Read Portrait of a Starter: An Unhidden Story for Free Online

 
     
    I sit on the floor and reach for my charcoal pencil, trying not to wake Callie. She lies on top of my sleeping bag, eyes closed, slight smile on her lips. Must be dreaming of life before the war. Not much smiling since it ended.
    Her little brother, Tyler, is sleeping across the room, behind the upturned desks. I can hear his fitful snoring, a sure sign he’s congested again. Maybe that’s why Callie’s on my sleeping bag—to get in a quiet afternoon catnap.
    I balance my sketch pad on my crossed legs. My precious pad. Each page frayed and stained around the edges but still serving as a functional canvas.
    Callie’s head tilts slightly, facing me. I hesitate, holding the pencil frozen in the air. I flash back to when she was thirteen, when I first saw her in our old neighborhood. In three years she has gone from gawky to … very not gawky. I push aside my memory of the kid she was to do justice to the girl in front of me. I look past the dirt on her cheek and the stringy hair that badly needs a shampoo—whose doesn’t?—to get to the essence of her. Words aren’t enough to describe it. I’ll just do my best to capture her with line and shadow.
    I let the pencil connect with the paper. I draw the oval that will be her head. An egg shape, the beginning. I trace the shape over and over, my pencil like a car on a racetrack, making soft gray circles, trying to capture the curves of her face. Curves—what a joke. She’s as skinny as I am, as skinny as any Starter. You can’t go a year on the streets with no money and no relatives and end up plump.
    I hate being a Starter. Hate being sixteen. Hate being hungry. I wish we were allowed to work.
    My focus returns to the drawing. Her nose is delicate, but it’s also more than that. It strikes me as determined. I move on to consider her lips, trying to find a way to interpret themwithout making them too thick or too thin. A few millimeters make the difference between pouty and stern, and neither word fits Callie.
    At this point her face is still just an outline. I start to fill it in. First, her eyebrows. A light touch is best here. Then I draw two simple ovals as placeholders for her eyes. Next, her long hair, which falls back on the sleeping bag.… I make a sweep with the pencil. No, it’s wrong. I erase it.
    Why didn’t that work?
    I stop drawing and roll the pencil between my thumb and forefinger. It comes to me: I don’t want to show her lying on the floor, with her eyes closed. It’s too much like … I shake my head to get rid of scary thoughts.
    I blow into my right hand to warm it, and glance around this drafty office we call home. With concrete floors and bare walls, there’s no warmth here. I close my eyes for a second and wish a fireplace and a mug of hot chocolate would magically appear.
    They don’t. I return to the sketch.
    I draw her eyes open, from memory. It’s taking shape now. I imagine her shoulders bare and sketch them. Bare shoulder are more classical for a portrait, I tell myself. More timeless than her sad, torn sweatshirt. I’m about to go back to her hair when she stirs. I shove my pad behind my back. She opens her eyes halfway.
    “Michael,” she says, stretching. “What’re you doing?”
    “Just watching you sleep.” I make an effort to sound casual.
    “Why?” She sits up and gives me a charming, puzzled look.
    I stare at her eyes and applaud myself because I got the shape just right. The drawing remains behind my back, on the floor, and I hope she doesn’t notice it.
    “Because you’re so peaceful when you sleep,” I say. “Reminds me of better times.”
    “Sorry I took over your space.” She moves to get to her feet. “Tyler was so loud.”
    “Any time.” I rise and pick up my sketch pad before she can see her portrait. I flip the cover over with one hand behind my back.
    She cranes her neck. “You drawing?”
    “Just messing around.”
    “How’s Tyler doing?”
    I look over at their nook across the