A Kaleidoscope of Possibilities

The smell of him burning was the first thing that reached him. It was acrid and tangy, both delicious and disgusting in its fleshiness. The stench wafted around his face, refusing to leave his mind as it clawed its way down his nasal passages, through his neurons, and into his thinking mind. And for some reason, the moment it escaped the grasp of his animal brain, the moment he was able to process the smell and understand that it was him roasting; that was the moment he began to scream, and scream he did. Jaw stretched to tearing, eyelids split in agony, he roared. What a sight to behold. His flesh turned into a bright, blinding red, licks of flame dancing across the surface of his skin. His face was the first to go, the upper half of his cranium simply melting into dust with the wind, drifting into nothingness. Empty eye sockets dripped a wax like liquid, down onto the bare and bleached bone of the skull. Tiny sparks knotted themselves around the flesh on his neck. Frozen in place by the searing heat were his hands, tips blistering red and already beginning to melt away, clawing at his skull.

I leant back as far as I dared on my stool, looking at my art, contemplating whatever I’d had just painted. There was a burning skeleton… or was it a man burnt to a skeleton? I’d have to come up with a name for it. The flames had been particularly hard to detail, with only the flickering light that the crappy light bulb in my studio to help me see what I was doing. At first, I’d been sketching the framework for a man’s face, plain black and white, simple and routine. Today was just meant to be free time, after all. No works commissioned, no galleries to fill. Just another day of me and my canvas. Honestly, at first, I couldn’t even be bothered to pick up the brush and begin yet another portrait of another faceless man, but when I’d smudged the final sketch for the man’s face, I’d decided to just run with it. And look at what I’d made. “Mum will be happy” I thought to myself. Taking it off of the easel, I delicately walked it over to the drying rack, nearly tripping over a loose canvas roll. Dropping it onto the rack, I took out my earphones. Below me were the sounds of my sister chatting to her friends, her disgustingly high-pitched laughter ringing through the house. My studio was just a converted attic, honestly, but it was the best I’d get for now. Once I’d moved out, I’d probably get a scholarship at an art college easily, and then it was just a matter of using their facilities. Besides, I still made good stuff here.

Bending and reaching behind myself, I undid my apron, paint smearing across my fingers as they swiped across a paint stain, cursing and wiping it off on a wall. Mom wouldn’t complain about it. She never even came up; “I can’t stand the smell of paint” is what she’d said. I knew that she was lying though. I’d seen her come up many times when I was young, come up to give Dad some company. Yeah, it was Dad’s old studio. But it wasn’t like I had any other choice, and I sure as hell wasn’t letting my mum or my sister turn it into some kind of shrine, not when there was so much untapped potential in there. Every nook and cranny hid another tiny paint tube of an unknown shade which would be just perfect in a painting. Dad had scrawled tiny notes all over the wall about his own art. I’d learned how to make the perfect sun, (It wasn’t just bland yellow), how to make hair appear like it was blowing in the wind, how to texture fur. And the funny thing was, I was the only one who understood how to make those instructions come to life. It was like the messages were just for me; everyone I’d ever brought to his studio had been given a chance to recreate the instructions but only my brush ever brought a scene to life like he could. All the other artists I’d ever seen had only made watered-down versions of life, but he made life into so much more.
I’d heard his art being called surreal, genius, ultra-realistic. To him, his art was just art; the one thing in life that really mattered, true, but also the easiest thing in the world for him. For him, all he had to do was pick up a brush and begin, and he’d have a masterpiece.

