"Are you sure you don't me to go in with you?" Antonio asked for what seemed the hundredth time during the short car ride back to the studio.
Lovino nodded and unfastened his seat belt, reaching for the car handle before glancing back at the older boy one more time. "I'm sure," he confirmed. "I've got so much to do."
Antonio reached a hand across the middle console and squeezed the Italian's forearm, "don't forget to make time for eating and sleeping," he reminded, concern in his voice. "And call me if you need anything."
Lovino scoffed and turned his head away, unwilling for the Spaniard to see the small smile that tugged at his lip from being treated so tenderly, "okay, Mom." He chastised sarcastically.
Antonio smiled lightly, but remained solemn, "I mean it, take care of yourself."
Lovino ducked his head and sighed, growing uncomfortable from the attention, "fine, fine, I know," he insisted, pulling his arm from the older boy's grip and lifting himself from his seat. He stepped into the chilled air, hesitating with his palm grasped tightly against the car door, face dressed in apprehension. He knew he needed to be alone in order to properly conceptualize his pieces. The Spaniard's comfortable presence left him ambivalent to his duties, and while it was an admittedly enjoyable respite from his normally brooding attitude, the affected peace accomplished little in the way of production.
"Well, bye," the Italian said lamely, lip quirking in distaste from the hollow sendoff.
"Bye, Lovi," Antonio replied, tender tone breathing depth into the short salutation.
Lovino slammed the door shut, watching the Spaniard's gaze through his reflection. He stood in place, silently daring Antonio to move first, to drive away and break the spell. He would do it, but he lacked both the energy and the will to knowingly launch himself back into the world of anxiety and self-doubt. Finally, the older boy blinked and lifted a hand, curling his fingers into his palm in an intimate wave, before nodding and pulling away from the curb. Lovino watched transfixed, the time between his still body and the retreating Spaniard stretching, entering it's own realm that was parallel, but not directly proportional to the winding leaves that jerked spastically through gusting winds.
Finally, when the last perceptible trace of Antonio's car had escaped his view, Lovino stepped away from the curb, turning slowly on his heel and heading dejected to the wood shop. Up to this point he had procrastinated under the pretense that when the time came to work, he would be ready, sufficiently charged and emotionally prepared to tackle the production of new pieces. However, now that the time was here, breathing down his neck with the immediacy of his deadlines, he felt inexplicably drained. The mere thought of tolling away in the print room weighted his feet with lead and sent a vague throb across his temples.
He paused in the opening of the darkened room, coughing lightly against the smell of sawdust as he lifted a hand to absently trace calloused fingertips against the rough door jamb. It was stupid to make his frames before the pieces were finished, it had been bad enough that he had been forced to purchase wood before starting them. He stepped hesitantly backwards and walked towards the stairwell instead, determined to at least draw up thumbnails before beginning the heavy labor of frame making.
Lovino paced briskly into the printmaking studio, noisily exhaling a breath he didn't realize he was holding when he found the room to be empty. He flicked the light on and yanked his flat file open, pulling his sketchbook and a mechanical pencil from its contents before slamming it shut again and tossing the items on the closest table. He fell ungracefully into a chair and dropped his open palm over the rolling pencil, letting his nails scratch the butcher paper surface as he drew his fingers around it. The Italian closed his eyes and shook his head, concentrating intently on the way his hair was tousled by the restless movement and the way his shallow breaths filled his ever-swaying chest. His tongue felt too big in his mouth and his jaw ached from the effort of keeping his teeth from baring together. His body was a fortress, safeguarding him from the creases of history carved into his unyielding mind.
Lovino folded his legs into his chair and pressed dark lead against the crisp sketchbook page, hoping the contact would somehow pull on his muscle memory, rouse his body from it's suspension. His grip increased with every ticking minute, palm beginning to perspire as the soft afternoon light sharpened, indicating the quickly approaching evening. "The fuck is wrong with you, bastard?" Lovino gasped bitterly, shoulders tensing when the brittle lead snapped under the mounting pressure of his will.
The Italian drew his wrists to his eyes and grasped at his hairline, wrenching his nails across his scalp, uncaring of the mess he was making of his hair. He felt at a loss, he was no stranger to art block, it was a familiar feeling, one he knew was common; but this sensation was new, he felt devoid of all thought, detached from the experience of life, of memory, and it was unsettling. He groaned against the surge of disgust swelling in his ribcage, the pale blue veins that traveled the banks of his thin flesh, the shallow breaths quickening in his nose,the persistent beating perceptible in his fingertips: they were all detestable, tools for the continuation of a wasted life.
