Troye's pov
Dad soon went to bed, assuring me over and over that the seventeen-year-old criminal mastermind in our flat won't kill me in my sleep. Not that I cared, I would let him do anything to me, even if he didn't look like my late ex-boyfriend.
Jacob is pacing around my room, his eyes catching all of my art throughout the years.
"C'mon, just tell me already." I sigh, waiting for him to finally break it to me.
When Dad bragged about my artistry Jacob demanded he see, that being when Dad retired to his bed, leaving the two of us to retreat to my room.
He stops in front of one of my smallest, and first, paintings I ever created, making my heart pound just a little harder than usual.
"This one." Jacob turns to me and points at the canvas hung on my wall.
I stand up off of my bed and trail up behind him, peeking at it from over his shoulder.
"Why this one?" I whisper, keeping my voice low so I don't burst out one of his little eardrums inches away from my face. That would be hard to explain to Dad.
He steps closer to the wall and to the side, giving me room to stand next to him.
"Why this one?..." He pauses to give me a playful glare, "This one for many reasons. For one, the colours. This is a painting of a body but it has no colours someone would normally use for a painting of a body. No nude shades. You picked an ugly green, dirty yellow, and what... neon orange? It's so horrendous that it's perfect. Reason two, the texture."
"Look," He mutters, leaning against my wall and looking at the canvas from the side. I blush a terrible pink shade, unaware of how much thought he put into this. He didn't just pick my other pretty drawings or paintings of the springs in my backyard, he picked the small, ugly, complicated one.
"It looks like mountains from this angle, I like that. I like that you just smothered paint everywhere and played around, I can tell that you did. Your fingerprint is smack right in the middle of his back."
"Three, the thought. You don't know me but if you ever do get to, you'll learn that I don't have an artistic bone in my body. I'm a useless body of meat. And I know for a fact that no matter how much I liked the thought of painting someone's body, I never could. I don't even know who this is but I can tell that it's not just no one. You put your bloody effort into this. With just a few tubes of paint, brushes, a canvas, your hands and brain, you created this. I like seeing effort, I like seeing others put effort into things. Obviously, you put effort into all of these," Jacob points at all of my other paintings. "But this one. This one stands out to me."
"And that's why this one is the one." He mutters as he strides to my desk and sits down. I sit down on my bed a few feet away from him and watch him intently.
"You're not useless, you've got an imagination unlike anyone I've ever met." I finally speak up, watching as he turns to me and rolls his eyes.
"Please," He waves me off.
"No, no. You do. You're the first bloke I've ever shown my work to that honestly told me what you thought. That it's honestly not a pretty picture, it's ugly and messy, but there's a certain beauty to it. I appreciate that compliment, but I appreciate your train of thought more. It's exquisite." I curve my lips into a smile, walking up behind him to see him tracing his fingers along my painting. It's the cute little clouds I painted the other day.
"You are quite resplendent, Troye. Your father told me you were different but he didn't quite tell me how different you are. If I'm the one with the imagination you're definitely what I'm imagining." He looks up to the side at me, giving me an admirable smile.
