles and aunts and her grandma combined than she did with her mother in those early years. I work on the shades of colour which define the hourglass shape on each of Lexa's sides as I rattle off the to and fro Raven felt until her mother finally threw herself off a bridge, and Raven's life off kilter, when she was seventeen.

"But she was amazing, you know? She picked herself up and started applying to colleges and a couple of really awesome teachers helped her out with scholarship applications and, next thing you know, she had five of the best wanting her to join them."

I look up at Lexa again and see the grin on her face matching the pride on mine and, despite it, I find myself apologising for what a long story it is when I've started well before the vines.

"No way, I want to hear it. We have the time." She shrugs, still grinning, and I want to take her picture now, I want to capture this instead of the pictures I will get later, the ones I've been planning for a week. "Tell me about how she and your mom met."

"They met shortly after my Dad died. " There's a sadness in her eyes now, something like understanding and it taints her smile, but she smiles just the same. "My mom started going along to a support group for people who'd lost loved ones due to suicide, and Raven had been part of that group, in some shape or form, for six years."

I swallow the thick feeling that one word leaves inside my throat and I hop up, wiping my hands on a cloth before bringing my chair around in front of Lexa. I'm on the home stretch now, I should have it done by the time Octavia brings lunch.

Meeting her eyes for real is somewhat unnerving after having the safety net of the mirror between us for hours. Her smile is lopsided, on the opposite side of her face now and, as much as I adored it before, I prefer it now.

"Did you go along to the support group too." Her voice comes out as a whisper and she clears her throat as though she's surprised there wasn't more volume there. Our faces are only inches away from each other now as she sits up straight and I lower the back of the chair she leans on to get better access to her skin.

I shake my head, feel my nose scrunch up and grab a sponge to spread the undercoat of color over her shoulder, her collar bone and the very top of her chest.

"I'm not a fan of groups. I saw someone though, when he died. I just didn't need an audience, you know?" She nods and I feel like she does know and I want to ask her about that sometime, but maybe not today.

"So Raven had been going along for years and kind of helped the guy run the sessions. Sinclair was as much family to Raven as anyone had ever been. He was more than a counsellor, more than a friend, and she became an integral part of the meetings, even took a couple of courses amongst all the actual study she was doing just so nobody questioned why she stuck around.

She and Mom had a lot in common, the medical stuff, a science background, and Raven quickly became a big part of the reason Mom kept going. She liked being able to talk about Dad, and the guilt and the loss. She needed that, she needed to hear that she wasn't the only one to think she could have fixed the person she loved, you know? The group thing really worked for her, but so did this new person, this new friend who reminded her of everything she loved about the other side of her life. The work side, the nerd side."

Lexa laughs now. She throws her head back, and my brush slips. She cringes when she sees me roll my eyes and grab a cloth.

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be. It's not your fault I'm hilarious." I fix the spot and chance a quick glance up to meet her eyes. It takes me all of one second to recall how hard it is to look away and I use every available muscle to lower my head and concentrate on my brush again before picking up with the story.

"So Mom had been going to the meetings for months and months, over a year I guess, she and Raven would sometimes grab a coffee afterwards, and then one week Mom went along to the meeting and Raven wasn't there. Sinclair informed everyone that Raven would no longer be attending, but that he could always use a new assistant and if anyone wanted him to help them sign up for a course, they could take Raven's spot.

Mom was shattered. I think that's when she realised she'd only kept going to see Raven, and despite the time they'd spent together outside of the sessions, she didn't even have her number. She asked Sinclair what happened and he said something about boundaries and that Raven felt as though she'd crossed a line, or was going to. So she left."

"Just like that?" Lexa's brow is furrowed when I look up and I'm relieved that she is interested in this story. This story is one of my favorite things about the world.

"Yeah, but she showed up at Mom's work a week or so later with some flowers and her number and told Mom she'd like to take her to dinner in a week or a month or a year, or whenever she was ready. She said if Mom even thought she was interested she'd wait."