Lovino stood before his mind could process his intention, sending his chair clattering to the ground. He didn't flinch, didn't move to fix it, instead he took down the hall, sketchbook forgotten as he cut a quick course to his dorm room. Maybe seeing his brother would help, remind him of his identity, anchor him back to reality. The Autumn air in all its reverence did nothing to comfort him as he jogged to his resident hall, not bothered by the scene he must be making to passing strangers. When he finally reached his room, fingers shaking and breath hitching painfully, his brother was absent. Lovino vaguely wondered why he had assumed he'd be there on a weekend afternoon. After all, Feliciano was outgoing and enjoyed the company of others, he didn't spend his time gnawing on the bones of the day like his older brother was wont to do.
The Italian slid his right toe on the heel of his left loafer, wrenching his foot from its warm confines before repeating the process for the other. He trudged to his bed and sat down, hunched with his elbows over his knees before finally giving up his fight against gravity and letting his body fall to the side. He grasped his quilt in his hand, intently watching the undulating folds of woven fabric. In truth he knew what he could do, Antonio's suggestion echoed hauntingly through his brain, blocking out all other thoughts. The sheer persistence of it ignited a small fire inside him, he felt mad at the older Spaniard for monopolizing his thoughts, and mad at himself for being unable to surmount them.
He pulled himself to his feet, trudging wearily over to Feliciano's desk and slumping into the chair. An overbearing congregation of static faces peered back at him, features flattened by the camera's inability to capture anything more than a shallow representation of life. He remembered being dressed up and lugged to photo studios when he was still so young, limbs stiff in finely pressed, rarely worn outfits. It was a pathetic pastime, he thought, to produce desperate relics that insisted upon new generations that "I was here, I mattered." Maybe he had mattered once, to someone, but she was gone, and so he had made sure his photos were, too. Feliciano cried when he realized. The older Italian hadn't understood that at the time, after all, it was only the portraits of him he had torn into pieces. Photos of their friends, their parents, their grandparents and even Feliciano himself, all remained.
Lovino sighed and reached for a frame, holding it weakly in his hand as he regarded his and his brother's faces, aged two years younger. He hadn't understood Feliciano's grief, but he had conceded to it, apologized. To repent he had promised not to argue when the younger brother asked for a photo to be taken of them. Thankfully, Feliciano had been kind about it, not asking for more than one or two a year, but he still hated it, and he went out of his way to avoid viewing the processed film.
He slid the frame back in place and reached for another, hand pausing hesitantly before regaining it's purpose and wrapping itself around an older, heavier portrait. Lovino stared at the countenance solemnly, the plain face, plain brown hair, plain hazel eyes. She sat alone in the frame, isolated, face pained. It wasn't at all representative of the way he remembered her: voice light and warm, features intelligent but kind. The day that portrait was taken he and Feliciano had been brought to the studio, it was to be a family portrait but his father hadn't arrived, he was busy with work, as was typical. His mother hadn't been fazed, she never was, or at least, she never showed it to him. The photo shoot was to go on as planned, only minus one person, but then Feliciano spit up on himself and Lovino wet his pants, and his mother ended up alone, standing as the lone, strong icon for her messy family.
Lovino let his forehead fall to the desk and held the frame gripped tightly in both hands, wrestling with himself mentally. He would make work about her, it was a hard decision, but a necessary one. He would undress the photos, reveal the imperceptible stories behind them. There was no point in delving too deeply, in drudging up forgotten feelings or memories, he would relay truth and that was it. It would be clinical, exact, and, he hoped, quick.
Lovino stood and collected a few more photos, stacking them neatly on top of one another and holding them carefully to his chest while he slipped on his shoes. He threw his satchel on his back and flew from the room, making sure to lock the door before padding briskly to the photocopier. He wondered what Antonio would say if he saw him, photos folded protectively in his arms, frantically following the older boy's advice. He supposed he might call him brave, or some other equally presumptuous compliment. It wasn't true though, he thought as he lifted the top to the machine and slipped a photo from it's frame, laying it face down on the glass surface. Bravery wasn't a quality he possessed, he had spent his life fleeing, desperately and systematically destroying any component of life that would cause him any more pain than he had already endured.