I hung up my apron on the worn copper hook nailed into the wood door then opened it. Tiptoeing downstairs, I snuck past the first open door. My little sister was in some sort of fifty-way Skype call and she’d give me hell for interrupting her, and even worse if I embarrassed her, what with my scruffy appearance, my paint smeared jeans and skinny frame. I wasn’t much to look at, as far as I could tell. Standing in the bedroom mirror, I reminded myself, not for the first time, that I didn’t have it that bad. My curly brown hair ran down shaggily to my neck, loose and bouncy. That, I’d gotten from my mother, as far as I could tell, because both my sister and dad had smooth jet-black hair, my sister’s running down her shoulders in a wavy cascade. My face wasn’t that bad to look at, sharp angled and sharp chinned, high cheekbones framing hazel eyes. And I knew about bad faces; I’d been commissioned to draw plenty. Some of my artwork I’d wanted to burn, just on the basis that despite my best efforts, the portrait was still an affront to basic humanity. But I’d been paid, had kept my mouth shut and laughed about it later. It wasn’t just a matter of fat rolls and bouncing cheeks. The way I judged a portrait was on the proportions. Thick noses, big eyes, lips the size of bread rolls, they all ruined my artwork. But I’d also drawn faces so perfect I’d been jealous, beautiful in every single way. Mine wasn’t one.

“Vincent, do you want me to bring a sandwich up to you?” my mum called from down in the kitchen. Her voice carried all the way through the house and I heard tinny laughter coming from next door. My sister’s friends must have turned on her. Oh well. The perfect silence my sister wanted had already been ruined, what did it matter now?
“No thanks!” I yelled back at the top of my lungs.
“Okay, I’m off to work now! Goodnight!”

Goodnight? I looked out through my tiny window, tucked up above my head. Sure enough, the sun had already set, the first drips of inky blackness working their way through the navy blue sky. It would be a full moon. I loved nights like these, pure white moon against pure black sky. They were the perfect canvas for me to dream into. Sometimes I imagined some of my best works against the canvas of twilight. Those nights, I’d rush into the studio and begin to paint. Today though, I was exhausted, and tomorrow wouldn’t be much better. After all, I had an appointment with her. That always drained me for a few days, but at least it’d gotten easier to deal with her questions. All I needed was some sleep. Forgoing a shower for a few more minutes, I slumped into bed. Drawing the covers over my bare chest, I shut my eyes and tried to go to sleep.

All he saw was red. Fire licked at his toes, at his fingers, burning him. Red screams tore through a crimson haze. His father’s screams. And at his toes, a red river ran thick, splitting into a thousand million rivulets through the red dirt and soaking it, turning it into a rich burgundy. Clenching his fists, he shouted a wordless challenge to the burning world, his crimson fury grasped between his fingers. He’d come back to this world of red, and erase it completely. He’d douse the fires, he’d stop the red, he’d stem the flow. Red was the colour that haunted him tonight. Red was the colour that filled his empty heart to overflowing. And red would be the colour he’d have to release from himself. He finally stopped screaming, turned, and saw it. A speck of blue. A warning from the future to himself. And for a second he wondered, was red really that bad? After all, red was the colour of love, of action, of blood, and wasn’t blood life itself made tangible? All these thoughts curled up in his red hazy mind, and like a bomb, it exploded into redness.

I jerked awake, sweating. What was that? What had just happened? I grasped desperately for memories of what had just raced through my mind, what the hell I’d just seen, but just as quickly as it had come, it had disappeared from memory as if it had never been there at all. Something about red…
The first time this had happened, my mother had found me sitting shirtless in front of the easel, red splotched all over a blank canvas, all over me, all over the walls of the room. She’d screamed, (my sister swore that the scream had woken up the whole block) which had woken me out of my trance. Unfortunately for both of them, a side-effect of waking up a sleepwalking person from their trance was shock. I’d screamed back at her, then she’d screamed, then my sister came in and screamed. It was a loud night.

