Adagio
IGGY
TWO WEEKS SOBER
“Iggy, are you listening?”
I cracked one eye open to find Darren looming over me, arms folded, looking like a disappointed teacher. I was curled up in a warm patch of sunlight on the cushioned window seat, and honestly, I’d been dangerously close to napping.
“Not really,” I said.
Darren sighed. “You should make an effort to take part in the activity, Iggy. It could be extremely helpful on your recovery journey.”
I fought the urge to roll my eyes. Darren was one of the counsellors at the Willow, and during a gossip session with Amanda, the intake administrator, I’d learned he had a degree in psychology from Leeds and had “dabbled” in art therapy for one semester.
Apparently, that was enough for him to lead these twice-weekly sessions in the big glass conservatory of the east wing.
I was on week two of the programme and still hadn’t picked up a paintbrush.
For starters, the extent of my artistic skill was drawing a dodgy stick figure, and secondly, I genuinely didn’t see the point.
Was splattering red, yellow, and blue on a canvas meant to make me want drugs less?
When it came to creativity, I could either choreograph a routine or do a killer makeover.
Since I couldn’t dance anymore, makeup was all I had.
But Darren had told me on day one that makeup “didn’t count as art therapy. ”
Pfft. As if that man knew the first thing about blending eyeshadow.
“I’ve already told you what I want to do, and you said no,” I grumbled, turning away to stare out the window. I wasn’t ashamed of the pout on my lips. Not even a little.
“You can’t spend every session putting on makeup, Iggy,” he replied, pinching the bridge of his nose.
“Why not?”
“Because you need something you can look at when it’s done. Something to reflect on later in the programme.”
“I can look in the mirror,” I snapped, hands curling into fists as frustration simmered under my skin.
“Iggy, please—”
But Darren didn’t get any further, because I pushed up from the window seat and stomped towards the door like the dramatic bitch I was.
I made it halfway across the room before I stopped dead, eyes catching on the figure tucked away in the far corner.
The guy from the garden.
He sat hunched over a sketchbook, head bent, one side of his face bathed in soft golden light.
The shadows carved out the sharp line of his jaw, the elegant slope of his nose.
And when he lifted his head to meet my stare, his blue eyes sparked, bright and startling, like sunlight hitting ocean water.
Every evening, we sat together on the same stone bench, vaping as the sun dipped behind the trees.
He’d only said four words to me the first day, and I was pretty sure he hadn’t meant to say them at all.
But since then, I’d managed to pry a few more out of him.
His name was Bodhi, he was from LA, and his walls were thick and high and mortared with something far heavier than attitude.
I was determined to chip away at them.
I didn’t know why. Before rehab, I’d rarely bothered to look at anyone beyond their surface.
Not since leaving the ballet. I didn’t need to when the only people in my orbit were half-decent company while I was high or a nameless fuck when I was bored.
As long as they could have a good time or get me off, I didn’t need to know what made them tick.
I knew it was shallow. Dr Williams had made sure I could admit that to myself. But Bodhi wasn’t like those people, and for the first time in a long time, I found myself wanting to know what lurked beneath.
Something about Bodhi intrigued me. Maybe it was the shadows that clung to him like a ghost, weighing down his shoulders.
Maybe it was the way he drifted into his own head when he thought no one was watching.
I wasn’t sure. I just knew I wanted to understand what was going on behind those eyes. I wanted to understand him.
Before I could think it through, I marched across the room to where Bodhi sat. Leaning over, I slapped my hands down on the table beside his sketchbook. He looked up at me, one eyebrow raised, silently asking what the hell I wanted.
“Are you finished?” I asked, flicking my gaze down at the page he’d been attacking with a stick of charcoal, only to freeze when I saw what he’d drawn.
Me.
Curled up in a tight little ball on the window seat, knees tucked to my chest. The sunlight caught one side of my face while the other was swallowed in shadow.
My expression was blank, but my eyes . .
. god, they looked so sad. Hollow. Exactly like the version of myself I only ever saw reflected back at me when I was alone. A look I never let anyone else glimpse.
And yet Bodhi had seen it. Seen me. And then he’d put it on paper, every raw edge and crack sketched into place.
It almost hurt to look at. To see how broken I felt on the inside laid bare in front of me, exposed by the hands of someone who was technically still a stranger. Part of me wanted to grab the charcoal he’d used and ruin his work. To gouge those too-honest eyes right off the page.