My grin hurts my face now and I can feel the tears at the corners of my eyes which start like this when I'm miserable or completely full of the type of joy that only those who are closest to me can elicit.

"How long did your Mom wait?" Lexa's grin is an exact match for mine, and I wonder if her cheeks hurt thinking of those two like that as well.

"She waited long enough to ask me if I'd be okay with it. She'd been out to drinks and dinner with a couple of other people, but those evenings hadn't been anything more than that. Nothing serious. She was pretty sure Raven could be, and the rest is history."

I start the finer detail on Lexa's shoulder, the smaller brush which means she fidgets less and I can work more quickly.

"Okay, Clarke, that's the sweetest story ever, but I still don't get the vines part." She laughs through her nose and I can tell she's trying to stay as still as possible. I scrunch my nose up again, gritting my teeth through a grin at how carried away I was with the preamble.

"Well, I guess knowing all that makes the vines pretty simple." I put down my brush and scoot away from Lexa on my chair until I reach my desk. In the third draw down I keep an album of pictures which come from shoots, but are really just for me. The ones which didn't make it to big prints, the ones which will never be sold or part of any collection.

I glide back over and flip through the pages to the other pictures I took on the day of the portrait of Eden. There are the ones which are a full length shot of her and Raven, the ones in which she is holding hands with both Raven and Mom as they gaze down at her between them, the ones with her sitting between them as they sit on a bench, and the ones of Mom and Raven with Eden barely in the shot.

I see Lexa nod before I even begin to explain. She breathes like I do when Eden's in the room, when I'm in the same space with so much energy and so much life, and this is why I have to take pictures.

"Raven had never really had a family before us. She and Mom got married with ten of us there, Sinclair and a couple of friends were all that Raven had, and she still said it was the best day of her life. And then, a couple of years later, she had Eden and I think every day since has been the best day of her life. Eden is the start of her family tree. She's the beginning of something completely new, you know?"

Mom and Raven have copies of these pictures up at home, the ones where the vines reach from Mom's chest – you can see them sneaking out from behind the tank top she's wearing- down her arm, around her fingers and onto Eden. They continue across her chest too and come out the other side, up her arm and to the point her fingers meet Raven's before curling up Raven's arm as well.

"I love this. That story and these pictures. It also makes me adore the picture from your exhibition even more. The blurb beside it could never capture everything you've just told me. I love it." There's a different look on her face now, something I can't quite read, but it takes everything in me not to lean in and kiss her. If she says love again I might explode.

I circle back around her. The final touches I add to the underside of the lacing feels like drawing in the corset. I'm tightening it, the detail, pulling it all together.

Lexa's breath catches as I use the wider brush for the first time in a long time, for the last time, correcting a spot toward the side of her ribs. It's the one which tickles her skin, the one which makes every muscle move beneath it and I don't dare look at her reflection now. I don't want her to notice the colour I can feel spreading across my cheeks.

We barely speak throughout the shoot. Octavia stays when she arrives with lunch and helps with the set, adjusting the bench and lighting as needed as I move around the space.

Lexa doesn't take long to settle into her new role. Once she realises I don't need her to smile, don't need her to even look my way, don't need her to do anything other than just be, she relaxes.

She sits on the very same bench I used in the pictures of Mom, Eden and Raven which are in my album. Legs crossed, elbows leaning on knees, body stretched out - face down on the bench. Lexa moves into each new position without question. She moves so fluidly I can't believe she hasn't been in talks with Vogue, or whoever, and I can't shake the way each new version of her collages itself over the last, building her up and bringing her to life and drawing me in even more than she had before.

When she leaves to clean up in the small bathroom out the back, Octavia grins at me and shakes her head. I ignore her for as long as possible, but every time I look up she's the Cheshire Cat and I'm not good at just letting things go.

"Say it. Say whatever you're thinking." I have my favorite camera in one hand and my other hand on my hip, and I listen for the sound of the water being turned off in the shower and try not to imagine…anything.

"You're a goner, babe, that's all."