After a trip to the hospital’s emergency department and a quick consultation with a psychologist, it had been agreed that the best thing for me would be some therapy to work through my issues. They’d immediately diagnosed me with PTSD, and tossed me aside for the system to work with. And so the sessions had begun. They’d tried to figure out what my dreams were, but frustratingly I could never remember anything about them apart from colours. The only thing I ever remembered was a colour and it had gotten to a point where I’d just have to say ‘blue’ and my therapist knew what I was talking about. Kind of weird, but it worked. And it had taken a few months, but I admitted one other thing I’d never told anyone, just because I thought it was weird. I didn’t see people as living, breathing beings. I saw them as colours. Every morning, when I woke up, I saw myself as one colour or another, normally a mix. Red was angry, blue was sad, yellow was scared, green was jealous, black was tired, white was excited, and any variation of those could have been any one of a million things. This apparently had been a big breakthrough, and my therapist said she’d now only “talk in colours”, whatever that meant.

I curled up in bed, sweat dripping down my face, and I just took deep breaths.
“Take deep breaths when you have an attack.”
That’s what she’d said. It sort of helped, but it always woke up my sister when so much sustained noise was made. And sure enough, just as I began to drift back to sleep, I saw her silhouette flicker through my doorway, stopping for a second, then slipping away again. She’d act like it never happened if I brought it up, but I always knew when she’d been watching me. Ha. Even though I was the older one, she felt like taking care of me. What the hell. And I could swear, every time I saw her silhouette, there was a shade of red or something like that in the black. I wondered sometimes. She had every right to be angry at me. But still, I wondered, if maybe it wasn’t red. Somewhere, a cricket chirped and that cut short my self-philosophy session. Turning in my bed, I tried to go back to sleep for the last time.

The sun was never what woke me up. Even on the brightest, sunniest days, it got filtered down into a dim greyness by my tiny window, so my room was always dark. Instead, normally my mother would wake me up, her voice ringing through the house tiredly. She was a night-shift nurse, so her sleeping pattern was basically nocturnal, getting up in the late afternoon to make dinner, then going back to work, then coming home and sleeping through the day. It didn’t make for a great relationship, but honestly I was fine with that. That way, she couldn’t bother me while I was painting.
Today though, it was my sister who woke me up. She peeked her head through my doorway.
“Get up. You’re going to be late again.”
I jerked up from under my bed sheets and blindly grabbed for the clock. It was 8:20. Oh shit, I had morning classes. I was so screwed.
“Thanks.” I called after my sister’s retreating figure, but she ignored me, opting instead to text her friends. She always started early. Swiping my uniform from my wardrobe, I scrambled to get dressed. I looked at myself in the mirror, barely visible in the dim light. A blue striped yellow tie hung loosely around my neck, one button undone on my dress shirt. My sleeves were always rolled up, no matter the weather; I just preferred it. Grey pants and black shoes finished the outfit. I wished I could change my clothes, blue and yellow being a terrible colour combination, but it was uniform. Besides, today was a yellow day; I could already see myself bathed in amber. My bag was already packed on the desk. Slinging it over my shoulder, I rushed downstairs into the kitchen, a small cramped counter against a yellowed wall. There was a sandwich on the table. Grabbing it and stuffing it in my mouth, I ran through the door. A gust hit me. It was freezing outside! Half jogging, half sprinting, I desperately thought up an excuse for me being late. This was like, the fifth time in a month. I couldn’t tell them about my dreams though. That was too personal. That was my own problem.

Of course I was the only one. I’d burst through the classroom door, panting and sweating and swearing and generally looking like an idiot, which of course made everyone laugh. It was Maths Extension as well, so half the people in the class were perfect students. I knew I was the odd one out in class, at least for this course, and me being constantly late made for a good joke. There was still some kid sniggering in the corner when I slumped in a seat right up front, next to the teacher. She glared at me for a second, not even bothering to say anything, then went back to the blackboard. Something about some old Greek guy’s theory was scrawled on the board, which I’d probably have to figure out later. Tuning out from the teacher’s bored drone (she was just as excited about teaching maths as I was about learning it), I began to doodle on the corner of my book. I didn’t like sketching as much as painting; half the power in images was in the colour. But still, the lead tip brushed against the paper delicately, and slowly a rose began to take shape. With precise strokes, I grew it a stem, then two, and at the tip of one, a bud, tiny petals taking shape. Every single petal grew from my pencil, and then the bud burst into a full blown flower. Drifting down from the flower was a single petal, shaken loose by the abrupt budding of the flower, its tip already curled up and dying. Shading in the core of the flower, I added a few dew drops where I’d missed a spot, turning a bald patch into a water droplet with a few lines.