But the drawing was . . . beautiful, in a way. Real. And I couldn’t bring myself to destroy something he’d created with such careful detail. Not when he’d seen right through me.
I was almost startled when Bodhi snapped the sketchbook shut, hiding his creation. But it reminded me why I’d come over in the first place.
“Well?” I prompted.
“Uh . . . I guess so,” he said, shifting in his seat and lifting a tattooed arm to rub the back of his neck. The move was so unmistakably self-conscious that I wondered if he was embarrassed I’d seen the drawing. That I knew he’d been watching me from across the room.
“Great.” I straightened and clapped my hands together. “Can I borrow your face?”
“Huh?”
I nudged his sketchbook out of the way and perched on the edge of the table. “I’d like to borrow your face, please.”
He frowned, lips pursing in a way that was honestly unfairly adorable. “Why?”
“Darren said I can’t beat my own face, so I’d like to beat yours.”
Bodhi’s eyes went wide. He leaned back, shoulders tensing. “You wanna punch me?”
Now it was my turn to frown. “What? No. I want to put makeup on it.”
His posture loosened immediately, and he exhaled through a quiet laugh. “Right.” The corner of his mouth twitched, like he was trying not to smile. “You should probably choose your words more carefully.”
I tilted my head, replaying what I’d said, then cracked a grin when it clicked. “Okay, fair point,” I chuckled. “So . . . can I use your face? No violence necessary, I promise.”
Bodhi tugged his lower lip between his teeth, the movement dragging my gaze downward. He stayed quiet long enough that I was sure he’d turn me down.
But then he mumbled, barely above a whisper, “Sure.”
My smile widened, and I hopped off the table with far more enthusiasm than necessary. “Great, thanks! I’ll just grab my supplies from my room.”
I spun around, and stepped straight into Darren’s pudgy chest.
“Iggy, I told you,” he drawled, raking a hand through his thinning hair. “You can’t use makeup for art therapy.”
My hands balled into fists as I planted them on my hips. “You told me I can’t use my own face.” I waved a hand in Bodhi’s direction. “And I’m not.”
“I also said you needed something to look at, to—”
“Reflect on, I know.” I was one huff away from stomping my foot like a tantrum-throwing toddler. “So, we can take a photo, and I can reflect on it to my heart’s content.”
Darren closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, probably counting to ten in his head. “Makeup isn’t an art medium.”
I growled under my breath and scanned the room, refusing to admit defeat. When I spotted the bottles of poster paint on a nearby table, the exact kind given to kids who still tried to eat glue, I let out a triumphant squeak.
“Fine, then.” I flounced past him, adding a flick of my hair because the moment deserved some drama. Scooping up the paints, I marched back to Bodhi and Darren, dumped them on the table, and gave Darren my smuggest smile. “I’ll use these.”
Bodhi watched silently as I grabbed an empty paint palette from the middle of the table and squeezed a generous blob of red onto the wooden surface. I’d just reached for the yellow when Darren stopped me.
“Iggy—”
“What, Darren?” I snapped, my temper officially hitting boiling point.
“You can’t use poster paint on someone’s face. Just . . .” He exhaled hard and dragged a hand down his own. “Wait a minute.”
He headed towards a cardboard box perched on top of a bureau near the conservatory doors. I could hear him muttering about me under his breath—almost certainly not compliments—while he rummaged through it. Eventually he lifted out a rectangular box and returned, offering it to me with a weary sigh.
“Use these instead.”
I ran a finger over the faded lettering. A pack of face paints. Twelve colours. My bad mood evaporated in an instant. When I looked up at Darren, who now seemed genuinely, spiritually exhausted, shame curled low in my stomach.
“Thanks, Darren,” I murmured, gripping the box a little tighter.
“Just remember to take a photo.”
I nodded, and he left us to check on someone else, probably questioning whether he was paid enough to babysit a brat like me.
Shaking off the guilt, I pasted on a bright smile and turned to Bodhi, holding up the face paints like a puppy proudly presenting a stick it found in the park. “Ready?”
“I guess,” Bodhi mumbled.
I slid into the seat beside him and motioned for him to turn towards me. Once he shifted into place, I grabbed a cup of water and a paintbrush, and opened the box. Most of the colours were barely touched, some not touched at all.
At least I wouldn’t be giving Bodhi conjunctivitis. A win in my book.