I look around for something to throw at her, but there's nothing I don't value with my life so I settle for an eye roll and a nod of admission.

"I'm going to get out of here," she whispers as she walks closer, her eyes darting over my shoulder as if Lexa could reappear at any minute, and I feel my heart rate pick up. Octavia is doing the very opposite of keeping me balanced right now. "I'll leave before she strides from that bathroom with steam trailing behind her and those curls dripping wet-"

I stop her with a punch on the shoulder which actually must hurt a bit because she winces before she smiles, hugging me as she reaches to grab her bag from my desk. She's out the door and my goodbye is barely out of my mouth, my hand still half in the air as I hear the door open behind me.

Spinning around, Lexa is dressed back in the clothes she arrived in, and while there's no trail of steam from the bathroom, she is still battling to dry her hair with the towel I left for her. I walk over to the cupboard and grab her another. Her thank you is quiet as I swap them and the weight of the one she hands over tells me it was never going to go any way to drying all that hair.

"You know, you didn't tell me about the armor. I'm a bit disappointed it's all been washed off now. Is it hard to see all that work go down the drain, quite literally?" She sits herself down on the same chair I painted her on, but she sits forward now, the back adjusted so she can lean against it, and she brings one ankle up to rest on the opposite knee.

I tidy the last few things from around the space. I like walking back into a clean studio, I like completing projects separately and having the evidence of them gone before beginning another. I haven't considered what I'm going to work on next. I usually take a break after an exhibition, but Lexa is all I've thought about in two weeks.

"Not really. That's all part of it, you know? I enjoy that its temporary, it's the opposite of that." I point to the tribal bands Anya tattooed on her right arm. "Maybe you can tell me more about the permanent stuff sometime."

She ducks her head at this and I want to plant my feet on the ground and drag my chair closer, but instead I rest my hands in my lap and wait for her to look back up. I don't know if it's the light now, darker outside than it was this time a month ago, the lamps which hang from my ceiling casting shadows across her skin which weren't there throughout the day, but she looks different somehow, vulnerable, as though the shower washed away more than the paint I spent hours applying to her skin. Maybe it did.

"So sometimes I have an idea and then I find someone to paint on, find someone to take pictures of wearing the images I've planned, often around a theme. Other times I see someone and the idea comes because of them. I guess that's where the armor came from." I pause to see if this is okay, to see if she minds as I peel back a layer or two and tell her what I think I know. I want her to know that I see her. I just don't want to scare her with it.

"You think I'm hiding something, Clarke." It's my name, it's the way she says it again, and it's that half smile, the one which was two different types of lopsided depending on whether I was watching her in the mirror or seated before her as I am now, and still I think I prefer it when she's really looking at me.

"I think we all are, to some extent, I think we all have a version of us that we prefer people to see, and we only let some see us without the façade, you know?"

She nods, but I can see her jaw flex before her smile and I know it's going to be a tightrope walk to get to her.

"I guess I wonder if you're wary of meeting new people, I felt like you weren't really at home amongst that crowd the other night, either. You come across as strong, as this unbreakable force, but at the same time I feel like I want to be gentle with you, I-"

She looks at me like I've crossed a line, and just like that my tongue is too big for my mouth and there's nowhere for me to look because the tidying is done and the only thing left to do in this space is talk to her, or leave.

"I'm sorry, I don't know why I…sometimes I find explaining my work makes it sound ridiculous. I know the vine story inside out. I love the way Raven came into our lives and how Eden is the one thing we all needed. I could tell that story backwards and inside out, but I haven't practised this one. I'm not sure I really know it yet. I'm sorry if I've made you uncomfortable."

"You haven't, it just feels like I'm on display somehow," she won't look at me now and my chest feels tight and I feel as though I've said the wrong thing and I don't know how to fix it, "- more so than when you were taking my picture."

"I see people, Lexa. I always have. It's why I love drawing and photography. I guess I try to capture the stuff that's difficult to observe in the day to day." And again I wish I could take her picture. I want to show her how stunning she is when she's lost inside her thoughts.

