Better Than Words

Spaces

Niall's perspective

I go to the store straight after my last class of the day. Ali never said what kind of coloring book she wants, so I choose three different ones and the big pack of crayons. I grab another bunch of sunflowers and an armful of her favorite snacks: gummy octopi, pretzel M&Ms, and Pirate's Booty. As the cashier rings everything up I laugh to myself at the memory of the first time I saw her eat those. We were in her room watching one of the Harry Potter movies and she went to the kitchen to get her snacks. I'd laughed at the fact that there was "booty" in the name.

"What are you, five?" she asked me, throwing a few pieces at me. I kept distracting her from the movie and poking her bum and saying "booty" every once in a while.

When I get to the hospital, Ali is sitting up in her bed counting the diamonds on her hospital gown. Looks like I came just in time to save the day, I think, a little smug.

She looks relieved to see the full bags I have at my sides. My guitar is slung across my back instead of my rucksack.

"Oh thank God," she sighs. "I thought I was going to go insane. What'd you bring me?" She bounces a little as she sits up, nearly like a child in anticipation.

I start to pull out the different things I have in the bag. Her eyes light up when she sees the large box of crayons and the princess coloring book. I hold in a laugh at her excitement.

"Don't judge, okay?" She narrows her eyes at me. The next thing, she dumps out every crayon from the large box into her lap.

"What are you doing?" I ask in mild shock. She's made a huge mess--she really is a child.

"It's this weird thing, it's nothing," she mumbles, but stops messing with all the crayons when she sees me still wanting an answer. "I like to color-code the crayons. Like a rainbow. It just looks nicer and it makes me less angsty."

"What in the world are you talking about?" She absolutely baffles me sometimes.

"It's not like, OCD, or maybe it is, just really mildly. But when the crayons are out of order I feel like I have to fix them."

"So you mean... Like every other box of crayons in the world?" She sticks out her tongue at me, hearing the mocking tone. "You're such a strange girl." I'm slightly in awe of how I still have so many of these weird ticks to learn about her.

"Yeah, well, you don't seem to mind," she says under her breath.

I don't think she expects me to hear her, because her cheeks go red when I say, "No, I love it."

She doesn't say another word for a while, but busies herself with all 120 crayons, putting them in color groups, then organizing them within each group, then organizing the groups themselves. She seems to have a system; this can't be the first time she's done it. I can't help but watch the way her hands, as small and dainty as they are, move very surely with such a repetitive and simple task. When she gets near the end, I decide to take out my guitar and play through some of the songs I've learned so far.

The first few chords I play seem to remind her of something, because she sits up right away. "Oh."

"What is it?" I ask.

"I forgot to tell you. I had this weird dream while I was... Well, 'out.' I had a dream about us being in the car on the way up to Soda Springs. I don't know if it was a dream or a memory, but it happened. And there was another one where I was Princess Aurora," she scoffs.

I smile a little. So she could hear all of it. Or at least the bits toward the end. My smile widens as I remember the first time we ever spent the night together; I left her a note in the morning and called her Sleeping Beauty. She really has always been my own version of a princess ever since the beginning. Graceful even when she trips over her own feet, delicate even covered in bruises, soft even as strong as she is.