Healing Gabriel (BoyxBoy)

✣ Chapter Nineteen ✣

      I felt my stomach drop. Rats! I thought he'd forgotten about that. To be quite honest, I didn't want to show him my paintings. They were . . . well, the older ones were rather disturbing. There were no figures in them, just mixtures of dark colors that were usually tainting the lighter ones.

       I didn't like those paintings very much. I didn't even know why I still had them, to be quite honest.

      "None of them are very good," I said, shrugging.

      "You must be blind. Do you have any idea how much talent you have? You're like, Picasso, or Monet, or Van Gogh, or Beethoven."

      I covered my face with my hand. "Evan, Beethoven was a musician, not a painter."

      "Oh. That explains the D I got in music. But that doesn't matter! You've got an eye for the arts. I can't believe you don't even see it for yourself."

      I shrugged. "There's nothing special about them."

      "Oh, jeez, Gabriel, come on. Stop being so humble."

      "I'm not being humble, I'm just saying that my paintings are really not captivating."

      He let go of my hand. "How old are you?"

      "Huh?"

      "How many years have you been on this Earth?"

      I looked at him oddly. "Seventeen, the same as you."

      "See, only seventeen, but you create these masterpieces like you're, I don't know, fifty-seven."

      I stared at him, shifting awkwardly from foot to foot. I didn't like getting compliments. Why was he so intent on making me cocky about my artwork?

      "You don't know how to boast, do you?" he asked, folding his arms across his chest.

      "I don't want to. Nobody likes arrogant jerks."

      He tsked. "If that's the case, then why are Jurnee and Slater so popular?"

      Folding my arms across my chest, I gave him a duh look. "Do I really need to answer that?"

      Evan sighed, unfolding his arms and resting his hands on my hips, bringing me closer to him. I tensed a bit, the feeling of his hands there trying to spark up in my memories. "It's okay to have pride in yourself, Gabe. Sometimes, in order to accept praise from others, you have to believe in yourself first."

      I rested the top of my head against his chest, looking down. There was a bit of a space between us. "I know."

      "Do you?"

      "Yes."

      "Then tell me, is your painting, the one you're working on right now, any good?"

      I turned my head to the side, still pressing the top of my head against him. I studied it. It was a portrait of Jerry as he wriggled between strands of seaweed. The soft greenish/tan color of the paint was evenly spread across Jerry's short, curved body, shadows highlighting the twists. The thinness of his black stripes were very fine, barely touching one another. The skin at the end of his tail looked translucent with several small circles dotting it.

      But I looked past Jerry, also taking in the background. The blues of the painted water looked nearly clear, the seaweed looking soft, almost touchable.

      Sure, the painting was good. I just didn't see the praise it supposedly deserved, nor did I understand the gawking from my peers behind my back during class.