The Artist | #3✓

Chapter 16

The pencil I held moved over my drawing pad as I hummed one of the many instrumental music pieces Toby liked to play. I could hear the rest of my family come in and out of the kitchen, with the exception of Wyatt who'd placed himself across from me on the mini dining table.

"What's that?" I heard him ask, making me look up from my sketch with a confused frown on my face. Wyatt wasn't pointing at anything, he was just staring at me with an odd focused expression.

"What's what?" I asked him, looking at Wyatt who was eating rice in his pajamas. It was early in the morning — well, not exactly early. It was one of those weekend mornings where waking up before noon was classified as early.

"That," he said, moving his head in a way that told me he was indicating at something on me. I frowned a bit, touching around my exposed shoulder area. I was wearing a loose round neck shirt wide a wide v-neck collar area. 

"What?" I asked, still not understanding what he was getting at. Do I have a rash? I asked myself, getting a bit worried at the way he was frowning at me. 

"You have bright red marks along that area..." Wyatt trailed, making my face flush as I cupped my palm over my shoulder. I hadn't noticed it myself, and I wasn't exactly sure where it was, but I could make a guess a wild guess. Toby did kiss that area a lot. 

"Oh," I mumbled, just staring at Wyatt since I didn't know how to react.

"It's a hickey, isn't it?" Wyatt asked, narrowing his eyes at me before chuckling at my obvious distress. He stopped laughing before frowning a bit. "Wait a minute, does that mean you and Toby are...?" Wyatt trailed off, leaving some sort of gap for me to fill out the blank I suppose.

"Yeah," I found myself saying as I looked down at the drawing of a school of fish I'd been doing. It's been a while since Toby and I — got comfortable... and I wondered how Wyatt was just noticing.

"So, are you dating him?" he asked. My face started to get warmer as my discomfort at his questions grew. I didn't say anything and went with covering my bright red face with my palms instead. 

"I'm not," I eventually answered, taking my palms away from my face. What I'd said was the truth. I wasn't sure what Toby and I were doing. We'd started sharing kisses and hugs, and we talked and interacted with each other on a more personal level. I wanted more, sure, but I didn't want to push things. I wanted to give Toby space to get comfortable while figuring out his past and putting it into perspective properly — he still thinks everything that happened to him was his fault, and for the time being, I was just happy to be the one he relied on.

"Oh..." Wyatt trailed, before looking back down at his plate of rice and sauce.

"So, just kisses?"

"Wyatt."

"I'm just being curious really," my twin laughed, waving his fork in the air at my flushed face. "Come on, there's no need to be embarrassed," he said, returning to eating from his plate as he chuckled lightly.

"But at least when things do start to happen you know Toby's experienced and all, so he'll lead you through it..." Wyatt trailed. "Ji-Hun and I were each other's firsts, and I'm sure that's obvious," he laughed. I didn't smile at that, and I wasn't sure what to say. For one thing, I felt a bit overwhelmed, and the other thing being that I couldn't just tell him that Toby's first experience might have probably scarred him for life.

Eventually, Wyatt finished his meal and left the Kitchen. After a while, I left the kitchen too, and I headed to Xander's room instead of mine since I felt like hanging out for a bit, or maybe I didn't just want to bump into Wyatt upstairs. Xander let me in after I knocked on his door. He left me to my own devices as he went back to his position at his study desk where he was typing into his laptop computer.

"You look dead," he said when I made my way into the guest room that was now effectively his room. I shook my head at him, taking a seat at the end of his bed as I watched him type. He worked in silence, and I eventually opened my drawing pad and continued the drawing I'd been doing in the kitchen. I started adding details to the background now, satisfied with my work on the individual fish.

"What are you writing?" I asked, trying to start a conversation with my cousin. The silence had been a bit thought grinding, and although I didn't like talking, I didn't like being in pin-drop silence.

Xander shrugged. "Stuff," he said as he continued to type into his PC. The sound of his keyboard keys being pressed was the only noise that filled the void of silence that was made when I didn't say anything in response.

Typical me — not having anything to say. 

"Are you excited about the exhibition?" he asked after a while, making me look up from my drawing that I'd returned to when I didn't respond previously. 

"Yeah," I muttered. The exhibition was in two weeks now, and my mum and I had already submitted all the works we'd done for it. Her friends that were exhibiting with us were finishing off paintings that they would be sending off for the exhibition. My mother might even use the next two weeks to visits some of them. "I'm excited. I mean, I've exhibited with my mother before, but I've never been in any of her large-scale projects with her, if that makes sense."

Xander nodded without looking away from his computer's screen that was getting filled with words with each successive push of a few keys. I looked away from him when he didn't say anything in response, allowing my eyes to explore his room. The room was a bit smaller than Wyatt and I's individual rooms, but it had its own bathroom so I guess that was a plus. Looking around, I soon spotted the calendar that Xander had pinned to his wall by the closet, and I could see that he was crossing out dates. I smiled, noticing that he'd marked the day he was going to move into his college's residence house. That was just a day before I moved into mine.

"You're really excited about going to college, huh?" I laughed a bit, watching as Xander turned away from his computer to follow my gaze to the calendar on his wall.

"Yeah." He smiled as he ran a hand through his hair. "I'm just really excited to be in the same school as Maxwell, to be honest. I don't really care where I study my writing course."

The room went silent after Xander's words. I didn't know what to say to that, and it seemed Xander wasn't interested in talking about it much either.

"Are you going to try and talk to him?" I eventually asked, watching as Xander turned back to me as he chuckled.

"I'm shy as shit, and I doubt he'd want to talk to me..." he trailed, running his fingers through his fringe. "I'm satisfied with just being around him. I have my stories. I'm content in a sense. Plus, he's not even going to me in the same department as me. He's going to be in music while I'll be in writing. I doubt we'd have any reason to hang out," he pointed out as he smiled at me a bit. It was a sad smile—like he'd given up and was just going to take whatever substitute he could have. 

"How about you? How's your relationship going with Toby?" he asked as I felt my face instantly warm up. I had spoken to Xander about Toby and me, and he'd been a bit surprised yet happy about the incident on my behalf.

"Things are fine..." I trailed, not knowing what to say exactly. Toby and I were sort of in a happy middle ground where nothing and everything was happening. 

"Okay then..." Xander trailed as he got up from his seat. He walked over to his bed, sitting down beside me. The mattress sunk with his weight a bit, making me scoot a bit closer to him. "You're really lucky," he added, as he brought his knees to his chest to hug to himself.

I smiled watching Xander's dimpled smile take form on his soft-featured face. I agreed with him. I was lucky, and it made me happy. I wanted Toby to feel the same happiness, so I was willing to go at his pace and not be selfish.

Xander and I eventually fell into a loose conversation about every and anything. We talked about my coming exhibition with my mother, his writing, and the colleges we were both going to attend.