“You make it seem so real.”

I glanced at Valentino. He was chewing on his lip, thinking. “I look for the qualities that aren’t always apparent at first,” he said. “The ones that define part of who we are and how we really feel deep down. I try to look below the surface.”

His voice started to bubble with passion, and his hands took on a life of their own. “This life is so complex that we rarely get to be the people we are truly meant to be. Instead, we wear masks and put up walls to keep from dealing with the fear of rejection, the feeling of regret, the very idea that someone may not love us for who we are deep in our core, that they might not understand the things that drive us. I want to study the realness of life, not the gloss. There is beauty everywhere; even in the dark, there is light, and that is the rarest kind of all.”

I watched the enthusiasm brighten his features. “I don’t know anyone who thinks and talks like that,” I admitted. “It’s … refreshing.”

“It’s the truth,” he said simply.

“Can I see the others?”

He laid his pencil down and wheeled his chair back. I draped the hoodie over the chair beside me and leaned across the table, balancing my weight on my palms.

There was a sketch of Gino and Dom playing a video game; they were sitting on the floor, their legs curled around them like they were little boys again. Controllers clutched in their hands, they were laughing with each other, their shoulders brushing, their heads thrown back toward the ceiling. Their eyes were crinkled at the sides and their noses were scrunched up in amusement. Dom was messing up Gino’s ponytail with his free hand.

“It’s like the perfect moment,” I breathed.

“Happiness,” said Valentino quietly, his eyes fixed on the scene.

I returned my gaze to Nic’s profile. His jaw was set, his expression focused.

“And that one is Determination,” Valentino added.

Beside the sketch of Nic there was a portrait of a woman standing in a kitchen. Her hands gripped the sides of the sink as she looked out the window in front of her. She was willowy and disheveled, dressed in a silken floor-length robe that pooled around her feet. Streaks of sunlight danced along the tip of her nose, and a spill of dark hair fell freely down her back. Her brows were creased at sharp angles. “Is this your mother?”

He nodded.

“She’s beautiful,” I said.

“She’s angry,” said Valentino dispassionately.

I reached out and pulled the next portrait toward me. Luca. He was sitting alone on a stoop, dressed in a black suit. His knees came up to his chest, supporting his elbows as he leaned forward. His shoulders were hunched, making his frame appear smaller, like Valentino’s. He was looking at the ground, at nothing, and his fingers were scraping through his hair, like he was trying to hurt himself.

I swallowed hard. It was difficult to look at it. I glanced at Valentino and found he wasn’t looking at it anymore, either.

“Pain?” I guessed quietly.

“Grief,” he replied.

“It must be difficult to look beneath the mask,” I said, my throat suddenly tight.

Valentino raised his chin. “No more difficult than it is to wear one.”

I pulled my hands back and straightened up as a wave of something unpleasant washed over me. I didn’t want to look at the portraits anymore. It was an uncomfortable feeling, staring into the darkest moments of someone’s soul without them knowing. “Do you think you wear a mask?”

“I’m wearing one right now.” Valentino smiled softly. “We both are.”

“It’s a sad thought.”

“Yes,” he said. “But sometimes I wonder about the alternative. Imagine if we had no secrets, no respite from the truth. What if everything was laid bare the moment we introduced ourselves?”

The idea swirled around my head. Hello, I’m Sophie. My uncle’s a paranoid loon, my father’s in jail for murder, and my mother buries herself in work to distract herself from her broken heart. I’m pretty sure I prefer cartoons over real life and I only have one real friend. I’m terrified of storms and I’m deeply suspicious of cats. I obsess over the cuteness of sloths and sometimes I cry at commercials.

“It would be terrible,” I confirmed.

Valentino smirked as though he had just listened to my embarrassing inner monologue. “Absolute chaos.”

I nodded, feeling subdued. Somewhere deep down I was trying to fight the sudden urge to burst into tears. As if sensing my inner struggle, Valentino afforded me a moment of privacy. He deflected his gaze and started to rearrange his sketches into a pile, until I could only see the one he was still working on. It was a man in maybe his midforties, dressed impeccably in a glossy dark suit and staring right at me from the page. For a heartbeat it felt as though I already knew him, that I had seen him somewhere before, but the moment passed, and I knew it was his son I was seeing. He was so like Nic it hit me like a punch in the gut. He had the same dark eyes with lighter flecks swimming inside, the same straight, narrow nose, and the same curving lips. His hair was gray in parts and receding, revealing a forehead etched with worry lines. His expression was grim.

“Seriousness?” I ventured.

“No,” Valentino said without looking up. “This one is Death.” I watched him smudge the edges. “I draw my father every day so that I’ll never forget him. But there’s nothing more to find in him now. He’s with the angels and he doesn’t need to wear a mask anymore. Everything he was is gone.”