I held it together and said, “No, that was real.” A thousand percent, knife-to-the-heart real. I glanced at my painting and the spindly, lonely branches reaching for the moon. “My mom used to take me for a walk every evening when I was little. She’d give me a red-bean Popsicle, we’d circle the neighborhood waving to everyone, and then we’d sit on the lawn atop a ratty blanket, watching the moon come up as the last of my Popsicle turned my hands and the blanket sticky.”

There were too many emotions starting to bubble up (ones I’d bottled for a reason), and I didn’t want to face them right now. I couldn’t. So I went to the next chair and pulled off the towel (with less of a flourish than last time).

“Spoiler: they’re all moons,” I told her.

As Chloe xīnshǎng-ed with all her admiration displayed on her face, I hovered in the background (stealthily, if I do say so myself) while remaining on high alert so I wouldn’t miss a single sound or extra pause.

Chloe

He was hovering behind me like an awkward, adorable weirdo.

I took my time with each painting, not because he seemed to need me to, but because they really were that breathtaking. I wanted to know each brushstroke and paper crease, and as I stared into the beauty, I tried to imagine him creating these masterpieces. What did he think about? How did he know what to do next?

In my economics classes, there was right and wrong, a definitive solution and an objective path. Clear-cut steps. But with this, while there were obviously better paths than others—my moons would come out looking like blocks of cheese—I couldn’t wrap my head around the creative subjectivity of it.

“I’d love to watch you work,” I said quietly, when actually I meant, I wish I could see into your mind.

He blushed. “You’re just being kind.”

I shook my head. “No, I want to see these come to life before me. I can’t believe you start with blank space and turn it into this. Art.”

His face shone brighter than his moons.

I tried to find a way to convey how blown away I was. To be honest, I’d never really understood art before, but I had also never truly looked.

“They make me feel hopeful,” I realized. “They remind me that there’s beauty and greatness out there, even in the darkness, and that I need to look for it.” I turned from the painting to him. “I feel like I finally see what you see.” It was that same perspective that had helped him follow his dream, helped him show his parents who he was. Maybe if I looked at his creations long enough, I could be transported there too.