Holding On & Letting Go [✓] (Boyxboy)

Chapter One

People used to say seventeen was a magical number. It was the age your life was just beginning, so full of opportunity and discovery.

I remember my friends being eager to begin the next chapter of their lives, getting ready to finish school and step out into the real world.

Some would go to university, some would travel, some would have scholarships and others would dive straight into jobs that they had been waiting for their whole lives.

We were ready, and we hungered for what awaited us outside of the school gates in the real world. To chase our dreams, achieve our goals, fall in love and make something of ourselves.

I was the same. I had a supportive family, a great boyfriend, and was at the beginning of a modelling career I only ever envisioned in my wildest dreams. Then all of that changed.

My name is Troye Evans, and my life is not just beginning.

It's starting again.

***

I turned the key in the lock to the door of my apartment that I shared with my best friend, Jack Chase. Work was finished for the day and though I was exhausted, I was glad that the studio had been busy today. It meant my mind was occupied and I didn't have time to think about other things.

It was pouring rain outside, not that I minded. I loved the rain. It brought a sense of serenity to the world that just couldn't be achieved in other ways.

Stepping over the threshold, I shook my damp hair and took off my boots, hanging up my wet coat. All the work my stylist had done today was washed away by now.

"Troye? Is that you?" I heard Jack call and a moment later he entered the room. "Hey."

"Hey," I smiled at him. "How was work?"

He shrugged. "It was alright. Nothing new, really."

I nodded in response. Jack worked at the same company I do, only he's a talent scout. Jack's job was to go out and look for new, fresh and young talent; someone who was born to model. In other words, while I spent most of my time in front of the camera, Jack was looking for someone to join me in its frame.

I had been offered my job when I was only seventeen years old. Although, my boyfriend Cameron was the one who really got me to go for it in the first place. Ever since I could remember I had loved photography and the concept of being able to capture something so beautiful.

However, it wasn't the actual photo that entranced me. It was the people in it. I adored the way that simple movements could cause such a different effect on the photo.

How the sun could hit someone just right and make them look like a shadow, or the way the beauty of a person could be captured even with a black and white photograph. It enraptured me completely.

When Cam learned of my adoration for photography, he jumped straight onto the idea. Knowing how much I loved to model, when he heard about a company hosting a competition he immediately made me enter it.

Thea, one of my closest friends who was a photographer, shot photos of me and sent them in. They looked amazing and with a little of her magic touch, the company contacted me and told me how much they loved the photos.

Winning the competition, I went on to start an internship at the company - to my absolute astonishment. By the end I was offered a full time position and I hadn't even finished school yet. It was not an opportunity many people were handed in life but that was just my luck.