“Vincent, what are you doing? Would you like to show the class?”
Damn it. I should’ve thought it through. I mean, I was right next to the teacher. I always got too absorbed in my art to notice, but she must have been staring at me for quite some time, because her voice was really pissed off. Only one way to get out of this.
“Yes Miss, I’d love to show the class. If you would just allow me,” I got out of my seat and held up my textbook, “this is my masterpiece. I’d like to thank the president, my mother, all of my friends and fans…”
The same kid who’d been sniggering before burst out laughing.
“Nice drawing mate!” he choked out between sporadic bursts of laughing.
“Cheers!”
The rest of the class had mixed responses to my antics. The girls were giggling in their seats mostly, the guys slapping their desks in laughter, but there were a few stony-faced citizens staring at me as if they were angry at me for ‘disrupting their very important study time’. “It wasn’t like anyone learns shit here anyways.”
Oops. I’d said that out loud.

Yep, today was definitely a yellow day. My skin was tinged yellow in the sun. Yellowing paint crackled off of the yellow tinted plaster. And I was terrified. Sitting outside the principal’s office before roll call, I’m pretty sure I broke some kind of record. Not only was this the first time I’d been sent to the principal’s office, this was also the first time I’d heard people whispering about me being expelled. Sure, I acted up now and then, but this was high school, and I was in my last goddamn year here. They couldn’t just boot me out now, right?
“Come in, Vincent.”
The voice was hoarse and tired. Turning the corner, I expected to see some wizened old lady shaking a cane at me. Instead, what I found was… some 20-something year old woman gulping down from a Starbucks coffee drink. She was blue and black. Not literally at least, just the way I saw her. She was tired definitely. Think, Vincent, think.
“Miss, I’m deeply sorry for any trouble I have caused for you. If you want, I’ll do a detention and think about my crimes.” I tried to look as sorry as I could. “I’m sure that a misbehaving student like me is the least of your worries.”
“Cut the crap, kid. I was standing where you are just a few years ago, you think I don’t know what you’re trying to do?”
Oh well, there went that hope. She motioned for me to sit down in front of her. A thick manila folder was on the table in front of me. Printed in large black cursive was my name. Not a good sign.
“This is the first time we’ve spoken, right? Let’s get down to business. You see this folder, how thick it is? Believe me, that’s not a good thing. Okay, so here’s how it works. Every time you get in trouble, even if it’s literally just being late, we file it. This goes into this file here and onto a computer; don’t even think about hacking it, we will find out. Basically, when a kid’s file is this thick, it means we have a problem. And you, sir, have a problem. Look at it this way. You have one more year here, right?” I nodded wordlessly. What that hell was this principal? “Ok, so if you’re good for one more year, we’ll support your transition into an art college. We’ve already got a few choices lined up for you, but believe me, if you screw this up, you won’t get anything. Capisce?”
“Ok, Miss. I’m sorry Miss.”
Damn, this was new.
“So, we’re done. You can get out now.”
I left wordlessly, grabbing my bag on the way out. Amber had turned to piss-yellow. This wasn’t good.

