Quentin had a lot of respect for people who could live by their own rules and fuck what anyone else had to say about it. He tried to do the same for himself, and here in Michigan, he could say he was succeeding, and there weren't enough people here who knew him well enough to tell otherwise. Somewhere, buried underneath all the tattoos and hair dye, was a little boy who just wanted his parents to approve of him. To tell him, just once, that he'd done something well and they were proud of him. Quentin had never heard that from his parents, and he'd long stopped holding his breath over it. He'd become great at lying about it, over the years.
Seeing not one, but two sketchbooks? Oh yeah, this girl was awesome. Whoever thought that you couldn't find "real" artists in a small town like this clearly just didn't know where to look. Quentin had no idea about what was considered "fashion trends," not in the way his girlfriend and his sister did, he just went with what he liked and what he thought looked good on him. If someone didn't like the fact that he often had his sketchbooks and at least a few pens, markers, and pencils on him, that was their problem, not his. "That's epic," he said, meaning every word. "Nice to meet you, Savvy. What kind of art do you do, if you don't mind me asking?" It was also totally cool if she just filled sketchbooks and didn't show off to everyone else, too.