“Would I be able to talk to myself in either choice?”
“Sure,” he said. “If you want to be limited to the span of yourlife.”
“Oh, I can go beyond my life?”
“Yes,” he said.
“Probably forward,” I said. “Messing with the past can get complicated.”
He chuckled. “It sure can.”
I elbowed him playfully. “Would you rather,” I said, “stand on the top of a hundred-story building and look at the ground or show your favorite artist in the world your most recent sketch?”
He moved his head from side to side. “Probably the hundred-story building.”
“Really?” I asked, surprised. “But your last sketch was years ago, right? Why does it matter anymore?”
“I guess the hundred-story building thing is less humiliating.”
“Who is your favorite artist these days anyway?”
“You,” he said with a wink.
I rolled my eyes. “Okay, sure. Based on what? My strawberry socks?”
“Well, that and from what I remember when we were younger. But if you want me to…I mean, if you’d let me…”
“What? Spit it out, Hutton.”
“Can I look at your sketchbook?”
“Oh.” Why had I not expected that question? And why did everything in me want to say no? Maybe because his opinion of my art mattered to me more than anybody’s. “After my interview? I need to keep up my confidence until then.”
“I would somehow take away your confidence? What kind of best friend would do that?”
“The kind that wouldn’t mean to. It’s me, not you. I promise.”
He laughed. “Wow, I get the breakup speech over a sketchbook?”
“You understand, right?”
“Yes, I really do. I always found this extreme amount of pressure associated with drawing. Like it had to be perfect and I had to be creative and original and everyone expected so much.”
Who had expected so much? I wondered. His mom? Because it wasn’t his dad. His dad thought it was childish. Would much rather have had him into sports, like Austin was.
“I didn’t know you felt a lot of pressure,” I said.
“Yeah.”
“Well, maybe that’s just part of being an artist, then, because I feel it all the time. This little voice telling me I’m not good enough, that other people are way better. That I’m fooling myself to think I could be one of the few to animate a popular video game…or any video game at that.”
“And how do you talk yourself out of that feeling so you’re not paralyzed?”
“I don’t know that I have,” I said. “Sometimes I’m able to ignore it.”
“Smother your inner voice? Sounds like a plan.”
I crinkled my nose in his direction, then pulled out my phone to check the bars.