Addicted [BoyxBoy]

Bound to You

She quickly shook her head, "Oh no, my parents are major art junkies and since he's my teacher I suggested it as our weekly night out."

I nodded and smiled, really glad that she was there with me. I wasn't sure I would survive the night without her.

Ding!

The man at the podium rang a bell, grabbing everyone's attention.

Piper smiled and squeezed my arm as the man silently and swiftly opened the curtain.

People started to file into the space, and I held on tight to Piper in fear that I would lose her in the crowd.

She gripped my arm tighter and guided me around a few people to reach the Holy Grail of my immediate desires: Mr. Patterson's art.

Majority of the pieces were simple black against white, and extremely abstract. The first one I saw, I made out two things completely unrelated to each other: a woman, and a piece of furniture.

That's the beauty of art.

Piper observed silently like me, and I explored the gallery with a semi-critical mind. I had no idea that my teacher was even into abstract art; he seems like a still-life artist, reserved and practical, but immensely talented and creative. He showed me a still-life of his bedroom once, and I couldn't help but be amazed at the talent and realness of the piece. Since then, I unconsciously placed an unnecessary label on him as an artist. At that point, staring at his art, I totally regretted it.

There was an interesting piece I found farther down. It was black against white like most of them, and it looked. . . angry. Like slashes of black paint in a fit of utter rage. There was a note next to it, titling it "Fierce Retaliation of the Mind".

Cue scratching of the head.

I figured that I knew Mr. Patterson, but seeing these paintings, I realized that I knew absolutely nothing about his personal life, other than the gallery. I knew a lot about him: his kindness, his ambitions, his confusing goofball behavior during lectures. But did I really know him?

Piper shook me out of my consuming thoughts and mumbled, "Caleb. . ." She sounded sort of shocked, and I followed the finger she had lifted.

She was pointing to one of the only colored pieces in the room, and we slowly made our way over there.

As we got closer, I couldn't help but mumbled, "What the. . . ?"

The painting featured none other than me, in a state of immense concentration as I drew something on an easel.

The colors in the background mixed and matched, creating a sense of chaos, but they mixed to create an almost perfect shade of sunset orange that took my breath away. My shirt was the same thing: a chaotic mix of colors that created a perfect blue that made me want to take the painting home. I was completely mesmerized, and the fact that I was in the painting didn't even matter.

Or did it?

As I thought about it even more, I wondered just what he was painting.

Then I remembered.

"Young man," an unfamiliar voice knocked my thoughts aside and I turned to see a man, heavyset and rosy cheeked, approaching me slowly. His sandy hair told me he had quite a few years on him, and his smiles lines told me that those years must have been great.

He smiled as he said, "You're Caleb, right?"

I nodded, trying for a smile, but utterly confused as to how he knew who I was. My name wasn't on the painting or anything.