"Hand me that carnation pink pencil. Hmm...is that the right color? Do you think? Maybe more a cherry blossom? What about..."

As Ambrose shifted on the bed, a mountain of pink color pencils rolled forward towards him, trying to go under his thigh.

"Oh shoot. I'm making a mess." His long, salmon pink finger nails went to shift the pencils back up the newspaper on the bed, but to no avail.

"Here," I said, placing them one by one into my hand to put back on the flatter part of the bed near me.

"Oh, thank you." He giggled a little bit, so pleased with his dress design that he didn't even noticed the expression on my face. "Did you want tulle or more of an organza? I think the organza..." He didn't finish the thought as his pencil hit paper again and his hand glided up in a long stroke, truly feeling the material it professed.

Staring at the carnation pink gown on his paper, the skirt looking like an inverted carnation itself, I felt nothing. Or if not nothing, an unsureness causing my feeling to be muted. All of the magic I had about him, it was gone. And it was causing me to feel like I was free-falling, right here on the bed. It was like I was in space instead, not in Ambrose's impromptu design studio.

He bit his lips, squeezing them together in concentration. I felt shivery, knowing this pose would have caused me to have a pinch in my heart for him even a week ago. But now. It felt so foreign to be so cold.

"Baby, do you want a more structured look to the top? The sort of thing that moves on its own when you walk, do you know what I mean? A really stiff corset...shoot, can I make a corset like that in a month? How about something we can get in a store and we convert it...but can we find what we want? Hmm..."

I didn't respond. He didn't seem to notice or care, just kept drawing. His hand wandered towards me, never looking away from his paper. I shifted slightly to avoid his hand, not really wanting it to touch me. It found its mark, taking up a bunch of different pink pencils. These floated to him, and he inspected them. A slight smile came to his face and evidently he'd found the right color. Without a word he began shading in the drawing with this.

As I watched, he looked down. His lower lip poked out in his search as he found his most favorite pencil pressed between the bed and his thigh. He'd put it there earlier because he knew he'd use it.

"Ruiz pencil time," he said cheerfully. Involuntarily, I let out a little snort of laugh. I couldn't help it. The "Ruiz pencil" was one he'd specially bought from the Utrecht store after taking me in there years ago and holding tan colored pencils up to my skin to find my perfect skin tone for his drawings. He'd said this was the most important thing in the world because he could then judge the best colors to compliment my skin tone on paper when he designed for me.

Very carefully, he began shading my skin tone into the outline drawing he'd made of me. I had been uncomfortable with the way he'd drawn my body, but that wasn't my problem. I knew he had to draw my body as close as possible to how it was in order to get the dress to design properly on my frame. What really made me uncomfortable, my true problem, was how casual he was being when he was keeping so much from me. Such big things.

Such big lies.

"I knew it, the cherry blossom was right. This light pink makes your skin tone look like milk tea. When you blush it will look amazing with this color. Oh, blush! I bet we could match your make-up with this!"

"Yeah."

"Look at it, Ruiz. Isn't it like a Quinceañera dress? You'll be the prettiest girl at the Pink! event, you'll see. Nobody will be able to take their eyes off of you. It will be like your party. Your Quinceañera!"

"Uh huh."

He gave me a sideways look, picking up a rosy pink color pencil. The expression was questioning but still joyful. "You okay?" he asked, settling the tip on the paper and out bloomed tons of quickly drawn curls in the form of a tumbling down wig. It was breathtaking but my breath stayed put.

"Yeah. I'm just tired."

"Oh. Well," he began gathering his pencils up immediately. "We could go to bed. I'm sorry. I guess I kind of got carried away. What time is it?"

I looked at the digital clock across the room. Bright red numbers read 9:25. Not late at all.

"It's 9:25 only," I said, not feeling anything.

"Oh, okay. Well, if you want to go bed we can. I can continue this tomorrow. We've got a month after all. Putting the dress together is the big part, drawing it out is no big deal. I've got time." The sounds of the newspaper being bunched up was grating to my ears.

"Don't worry about it. I'll just wear my pink dress from Paris When it Sizzles." I faked a yawn, my head turned away from him. The fake casualness was killing me, from both of us.

"But, sweetie. Your drag is um...it's still at your Mama's house. That's why I decided to make you a new dress."

Oh. Right. My heart fell into my stomach at this. Involuntarily, a crease formed between my eyebrows. Without a moment for me to react, his hand was on mine on my lap. He was staring at me now with puppy dog eyes, sad ones.

"Is that why you're acting strange? Do you not want me to make you a dress? You want your Audrey stuff?"

So he'd noticed something was wrong. I felt a mixture of relief but there was none even so.

"No. I'm really just tired. I uh, forgot my drag was still at my Mama's house."

"Aww, sweetie. Okay. Well, I'll finish the dress up tomorrow. Then maybe we can go to the fabric store on Saturday?"

My tongue was too quick, accusing. "Why 'maybe'?" My stomach fell to my toes. What kind of question was that?

