BLUE

seven

The thoughts turn cruel again, as night becomes morning and the air is warm again. I don't want to leave the comfort of my bedroom, Mom and dad kiss me farewell as Mom goes to my aunts and Dad leaves for work.

I don't notice my phones ringing until the sound becomes too unbearable for even my brain to ignore. Leaning over, I'm close to pressing decline, before I see the contact's name.

"Hello." I hear the crack in my tone, and my hands can't stop shaking, and my breathing turned rapid.

"Lilac, what's wrong?" your voice comforts, like honey in warm milk, like my favorite teddy mocha, like Hozier's voice in 'Like Real People Do.' The point is your voice makes me feel so warm, doused in concern.

"Bad day, I won't be able to make it."

"Oh." It's either the sun is playing games, or there's a concern in your voice.

"There's always tomorrow," I try to turn the conversion light, but even I'm not blinded by misery in my tone.

"Do you want me to come to you?"

You don't know how much those seven words had meant to me, no one visits you when your sick but when you're on the verge of relief. They come with cards, balloons, and gifts, they bear you more, but that's only the visible sickness people care for. Not when it's you yourself attacking your brain, not when it's the horrible thoughts that consume you, running through your veins.

"You wouldn't mind?" I ask, insecurity deepening its hold on me.

"For you? My Lilac?" Your voice holds humor, you are my immunity. "Never."

You spend the rest of the evening at the edge of my bed, keeping me company as I get lost in my own head. I don't know when my internal sickness got this bad, that my bones ache for days on end.

But with you here, I don't have time to get trapped in veins made from my extended hands. "What are you writing about over there?" I try to peer up from my position, but with swift availing you move from under me, shielding the cedar pigmented leather journal.

"You." Your truthful answer sets me back, about me? What's so good about me.

"We'll can I read it at least?"

"That would defeat the purpose."

"The purpose of what?"

"That, you'll never know."

"Do you always talk in riddles!" I retreat back in my position from earlier, hugging the sheets closer to me, missing the time when we'd been by the lake.

You shrug, you're green eyes tainted with indifference as you go back to your journal and I count the hidden freckles that faintly paint across your cheeks. I never knew they could develop overnight, I guess I learn new things every day.

Morning turns to evening and evening to nightfall, you tell me stories about the places you've been to before and I sit and listen struck in awe. How have you been to the highest points of the world, when I can't even get out of this emotional whirl.

"How old are you?" I ask, "not to be rude, but you seem so young to live so largely?"

You grin like I've asked you the greatest question in the world. "Seventeen," the answer takes me by surprise.

"Me too."

Before I know it, the familiar sound of a car pulling up to the driveway graces my room, and I'm panicking all of a sudden. If my parents ever found a boy in my room, it would be the last time I'd be alive. Mom would throw a tantrum and I don't think dad would die, but he'd be upset.

Noticing my alarm, you're lips turn upward into a Cheshire look, and before I know it you're making noise, I hold my hand to your mouth to muffle you, and in one move I'm on top. loosely handling your journal to your side, I'm cocooned in the sheets whilst straddling you.

"My parents will kill me!" I seethe, but my heart is racing and my brains lost all capacity.