i know a lot of tgf fans joke about the painting being theo's heart but its SO SERIOUS to me.
thats the physical manifestation of all the parts of himself that he leaves chained up, wrapped in so many layers of newspaper and tape and fabric because he can't bear to have it exposed to the light. and it becomes so painfully obvious why his adult life felt so meaningless, why all the apartments he viewed with his soon-to-be-wife "smelled like divorce, bankruptcy, illness and death". because all he was looking for, in every apartment, were "potential hiding spaces" (going as far as "fantasizing about a secret, climate-controlled CLOSET, combination lock only").
and why, even though theo had said, multiple times, that no one in his life (besides HOBIE) would be able to know what it was, boris confesses he stole it by simply claiming that "he wanted it", and "anyone could see" what it was. and why boris said he will do anything and everything to get it back to theo, "for old times sake, just to have, to really be his, TO KEEP IN THE CLOSET OR GET OUT AND LOOK AT LIKE THE OLD DAYS".
and why once theo finds out that that part of himself was no longer sealed away, locked under boris' phone number combination, he realizes that "all his adult life had been privately sustained by that great, hidden, savage joy: the conviction that his whole life was balanced atop a secret that might at any moment blow it apart".
