Picasso and The Delinquent (Phan)

Just......Craft

Phil's POV

I sat in class bouncing my leg nervously. Today was the day I was going to over come my fears and dumb behavior by walking straight into the moshpit hoping not to fracture a shoulder. Only 3 more hours. Be patient.

"Oliver can you help me with something?" I ask him.

Minutes go by without him answering me.

I look over to see that he's too preoccupied with looking at Hannah, who's across the room laughing with her friend.

"Oliver!" I say snapping.

He looks over in no surprise.

"What did you need help with?" He says. Well apparently he DID hear me.

"You ever like, met someone and it's hard to talk to them and you just can't seem to keep it together enough to hold a conversation?" I ask.

Oliver shrugs. "Yeah, a girl that you've liked since junior high that thinks your a total burnout could be an example."

I look at my fingers for his pity. He really had feelings for her.

"You know what Austin said last night was a prank right, she never was on the phone." I admit. There was no need to let him feel like shit.

"Doesn't really matter if he was joking or not...she still knows." He says. "But back to you, if you're too nervous to hold a conversation, just talk about what you two may have in common, and then go from there."

I nod and thank him. All I had to do was keep it simple. Simplicity was bliss.

In Art Class........

While everyone's going around squealing about premium paint, I decide to stay in my seat and get some shut eye. This was a free period, so I was gonna do what I wanted to do.

Suddenly, I have the strange feeling someone's standing in front of me. I lift my head to see Dan holding a paper in his hands, just staring at me. I scramble up, hoping I hadn't done something, like drool on my face.

"Sorry to wake you I-"

"You never bother me!" I tell him.

He gives me that one of a kind confused look again and I mentally smack myself in the face for interrupting him....again.

"Right........anyways, I was wondering could we possibly work on the project at your place?" He looks nervously at his phone. "This isn't a good night for me at my house......."

I try to think back on the million things I have on my bed or old food sitting around. Hopefully I would have enough time to clean up before he came over.

"Sure anything for yo- I mean....yeah sure." I look around hoping he didn't hear that. He gives me a slight smile and heads towards the back. I bury my head in mortification. I was such a dork when I was around him.

As class ended, I tracked my time. I only had three hours to go out plus clean up, I was gonna have to make my stop quick.

Around 6:00 at home.....

My room was as spotless as glass slipper. I had found things that weren't worth keeping.....considering they were dead. I freshened up from smelling like weed, I didn't want to make it seem like I was too much of pot head.

I shot up from the bed as the doorbell rang. He's here, oh god.

I ran down the stairs and slid to the door. "Phil! Who's at the door?" My mum asked.

"Just a friend mum!" I called back, starting to open the door.

"Should we make them dinner? I have leftover pasta!" She yells back. I roll my eyes in annoyance. "That won't be necessary mum!"

I take a deep breath and open the door. I see Dan, with a side smile waving at me, while I grin like an idiot.

"It better not be one of those skimpy girls from school, they might have diseases Phil!"

I widen my eyes as Dan looks over my shoulder. "Um.....who's that?" He asks.

"It's just my mum...she's busy at the moment." I say smiling.

"Phil! Can you be a dear and get your mum some tissue?" She calls.

I squint my eyes in utter disbelief at what she just said. Dan had his lips together, holding in a short laugh.

"Coming!" I say irritated. "Why don't you head up to my room, I'll be there shortly."

----------------------------------------------

I walk into my room, see that Dan already had his small easel set up and his paints all organized. He even had his cup of water filled. I look around in amazement at his stuff, and how clean it was.

"Wow." I say.
"What?" He asks looking at me.
"You're....really organized."
"Seems as you are too. I find your room quite......interesting." He says, staring at my Iron Maiden posters.

I nod awkwardly. A moment of silence passes.

"Shall we get started?" I ask him. He nods and points to the stool in front of the easel. I sit down and look directly at him as he begins to paint.

"So....you're just going to paint me?" I ask him.
"I'm going to paint you and your personality." He says.
"How are you gonna do that? You can't see it."
"By colors. Abstract paintings express things we can't see. Therefore your personality is abstract."
"So if my feelings are abstract, that what am I?"
"You're concrete cause I can physically see you. It's going to be a mix of both."

I nod. He seems to know just about everything. From art to science. It just....didn't seem fair that he knew everything and I knew very little.

"Dan?"
"Yes?" He answers, concentrating.
"When did Christopher Columbus discover The United States?"
"He didn't."
"Pardon?"
"If he discovered America, then there would be no one there when he got there. There were natives already living there when he arrived."

Dan accidentally spills some water on his shirt and goes red immediately. I see that he gets so mortified from doing even the slightest things. Probably out of shyness. I smile at him, showing him it's ok.

He smiles back, showing comfort. His smile was perfect.

I was learning something new every day from him. No one had ever told me that. I watch him become frustrated a bit with the painting.

"I keep making things worse. This isn't working out." He says rubbing his eyes. "It looks trashy."

I walk over to take a look. He was wrong. Looked better than anything I would ever make. In fact it had a good feel to it.

"It looks absolutely amazing."
He looks up from his hands. "I've barely started." He says. "The lines are all crooked and out of sorts."

"Yes, but just look at the way the red collides with the black. Kinda shows emotion already to me."

"But it's not that good, it never will be, I've already screwed it up." He says.

"With art, your mistakes can turn into something else. C'mon just give it a go, it won't hurt to at least try." I tell him.

"But it's already messy. I don't think-"

"Don't think! Just........Craft." I sit back at my seat. He slowly starts back painting in caution.

As time progressed on, we made small talk here and there, mainly me testing his knowledge. He seem to know just about everything. Everything was what he knew, he gave me words of wisdom and advice, suddenly I didn't feel so nervous around him anymore.

Being with him.....I saw it didn't hurt to be intelligent.