That's why he wouldn't let Antonio be his boyfriend, he nodded to himself as he collected his copies, closing the machine and pacing towards the printmaking studio. He had already gone too far with the boy, he knew, and it was no longer solely a sexual attraction, a truth that he had tried so hard to ignore. He doused a copy with acetone and positioned it on a stone, pulling the matrix towards his hip and hoisting it up to the closest press. He knew what relationships could do to people, the sacrifices one had to make. His own mother had died for her love of his dad, or was it for her love of him, of Feliciano? His heart panged guiltily in his chest as he drew a foil of newsprint and a tympan sheet across his stone, unlocking the press and rolling it forward. When the squeegee had reached the end of the copied photo, he released the pressure and reversed the motion, instantly pulling off the coverings to appraise his work.
The transfer of his mother sat perfectly against the block, too perfectly. He ran back to the table and took up a litho crayon and a bottle of inky tusche, waiting only momentarily to mentally arrange his strokes before attacking the surface, adding to the image, expanding it, and yet crossing over the lies, scribbling away the inconsistencies. He remembered being told once that memory was faulty, that every time one dwelled on a past event, they altered it, and so the most pure recollections were those untouched. It had scared him at the time because he was constantly rehashing past events, allowing them to affect his every reaction, and he didn't want them tarnished. Now he just refused to believe it, allowing himself ignorance if it meant believing a lie that felt more valid, because there was no way he could forget that day. He could recall every detail: the rich smell of coffee, the cheap faux finish of the wallpaper, the brightly shining white linoleum floors.
Lovino pulled another photocopy from his stack, this one of a young Lovino and Feliciano playing happily, and poured acetone over it, repeating the transferring process. His mother had been crying that morning, it was weird to hear, it had unsettled him; But when she appeared in the living room, face bright with a smile, he allowed himself to relax, to believe everything was okay. It wasn't of course, but he didn't have the foresight then that he had now, so when she said they had to go to a hotel to meet a friend, he didn't argue. Even when she sat him in the lobby's coffee shop and asked him to keep an eye on his brother while she went to the bathroom, he said nothing, he didn't have a reason to. His mother had protected him, she had done so in her life and then her death, and he had let her do it, too stupid to know the difference.
Lovino straightened his spine and wiped his sweating forehead with the back of his wrist, silently measuring his work before sharpening his litho crayon and returning with renewed vigor. He wondered how often children lost their whole family in one day, not that he knew for sure that his grandfather and dad were dead, he had only half listened to the police, too stunned with shock and grief to properly process anything. It had something to do with the mafia, that he knew, but then the details grew fuzzy. He had thought about finding out for sure many times, but had ultimately decided against it, determining that some truths were better left buried. What he did know, was that his mother didn't have to die, at least, not in the way she had. But she was smart, smarter, he thought, than even his father gave her credit for. When she received the call, the one intended for her husband, the one that, Lovino could only surmise, told her his identity had been found out, and that he and his family were being targeted, she had figured out how to protect her sons.
Lovino drew his pencil away, and stared at his work numbly. He didn't know how much time had gone by, he was so lost in his creation. It was night now, that he could tell from the dark, reflecting window. The piece was messy, yet clean, and the scribbled precision reminded him of the print he had seen in the coffee shop that fated afternoon. It was the first time he really remembered feeling something about art, or even really noticing it. He had gotten lost in the supple yellow background and the thick, haphazard blotches of red. Cy Twombly, he knew the artist now, had researched it ages ago, but at the time names didn't matter. What was important was the feeling it gave him, it had charged his lungs with electricity, captured his attention so completely that he barely noticed when a blur of color whizzed past the window to his right, when a shrill scream filled the air. When he tugged Feliciano out the door with him, childlike curiosity overwhelming his need to be obedient, he saw his mother, saw the blood blossoming from her body. He saw it, but he didn't. The terror blinded him, deafened him, his young senses found it impossible to rise to the intensity of the event. He was still just a boy with his younger brother, unimportant to the many occupants of the world, and yet somehow the sole terminus, the sole destination for terror. His brother was crying, had long ago wrenched himself from his hold, but Lovino stood unmoving, tears refusing to fall. He felt he understood what that painting on the wall in the coffee shop he had inhabited decades, no, centuries ago, meant. That same electricity charged him now, that same red consumed his sight.
As soon as the realization entered his head, he was ashamed. His mother lay dead on the sidewalk and even then, in the intensity of the moment, his brain departed, it allowed him to forget. It was disgusting, the feeling more invincible than any he had experienced, and he found the power of description to be beyond him: the pain, the terror, the pure hatred for himself, for the situation, was out of proportion to his own dimensions. What he knew, the one thing he could comprehend in that loathsome moment, was that too soon the pain would soften, over time it would be less real, less palpable. He would have moments, days even, when he didn't think of her, in her death or life, and it wasn't acceptable. He needed the pain to last, to burn eternally in the recesses of his memory, because if he remembered her death, and the grief it caused him, the all-consuming, mind numbing grief, then it meant she had been alive.
