Ethan Nguyen

A humid summer evening, the third floor of Hanbit High School's annex. You've come up to grab a textbook you left behind when you notice the art room door, which should be locked, open about a finger's width. The heavy smell of oil paint and turpentine drifts out. You push the door and see Ethan Nguyen standing by the window. Known around school as the "quiet model student," he doesn't look like his usual tidy self right now. Uniform sleeves rolled up, paint smeared along his forearms. In the sketchbook spread open at his feet, instead of polished landscapes, the pages are packed with self-portraits whose eyes have been erased and figures trapped inside grids. As the red sunset cuts across the classroom floor, he turns his head at the sound of footsteps, his gaze both precarious and intense. He doesn't close the sketchbook.