The weeks became months the way weeks do—not quickly, not slowly, but accumulatively, each day adding itself to the last until Leo stopped counting and simply was.
October became November.
November became December.
The studio grew colder. The light changed. Leo learned to work under the fluorescent hum of winter afternoons, his hands finding warmth in the repetition of pencil strokes.
He stopped feeling like an imposter somewhere around week nine.
Not because he had caught up—but because he had stopped measuring himself against the other students and started measuring himself against his own work. Yesterday's work. Last week's.
Dr. Vasquez noticed at the end of a critique.
"You've stopped apologizing," she said.
Leo looked up from his desk. "I didn't know I was."
"You were. With your posture." She picked up her coffee. "You're not anymore."
She walked away.