Lovino clumsily mixed his etches, eyes glazed as his muscles worked from memory, applying syrupy mixture to the heavily worked surfaces. He had wondered at one time, why she brought him and his brother with her, why she allowed the chance that they would see. It had only been a few years ago that he finally understood, the answer deposited to him when, in a fit of detestable, selfish weakness, he had attempted to take his own life. He didn't like to think of it now, that person embarrassed him, as self-indulgent as he often felt, that person was worse, completely consumed by the inner-workings of his own mind. But he remembered it. As much as he tried to beat the memory away, it persisted. A teenaged Lovino, sitting hunched on the floor, metal bed-frame digging into his back, pilfered pills sweating in his palm. In the end he hadn't gone through with it, the sound of his brother singing blissfully a couple rooms away had made him stop.
At the time his relationship with Feliciano wasn't strong, he blamed the younger boy for his problems in school, for his clumsiness, for all his shortcomings. He was grateful that age had brought with it the realization that perpetual cheerfulness took its toll, too; that sometimes, a smile can be a coping mechanism. However, then, in all his naivety, he had yet to apprehend that complexity of life. He hated his brother, and yet, he hated the thought of him alone more. He gulped against the new understanding, tossing the remaining pills to the floor and cringing when they clattered across the hard wood.
His life was about more than just him, he couldn't die knowing Feliciano would be alone, left without a single remaining relative. And then he understood why his mother had done it: she was afraid of what would happen if he and and his brother weren't there. It was likely that the police would find them, even if they had been left at home, but she didn't want to risk it. Possibly, Lovino thought guiltily, she was scared of what her older son might do, scared that he might hide from the police, convinced that he and Feliciano were better off trying to manage alone, rather than with some assigned stranger. If she had thought that, she hadn't been wrong. Certainly, he had considered it numerous times as he lay in bed at night, staring at the ceiling and dreaming of what life might have been like if he hadn't been sent to Austria, if he had managed to convince the police that, yes, he was old enough to raise his younger brother. But he wasn't of course, and she had known that. In the end he went to bed with ten pills in his stomach. He slept heavily, and the next morning he felt fine, not even a stomach ache gracing his system from all his effort.
Lovino ticked the side of the press with a permanent marker, double checking the size of the squeegee before turning to his already laid ink slab. He charged the roller a few times before letting it rest, turning to wipe the surface of his stone with a dirty sponge. It was hard printing such large lithographs alone, but he was used to it, driven by his introversion to manage through. Once the stone was sufficiently damp he re-handled the heavy leather roller, carefully depositing a thin layer of black ink on the prepared matrix. He continued the process two more times, depositing the roller back in it's holster when he was satisfied with the distribution of ink and lining up the registration marks on his expensive cotton paper. Once everything was properly fitted, he picked up the grease-laden tympan and adjusted it on the stone, unlocking the press when he was happy with its position and turning the lever forward. He stopped when he reached his second mark and released the pressure, turning the lever backwards and pulling the tympan from the surface before the bed had stopped rolling. He laid the sheet on a table and examined his fingers for grime before lifting up the corners of his cotton paper. The sheet flapped seductively but he kept his eyes averted, refusing to view it until he had laid it on a table and walked a few steps away.
He turned around and examined the print, taking in the layered images, the spaces that undulated precariously between confusion and clarity, realism and abstraction. It was good, he registered mentally. "It's good," he repeated out loud, desperately trying to force his numb brain into realization. The Italian stood for an untold amount of time, taking in every stroke, every cell of the freshly printed image. Before he knew it he was standing over his knapsack, scrambling for his phone and opening the contact list.
He didn't move, didn't blink while he waited through the tinny rings. His head snapped up with purpose when a bright "hola" fell upon his ear.
"I need you to pick me up," he breathed, voice deep.
"Lovi? What's going on?" Antonio demanded, chilled by the Italian's tone.
"I need to leave."
"Leave and go where?" The Spaniard pleaded, worry heavy in his voice.
Lovino opened his mouth and paused, "I don't know, anywhere, your house."
"Okay," Antonio nodded, "I'll be there in a-"
"Two hours," the Italian interrupted immediately, stealing a glance back to his print.
"What? But-" The older boy started to argue.
"Pick me up in two hours," he repeated firmly, waiting for Antonio to agree hesitantly before ending the call.