“Vincent, Vincent! What happened?”
Oh god. It was Amber. Yes, I realize the coincidence now, but really, her name is Amber. She’d always follow me, wherever I went. And it really didn’t help that we shared basically all our classes. We’d met in Art Extension on the first day last year, and for some reason she’d stuck with me for the rest of the year. I say for some reason because she had so much choice. To be bluntly honest, she was a babe. She had that whole surfer chick thing going on. Tan skin, wavy blonde hair, blue eyes that seemed as deep as the ocean, lips that were just perfect for kissing. Believe me, I knew. She was so bubbly and happy that sometimes it annoyed me, but I think it’s just because I was the complete opposite. Apparently, (this is from my sister so for all I know it’s complete bullshit) girls found me dreamy and hot. Kind of weird, but oh well. Anyway, back to Amber, she’s probably my only real “friend”. So it didn’t help that over the holidays, she’d begun to hang out with what should have been her crowd, you know, the Barbie dolls and the rich guys with chiseled abs, instead of the sad art kid. We’d stopped speaking for a while, actually, but she’d recently begun to speak to me again. She’d even tried to make me friends with her friends. That went down pretty badly. She knows to separate these two parts of her life now, and I’m fine with that.
Today she was pure red. I wondered what that meant. She wasn’t angry much, I mean, she was basically a kid. It’d be kind of interesting to hear about what was pissing her off.
“Hey, what’s wrong?”
She grabbed my arm and dragged me away from the door of the principal’s office, behind the gym into a shadowy corner covered by a single ancient oak tree. We used to eat lunch here, before she’d left me for her new friends. I wondered what this was about.
“Have you heard what people are saying about you? I heard my friends talking about it a few days ago, and I wasn’t sure if I should tell you but…”
“When have I ever cared about what other people say about me? Seriously?”
“No, this is different. Listen, people are saying that you have panic attacks at night. That you’re,” she made air quotes, “bat shit crazy; and that your dad dying fucked you up even more. They see you doing shit like that in class and they’re talking. They think you’re trying to cover up some shit, or that you’re just an attention-seeking shit who’s just looking to get shit talked about him.”
I balled up my fist. Today wasn’t yellow. Today was red. Blood rushed to my head, into the heel of my palm. I spun and smashed my fist into the tree with a silent grunt. Pain flared in my fist, but it didn’t erase my red; it just dripped into my pooling anger, intensifying my vengeful rage.
“Who the fuck is saying this. I’ll… I’ll fucking kill them.” My neck muscles were tensed. I had to force every word out. I didn’t have to deal with this; I didn’t deserve this.
“Calm down Vincent. Just, calm down. Look, I don’t know who exactly is saying this, but… damn it Vincent, I knew I shouldn’t have told you. I just thought you should know.”
“Okay, okay, I’m calm.” I wasn’t. “Can you just pretend this never happened? Please?” I forced a grin.

Roll call was the same boring routine. Stand up, get your name ticked off. I looked around while the names ticked down to mine, looking for the tiniest clue that something was off, that people were talking about me. Problem with this whole situation was I didn’t really have any connections whatsoever. Anything could happen and I’d never know. My sister was better at this people stuff; I didn’t have the head for it, or the appropriate background knowledge. Maybe I’d ask her, but she’d probably chew my head off for wasting her time. Besides, she was a year younger than me, different circles and all that would probably have different gossip. Like with everything, I’d deal with this on my own.

School took an eternity to finish, the hours dragging on and on, almost like I was a fly trapped in amber. The yellow rays of the sun beat down on me as I trudged out of school, half of me trying to keep up a good pace, the other half reluctant to go to the session. After such a shitty day, why the hell did I have to go to therapy? The “Mental Health Centre” as they called it was just down the road from school, which was both good and bad. Good, because I didn’t have that much of a walk from school, just a 10 minute trek up a hill. But it was bad, even worse given what Amber had told me, because if anyone saw me, people would talk. I always looked behind my back before opening the gate and going in, but you never knew. Someone had probably already seen me if they were talking about me. I opened the door to the whitewashed building: it was a repurposed Victorian home, so it didn’t look that conspicuous from the outside. The first clue you’d have that it wasn’t normal was the fact that the door had an electronic lock that could only be opened by staff protected by a glass barrier. That, and the fact that the door was bloody solid steel. Pressing the button that would trigger a silent alert, I got a response in the form of an almost silent click; I wouldn’t have heard it if I hadn’t been listening for it. Inside the building was just as quiet. I hurried to one of the seats in the waiting room, their bright colours juxtaposed against the dullness of the faces of everyone sitting on them. Even me sitting down on the chair seemed to echo in the cramped space. I didn’t dare look up at the faces of the people around me, especially if someone I recognized was here. Instead, I took a few deep breaths, steeling myself for the coming interrogation.

