𝙰𝚕𝚠𝚊𝚢𝚜 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚏𝚘𝚛𝚎𝚟𝚎𝚛 ~ 𝙴𝚟𝚊𝚗𝚜𝚝𝚊𝚗

Twelve

A soft, pale skinned hand moves over the canvas before them, as though their mind is directing their hand without any need of aid. The hand moves instinctively to the right spot, building the painting, something even more magnificent than Sebastian had originally imagined. The dark shadows slowly begin to come to light, shapes and lines making their own image.

Nothing had really come to Sebastian's mind when their professor had told them to, "paint something that portrays how you once felt."

Sebastian felt a lot of things now, happiness, peace, love. He also used to feel a lot of things. Pain. Loneliness. Trapped. Terrified. How on earth was he supposed to portray feelings that he once felt when Sebastian truly did not want to relive those feelings for as long as possible? Amanda told him that sometimes the way you can truly show things is through your passions. Sebastian's passion just had to be art.

With a sigh and teeth digging into his lower lip, Sebastian closed his eyes and allowed himself to think over the feelings he once felt. The terror, the constant fear that he was going to die each night, the pain, the scars. And just like that, black paint was spread across the canvas, slowly building into some kind of light.

A picture was held in Sebastian's mind as he painted. A young boy, a younger version of himself, his lips in a line with a string attached to either side, two hands above his head tugging, forcing a smile. Portraying Sebastian's constant need to fake a smile to keep his friends in the dark of how bad his life was. Had been.

For some reason, painting this allowed Sebastian to think over what had happened during his visit with Chris. Allowed Sebastian to think over what exactly went wrong, how it was not his fault, rather 'the wrong place at the wrong time'. It was not his fault that he had not seen Liam, yet Sebastian's first thought had been 'he's going to kill me'.

This incident, and every one before this, highlighted just how far Sebastian still had to come to be fully healed. To make peace with his broken pieces. Who knew what that thing was that would allow Sebastian to finally feel fully free. Looking up from his arrays of paints on his newspaper, Sebastian's eyes blow wide. The image before him, far from complete, yet still made enough to show just where Sebastian was going with the piece.

Beside him, Sebastian can feel Maia's gaze on his canvas, flickering between the forming painting and Sebastian's face. "You okay?" Whispers Maia, leaning over so that nobody else around them had the ability to pick up on what exactly the girl was saying.

Nodding, Sebastian smiles over at her. "Of course." He responds, dipping his paintbrush into a dark green. "Just.. thinking of where this is going to lead to."

"It looks great so far," Maia is off her seat then, resting her chin on Sebastian's shoulder in a gentle manner. "Where is it going to lead to, if you don't mind me asking?"

"Two hands right up here," Sebastian points to the two shapes awaiting colour. "Holding a piece of string stitched to the ends of a person's mouth, forcing them to smile."

"How does it represent how you once felt?"

Sebastian bites his lower lip, unsure of how to respond. He catches their tutors' eye across the room and blinks away quickly. "Um.. before I got away from my dad, I forced myself to smile." Sebastian says honestly, catching the sound of approaching footsteps. "I would try so hard for the people around me to not pick up on what was going on at home, or better yet, what was going on inside of my head. I didn't think, well, I knew it wasn't safe to allow anyone to know what was going on."

"Everything okay over here?" Their tutors' voice cuts through their thoughts, a kind smile on her lips.

Maia is quick to respond, Sebastian unknowing of the amount of relief it sends through his body. "Yeah, just telling Seb how good his looks already."