about a boy,
who was lost,
and thought he was found,
until he meets a girl,
the same girl,
who makes him wonder
if there's more to life
than just getting by.
-
[a Jem-centered novella/sequel to The Girl Who Saw Through Jem]
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Chapter Fourteen
Colours I Can't See With Anyone Else
Ellis
There is some serenity in being totally fucked.
The universe must've really hated me as I seemed to be attacked- no sorry I was accosted at the worst time possible, at a grocery shop no less and by my own father. The betrayal was so swift and intense that I barely had a chance to truly register the gravity of the situation until I was sitting in a car with my father and the boy-thunderstorm that was Jeremy Finley Leighton.
Luckily, I wasn't alone on this. On the ride home, Jem looked like he was heading to his execution as he sat in the back of the car while I was upfront with my father. We were in my Dad's BMW, the one he had been driving since I was in high school, sitting in a car of strangling silence, avoiding eye contact as if our lives depended on it. If we were to accidentally get caught in the crossfire of gazes, I'm afraid the room would be on fire.
Jem didn't speak one word as my dad drove. My dad was oblivious to the tension, chattering about mundane things like the weather and how our local football team was doing worse than usual. It wasn't long until it began to rain, our small town flashing past our windows through the blur of the rainfall.
"You know Fairview's football team was never the same after you left, Jem," my dad commented, "They got all these newbies that just can't keep up with the rival schools."
I glanced at the rearview mirror, thinking about the time Astrid and Calista compared Jem to Jared. I tried to understand if they were right. Both Calista and Astrid were always insisting I had a type, a pattern in the men I was drawn to and after taking another look, I decided they couldn't be more wrong. Jared and Jem couldn't be more different from each other.
For starters, Jem's slightly dishevelled puffer jacket, white linen shirt, and faded black jeans were reminiscent of some adventurer just returned from mapping Western Sahara. Jared's collection of Ede & Ravenscroft shirts and tailored suits were probably worth more than Jem's parents' mortgage, and he was often dressed posh casual with an expensive haircut. Jared's skin was smooth and creamy; a sign of being well taken care of. Jem was tanner than I remember; his skin became like burnt honey, even in the dead of winter.
Over the last three years, Jem's golden sandy hair had become darker, sitting in a scruffy mop atop his head. His overgrown hair suited his unkempt, over-caffeinated poet image. While Jared had cool grass-green eyes, Jem's gaze was warm and hazel with emerald and gold flecks.
They held themselves differently as well. Jared carried an air of sophistication around him that was instilled by the people around him. He had excellent grades, preferred literature to movies, did charity work but rarely talked about it, and dated the right girls from the right families. Jared was private-schooled all his life; he played polo and owned horses.
