Chameleon ✔️

14 colors

His mouth molds around mine in the sweetest way and all is well in the world for the sweetest of seconds.

And then his lips still against mine and part slightly, and the world explodes into shades of red. I'm reminded of that one Taylor Swift song about the colors and how she was only partially right about them.

He releases my wrists from their confinements, and his hands find my waist instead. He pulls me to him and kisses me back with a fervor that makes my stomach do cartwheels and my brain lose oxygen and that I can hardly believe is from Eli himself. He takes a few steps forward and I a few backward and my back is pressed against the bricks and I cannot complain about anything bad that has happened in my life because all of it has brought me to this moment.

I feel colors.

Colors...?

A rainbow, but not the smudged together one of the cafeteria at lunch. These colors all have a definite beginning and end. First there's olive green, but when I kiss back because I have to see more colors it turns to lavender and then orange and then yellow. He tugs at my waist and I feel plum lust and a hint of red passion and as I rest my palms against his beating chest I feel more yellow, lots more yellow.

And then he pulls away.

I am completely speechless. I can't even remember if I enjoyed it or not because all I can fathom is the hidden rainbow. Initially, he's grinning, but he quickly flips it upside down and takes a small step back. "I'm sorry," he says.

The guilty look on his face makes my stomach drop a second time, but not in a good way. He's sorry?

"I'm sorry if you didn't want that. I mean, I'm sorry I sprung it on you. But I've only got a few weeks left, and I just... I had to know."

I search for my voice and find it in the deepest, darkest part of me. I pull it up and out and set it back within my throat. I find the words I want to say. "Know what?" If I'd kiss back? If I could finally feel all the colors you possess?

"What it would feel like," he answers simply, his aura white as normal.

🦎

The burgers are bland and tasteless compared to Eli's kiss, the auras of his family as we chat contentedly dull and desaturated in comparison to the ones that exploded from Eli's mind in technicolor, the game of Clue blurred and monotonous compared to the sharpness of my senses as his fingers skimmed my lower back.

I lose the game and not on purpose. My mind is elsewhere, forty-five minutes ago, outside in the side yard. All I can think about is finishing this game so Eli and I can make an excuse to go upstairs so I can kiss him some more and feel those colors that made me feel more alive than I've felt since the night I first laid eyes on my monster.

Upon the game's completion, I mention to Eli that I'm having trouble with my math homework and if he wouldn't mind helping me out. He gives me a confused look, and I think for a second that I should be proud that he doesn't believe that I'd be struggling in math. I give him an innocent look and then his eyes go wide as he realizes what I mean.

"Y-yeah. Homework," he stammers out, and I hope it's not enough to make Theresa suspicious. Her aura doesn't convey such.

And when we finally make it to his room, I sit down on the bed without him having to ask me if I want to this time; I sit down on the bed as if it is an action I perform often. He sits next to me and pushes out a forceful exhale.

"So, that was some game, huh?"

I am in no mood for small talk. I scoot to him and wait, too ashamed of myself to start down this path, but hoping he will read my mind and start down it for me. Because once we step foot across this borderline and into the unknown territory of the other side — the border between friends and more-than-friends — there is no going back. My eyes involuntarily scoop from his eyes down to his lips, and that's when he takes the initiative. His fingers rise to my chin and he simultaneously leans down to me and pulls my face up to his slowly, so slowly, giving me ample time to recoil. But I don't.