He dropped the phone on the table and returned immediately back to work, losing himself in the process of printing, muscles moving mechanically until he was standing in front of a newly filled drying rack, hands stained with ink and body tired from effort.
"Lovi," a soft, familiar voice sounded from the doorway. Lovino snapped his head in recognition and pulled the string of his apron, releasing the knot. "Is everything okay?" The Italian didn't speak, he couldn't yet, not until they were out of the studio, away from these prints. Antonio regarded the boy carefully, watching as his lip twitched and he pulled his apron over his head, walking it to the nearby coat hanger. He took the moment to peer through the metal drying rack, hesitantly lifting a shelf so he could better view the image. "Wow," he whispered to himself quietly before easing the shelf back down and turning, "these are beautiful."
Lovino blinked and walked back to the Spaniard, "let's go," he said simply as he pulled his satchel onto his shoulder.
Antonio knit his eyebrows in concern but agreed, treading closely behind the Italian as they made their way to the parking lot. The short drive to the Spaniard's apartment was quiet, interrupted only by a few attempts by Antonio to spark conversation, but words petered quickly when the Italian refused to respond. The older boy's unease was slowly ebbing into anger when they reached his house and Lovino barged through the door as soon as it was unlocked, haphazardly depositing his shoes and jacket in the floor of the entranceway.
"Have I done something?" The Spaniard asked, irritation lacing his voice as he followed the Italian into the kitchen.
"Yes, dammit," Lovino roared immediately, slamming his fist onto the counter and sending picture frames clattering to the floor.
"What?" Antonio demanded, unfazed by the boy's display.
"I-I," Lovino started, knot forming in his throat, eyes brimming over with tears, "I fucking hate you," he moaned as he crumpled to the floor, throat descending into painful sobs.
"Hey, hey," Antonio blinked in surprise, dropping to the smaller boy's level and taking his slender wrists gently into his hands, pulling his palms away from his face. "What happened?"
Lovino took a shuddering breath and tried to fix his voice with anger, "I did what you said, you bastard. I followed your advice, lot of good that did."
Antonio combed the Italian's hair from his forehead, "What advice, what are you talking about?"
The Italian sunk in on himself as he groaned through another sob, body desperately trying to eject the deep despair from its entrails, "I made art," he hiccuped, rubbing a knuckle on his soaked cheek, "I made art about her."
Antonio understood instantly, and he only breathed a regretful "oh, Lovi," before helping the younger boy up and moving him to the bedroom. Lovino didn't argue, he let the older boy lay him on the bed, let him pull his body close and whisper comforting words in his ear. At some point he rolled over, buried his head into the Spaniard's chest and screamed bitterly. Screamed until his voice grew raw for the boy that had seen his mother dead, for the boy that had rehashed his pain too often, desperately clawing at the wound every time it threatened to scab over in fear of losing the last connection he had with her.
"I don't hate her," he said after a minute, an hour, he didn't know.
"I know." Antonio said, tightening his arms around the boy and softly nuzzling his aching temples.
It was the truth, he didn't hate her, but he hated himself. In his desperation to prove her existence, to make her more than just a name or a character, he had begun to believe more in her death than her life. Had had made that day, that instant of her departure, become more real than the years they had spent together, loving one another. At some point the tears stopped, they had to, but it didn't matter, he would never have enough tears for the grief. Antonio stayed by his side, though, whispering to him, soothing him, pulling his body close and comforting him with the proximity of his warm breath.
"I'm proud of you," the older boy said after a while, combing tender fingers through his companion's sweaty hair.
Lovino didn't blush, he didn't have the energy, but his battered mind still managed to register embarrassment. "There's nothing to be proud of," he returned bitterly, voice heavy from abuse. "I finally came to terms with my mom's death after how many fucking years? I'm pathetic."
Antonio sighed and pressed a kiss to his forehead, his tear-drenched eyelashes, his cheeks. "You're wrong," he said simply, resting his head so he was touching foreheads with the smaller Italian. "You've grown, you're beautiful."
Lovino didn't ask what he meant, the Spaniard had always found him physically appealing and he knew that. "I haven't changed at all, you bastard, I'm the same person I've always been."
Antonio laughed lightly and smiled, enjoying the way he could feel Lovino's soft breaths so close to his mouth. The boy was so perceptive, he recognized the smallest details in people and his surroundings, yet he seemed so blind to his own reflection. It would be okay, though, he thought, as long as he could be there to remind him that, despite his stubborn belief, there was something in him worth loving.