Worth Living For

Chapter 6

~Frank’s P.O.V.~

I went home right after the interview. I made it into my apartment as soon as I could, hoping that I couldn’t forget the images that were racing through my mind. I needed to get them down onto a canvas.

Gerard was right, about the passion thing. I imagined that it was easier to focus all your inspiration into one thing, like he did with painting. When I had opened the door to my apartment and stepped into my studio, I stood there for a minute, just looking around. I couldn’t decide what form of art I wanted to use all this inspiration for.

This had happened to me once or twice before. Most of the time, I would already know how I wanted to use the inspiration. But when I couldn’t decide, I usually just gave up and didn’t do any art at all.

But this time, I wasn’t going to let everything I was feeling go to waste. I grabbed an empty canvas, deciding that I would paint.

I got everything I needed together as fast as I could. When everything was ready, I picked up a paintbrush and started immediately.

My hand raced across the canvas, my mind struggling to catch up before I gave up and just let my hand do what it wanted without thinking. I started to panic a few times, feeling like I wasn’t able to do anything fast enough. But I never stopped. I kept going.

After a while, my body collapsed on the floor, and I took that as a sign that I was finished. I sat on the floor for a while, my eyes closed, taking slow, deep breaths. It felt good, to have the inspiration running through my body like this again. I hadn’t felt like this in a long time, and I had forgotten what it felt like.

I grabbed onto the table next to me, hoisting myself to my feet. I pulled my eyes up from the floor to the canvas in front of me. For a minute, I wasn’t sure what I had painted. But I slowly started to recognize what was on the canvas as one of the images that had been running through my mind as I made my way home. I still wasn’t sure what it was, though. I closed my eyes, and opened them again, and the first thing that caught my eyes were the eyes. What I had painted was a face, and the beautiful hazel eyes that were right in the middle of the painting, told me whose face that was.

I had painted Gerard.

~

I stood in front of the canvas for the longest time, letting the questions swim through my mind. The questions that I could not find answers to. Why had I painted Gerard? Why couldn’t I think of anything but the interview I had had with him? Why could I still feel the kiss on my cheek, the hand on my knee, his hand in mine?

And most importantly; was I starting to have feelings for the mysterious artist? The one that refused to show anyone his art. The one that hated interviews, but had, by some miracle, let me interview him. The one with the deep, beautiful hazel eyes.

I couldn’t get him out of my head. He was all that I had thought about since Monday, when I had seen his name on that piece of paper. I wanted to know what was going on. I wanted to know why I couldn’t get him out of my head. Maybe it was just because he was an artist. Maybe I was just feeling a lot of respect for him. After all, he was the best artist I had ever talked to. According to his theories, that is.

I didn’t have feelings for him. I couldn’t have feelings for him. I was straight.

I walked away from the canvas and into the kitchen, pouring myself a cup of coffee from the pot I had brewed this morning, not caring that it wasn’t fresh. I sat down at the small table that was in the middle of my kitchen, telling myself that I wouldn’t get up from this spot until I made sense of all of this.

After sitting there and thinking for what seemed like hours, I came up with the conclusion that I respected Gerard. I looked up to him, I wanted to be like him, I didn’t have feelings for him, I just respected him as an artist.