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"All the other comics here seem to lean into the nineties," I said. "Why don't we do the same?"
"I think neon's better." Sage's voice overlapped with mine. "We have to stand out so that the readers know we're worth their time."
I chewed on the inside of my cheek, trying to ignore the poorly- veiled jab.
"Sage is right," Tyson said, his gaze glued to the color swatches on the screen. He clicked his pen rapidly as he spoke. "We have to take risks. If we don't, we'll be the first to get cut if the sales numbers aren't where they need to be. Everyone else gets to be mediocre, not us."
I nodded, a bit embarrassed I came off as trying to play it safe. No matter what people said, I didn’t inherently think being safe was always a bad thing, but the negative connotation to it – especially in the art world – was undeniable.
I picked up my pencil to resume my meeting-anxiety-reducing doodling, but what I saw on the page made me pause for a second. Some drawings weren’t there before I got up. In addition to my girl on the swing, there was a dog with wings floating above her, a bouquet in his mouth.
My gaze immediately flung to Sage, diligently typing notes. She didn’t look away from her screen, even though I stared longer than necessary.
The lines were hers, no doubt about it. They were careful and light, like she wanted to be sure I could erase them with ease if I wanted.
I didn’t erase. No, I added to the sketch, placing a snake in the grass inches from the girl's feet. Once I was done, I put my pencil down and nudged it slightly in her direction in the hopes she’ll notice. She did and dragged over the sketchbook within a few seconds.
My heartbeat picked up, but Sage didn’t even toss me a glance as she drew. Her hand moved quickly, with the efficiency of an artist who’d been doing this for years. She nudged the sketchbook back to me before Tyson turned to her with a question.
“Over my dead body," she said. "I'm not budging on the hairstyle. The locs are too important to me."
She'd given the snake a bowtie and an open briefcase. I bit my lip, trying not to smile too wide at the bottles of oil in the case. I added a text bubble and wrote some dialogue. Once Sage was done defending her character design, she gave my addition a look and smiled.
Lots of things made me happy: art, perfectly seasoned rice, bike rides downtown, and now, apparently, making Sage smile because of something silly.
She'd smiled at me before, of course, but it's safe to say the condescending curve of a prideful smile didn’t stand a chance against her genuinely amused one. It softened her eyes and made her cheeks round enough for me to fantasize about poking them with my finger…or, perhaps, even kissing the wrinkle that appeared around her lip.
We went back and forth like that for the rest of the meeting. No one paid us any mind, and somehow, that made it feel special.
Completing sketches with Sage felt like sharing secrets—intimate in a way that set my fingertips on fire. I knew Sage would never feel the same way; we were stuck in this never-ending battle of egos because she couldn’t admit she might be wrong, and I wouldn’t give into confessing either.
Still, the strange tightening in my chest lingered whenever she reached for the sketchbook like it was second nature. I started paying less attention to the orders coming out of Tyson's mouth and more to how Sage's long fingers gripped her pencil. She always held any drawing instrument like she was ready to drop it at a moment's notice. Her grip was the opposite of my vein-popping clutch that most of my teachers warned me against.
Sharing a sketchbook page with Sage made me feel like I was back in university. I was that drowsy sophomore, and she was that cocky junior. We drew over each other's lines, trying to prove something to each other and ourselves.
After all these years, we weren't much different; still trying to prove something, still trying to be on top.
I anticipated a blanket of loneliness to settle in like it usually did when I thought about ladder climbing, but it didn't. For the first time, I realized, I had company in Sage.
She was on the seemingly never-ending ladder with me. Maybe a few rungs ahead of me, but still there, climbing. Though we rubbed each other the wrong way, that didn't negate the fact that no one could quite understand what I wanted like she could.
The sudden feeling of camaraderie made me frown. I was supposed to be focused on making sure she didn't nudge me off this team. I was supposed to make sure I demolished her on the Inkmic charts, not thinking about our commonalities.
I stopped working on our growing sketch and readjusted my focus to the meeting. Sage didn't indicate that she cared about my stopping, further evidence that while my head had disappeared into the clouds for a moment, hers had stayed firmly planted in reality. I needed to do the same. No giving into easy distractions—no matter how good they made me feel.
Those warm feelings couldn't be trusted, especially when it came to Sage. While I was daydreaming, she'd bargained with Tyson to keep three of her subplots in the overarching story. I saw the changes on the screen, and my grip on my pencil tightened. Her changes would kill one of my favorite characters.
No more distractions. No more giving her the upper hand. To win, I had to be on it, always, and from this point forward, I would be.
Chapter Eight
Sage
I'm not a touchy person. I'm not used to the feel of someone's skin on mine. Not by choice, but simply off the fact that I didn't have a lot of experience in the department.
My family – who had strong 'what are you smiling at' energy – didn't exchange hugs. No pats on the back when something was being celebrated or squeezing hands when something was being mourned. So, when Noah placed her hand on my forearm to get my attention, my body went into sensory overload. It was probably the world's lightest touch, but to me, it was a weighted blanket, warm and a little frightening in its comfort.
She'd touched me on the way out of the conference room. Before I could form a sentence, though I wasn’t sure I would have been successful in delivering one anyway, she handed me a folded-up sheet of paper and disappeared out of the room before I could question her.