He looked a little startled at my tone. A part of me felt good about it. I felt sickened at myself but partly not, this other part scaring me.

"You know, maybe we'll be doing something else. I don't know. You've been doing a lot of things with Miss Cha Cha lately, so maybe she'll want to take you somewhere. I could go to the fabric store myself, it's not a big deal."

Not a big deal. But it felt like a big deal to me. Suddenly, I didn't want him to go anywhere alone. Not since Tony had told me those things...

"Um...let's make a date of it. Let's go to the fabric store on Saturday. Why not?" I said, trying to cover this burst of anger towards him that I'd just had, having been trying so hard to hide it before.

"Absolutely. We'll get lunch and go in the afternoon. That sounds really pleasant." He was smiling now, looking relieved.

I sighed inside. Inside was swirling in sick emotions. Wanting to burst out like that accusing question. But I couldn't bring myself to. And with an unhealthy twinge in my gut, now here were the painful love feelings, hidden away by my unsureness, flooding out towards him in the swirling sick. So confusing and breaking me down.

"Okay." I managed a smile, but my eyes were blank. The fake smile. The one I had been trying to put away, having vowed I'd never do it again because of the pain it could cause having seen it on others. But now. Now...

He didn't seem to notice it was fake. "Good. I'm looking forward to it already. Let's go to bed. Do you want a nightie or sleep pants? I've got some red plaid ones that you might like."

I didn't really feel like wearing his clothes, but what choice did I have? The unhappy part of me was giving a disgusted look at me inside. I at least didn't want to wear the pants he'd suggested. A protest.

"The nightie. I'll choose one."

"That'll be pretty." He was smiling so warmly at me. How could he be so warm and be such a liar at the same time? The harshness of this word 'liar' startled me a little bit. Made it feel like my heart had stopped. He didn't skip a beat. "I'll go do bathroom stuff then. You get dressed. We'll take turns. I wonder which one you'll choose." He gave a little happy chuckle.

After he put his art supplies back in the bottom drawer of his vanity, he blew me a kiss just like always and I remembered at the last second that my customary response was to catch it in my hand and do something with it. I snatched the kiss from the air and pretended to eat it. But it ate away at my heart.

He giggled at this, and left the room, closing the door for my privacy on the way out.

Feeling totally alone now, I got up from the bed. The loneliness was overwhelming in his room, overtaking me. Even being in his room was disgusting the mistrusting part of my soul. The other part, the part totally and completely in love with him, just cried as it had been doing, mourning, since the phone call with Tony days ago. Mourning, because it didn't understand what was happening and it just wanted Ambrose to be the same Ambrose.

But he wasn't the same Ambrose. He'd never be the same Ambrose again. Not after that information.

Remembering what Tony had told me, the mistrusting part took over. Staring into Ambrose's closet, I found an ugly plum colored piece of fabric poking out. Plum. Wicked thoughts were born in me, staring at it.

"You shouldn't wear that plum colored eye-shadow, darling. It doesn't go with your skin tone. Try the lavender."

I got up and began fingering this fabric. It was a smooth silk. What was it, mashed in there with everything else? My hands pulled it, yanking it out of the others. My eyes stared at what was revealed, a smirk forming.

It was a long, button down shirt. I remembered this shirt. No wonder it was buried.

As I pulled it on myself for bed, the wicked thoughts swirled in my head like the flying monkeys from The Wizard of Oz.

This shirt. He hates this shirt. That's why it was buried in there. And he hates plum on me.

The part so in love with him stared at me, staring at me in horror like Dorothy being told she could never go home, wondering what was happening. Vaguely knowing how things would never be right again.

But it was unfortunately the truth. Things would never be the same. He'd made sure of that. Was continuing to make sure of it by lying to me. And eventually, this side so in love with him was going to have to accept that.

Wearing the plum shirt now, I stared at myself in the vanity mirror. How such happy memories had flowed in me for him just a few weeks ago when I'd worn my own clothes, looking into this vanity mirror. Now the idea of him touching me... I frowned.

I couldn't help but feel devastated for wanting to hurt him like this. An all consuming sadness.

It was this emotion that made me unbutton the shirt. And it was the resulting despair that made me open his bureau and find the plaid sleep pants he'd been talking about, all professionally folded like he always did it. But the heart to toes feeling when I put it on...

I lost myself standing in the room in the vanity mirror, wearing those sleep pants and just my bra. Staring at myself, wondering what the hell to do.

It was all his fault. Why did he have to go and do those things? What else had he done? Why was he doing it? Why?

My frown deepened. He was hurting me, making me so conflicted and confused. Wasn't he? Why was I so concerned with not hurting him when he was hurting me?

This was why when he came back into the room I was wearing the plum shirt and the red plaid sleep pants at the same time. How perfectly my two conflicting sides were represented. He just laughed when he saw this, saying I looked pretty.

I just gave him my fake smile, the unhappy culmination of my two sides at war, as he slid his arms around me from behind in a loving embrace that I couldn't make any sense of.