"I guess I don't usually like to be noticed." She drops her leg back to the floor now, and bounces it like she's trying to concentrate on something else, like I didn't manage to make it all the way across the rope before I fell.

"Maybe we should we call it a night." I force a smile because the last thing I want is to be apart from her right now, but I need to give her an out. I stand and push my chair under my desk and put my phone and keys in my bag. I'm halfway to slinging it over my shoulder when her voice breaks through the silence inside the studio.

"You saw me when you started talking about your Mom and Raven, didn't you. You saw the way my face changed."

I turn around to see her standing now, her chair pushed aside so it sits by the table where I first showed her the drawings, when I first showed her what I saw. I nod my head. She doesn't need to hear a thing from me right now. It's her turn to tell a story.

"Her name was Costia." She slips her hands into the back pockets of her jeans and the steel is gone from her spine now, it's everything she can do to hold herself up. "We met when we were young and I don't know if there's an age where falling in love stops being just a crush and becomes a real, genuine thing, but she was everything to me. I kissed her on the back porch of her Mom's house one day and nothing in my life was ever the same."

She draws in a deep breath and I feel as though our lungs are connected, like I only have permission to breathe right now because she is.

"We were together, as a couple, for four years. We'd been together most of our lives before that. When she died it was easier to keep people at arm's length. It was easier just to move back in with Anya and go to work and come home and not have to worry about finding something again. I'm scared of new. I'm scared to find something again which would hurt that much to lose. You read me right, Clarke. That scares me a little, you know?" She shrugs and I want to wrap my arms around her, I want to tell her there's nothing to be afraid of, but I also want to be that new thing, I really want to be the thing she's afraid to lose.

"I'm sorry if any of this has made things hard for you today. I want to get to know you, Lexa. I'm not going to assume that what I think I see is who you are."

Her face softens now. She lets her hands drop to her sides and steps towards me and my feet are glued to the floor. I don't want to breathe if it will change a thing inside this room right now.

"You're right about the armor, Clarke. When I saw it in your sketches, when you painted it on my skin today it felt like I was wearing all of me on the outside. I felt like my cover had been blown somehow. But I've missed this. I've missed connecting with someone. I just feel like I need to protect myself. I lost so much when I lost her, this is how I keep going. It's how I survive."

"Maybe life should be about more than just surviving." Her eyes are so dark right now and she's looking through me like she did the night we met. "I think you deserve so much more than that."

She takes another step forward and part of me wants to run because the air is so thick and everything about her makes me feel like I might pass out. Her hair still hangs wet around her shoulders and I need to think about anything other than her in my shower right now.

"Maybe I do."

I feel her fingers against my neck before I've registered how close our bodies are, before my brain and my heart can catch on to what's going to happen next. When her lips meet mine I don't feel like I'm in control of any part of my body. Her fingers tangle in the hair at the base of my neck and I feel like my knees won't support me if her tongue touches my lip like that again. I wrap my arms around her neck and feel her arm around my waist like she knows she needs to hold me up when her tongue touches mine and, god, I've never wanted to kiss someone like I want to kiss her right now. I breathe Jesus against her lips as she pulls away and the smile on her face makes my knees as weak as her tongue did.

"You scare me, Clarke." She rests her forehead against mine, and I can feel the years of hiding in her words, I can feel the weight of everything she's lost.

"I'm not going anywhere, I promise. I want to know you without the armor. I really want to kiss you again, too, if I'm honest." She laughs through her nose and I feel her breath on my lips. She bites her own, pulling back to look at me and I have no words for how beautiful she is when she's this close.

"Maybe we start there." She grins at me and there's something in it which I barely recognize, something like cocky and, Jesus, it looks good on her.

"Maybe we start there." I agree. She pulls me back towards her now, fingers pressing at the base of my neck and something pulls inside my chest which feels nothing like butterflies and everything like stretching, and I know Octavia was right. I'm done for.