She always made me wait. I wasn’t sure if it was because she was busy, or if it was some kind of mind game thing, or if she genuinely couldn’t be bothered to talk to me, but she always called me about ten minutes after the appointment was meant to start. Not today though. Her face was the first thing I saw, the rest of her veiled behind the door. Her eyes pierced through the Perspex window, looking straight at me, straight into me.
“Come in.” She motioned for me to follow her into the “interview” part of the building. The moment I stepped past the threshold, I felt a distinct chill settle in my bones. I was in the lair of the beast. She led me into a red room today; how did she know? Then I realized the red wasn’t paint. The colours were leaching into the world. My head hurt as I began to remember something, the sensation a cross between déjà vu and a migraine. What was it… what was happening?

“Vincent? Are you okay?” Her face was a pale gray. I’d figured out that a long time ago; it was one of the first colours I’d seen when I’d begun painting. She was anticipating something, something she was scared about but excited about at the same time. It was something she’d put a lot of effort into, clearly. Me?

I sat down on a single seat couch, directly opposite Maya in a matching seat.
“Okay Vincent, I have something to tell you. You know all these sessions we’ve been having, all those questions I’ve asked you? Well, I looked at your case a few times and figured that we weren’t just dealing with PTSD. I mean, the night terrors and social struggles are textbook symptoms of PTSD, but something was off the day you told me about the colours. I ran the diagnostics on you over a few weeks, and I’ve already called your mum about this. This would explain your success in art as well.”
I nodded, not really understanding.
“Have you heard of savants?”
“Uh, no?” What was she on about now?
“They’re basically geniuses at their respective fields, and I mean geniuses. Most of them are on the autistic spectrum, ok?”
“So they’re retards?”
“No! They’re… socially incapable. But see, the thing with the autistic spectrum is that it’s like a dial. Ok, what do you understand? Let’s say you max out the volume for a song. It’s loud, which can be good, right? But the sound becomes crackly. With autism, the dial goes like this: the heavier the impact of autism, the higher the chance of being a savant, and generally also a more intense effect on how much of a genius the person is.”
“And how does any of this relate to me? I’m not a human calculator, I can’t remember everything I see. I just paint.”
“Exactly. You’re a genius with art! Look, you’ve told me you have severe trouble connecting with people, right?”
“I… guess. It’s not like I really care about it, or even put any effort into making friends. But yeah, I don’t really connect with anyone. Is that a problem?”
“You’re not just antisocial. You’re, at least as far as I can tell and this isn’t final, autistic.”
“What the fuck! I just don’t like people, it doesn’t make me a fucking retard!”

She stared at me for a second, took a breath, and then spoke.
“Red?”
She knew. Goddamn psychologists and their goddamn mind reading. Yes, I was angry. I wasn’t here to be fucking analyzed like a guinea pig. I just wanted them to stop me from seeing these colours. I just wanted them to blot it all out, to get rid of all of it. Was that so much to ask for? Was it really?
“Look, can we just end this session here? I get it, I’m autistic. Is that all you have to say?”
“Are you sure you don’t want to talk about it? You know what could happen if you’re unstable and red.”
The last time I’d been like this, I’d wound up in a hospital. Who knew what would happen this time? I really didn’t care. I just had to get out of here.
“Yeah, we’re done. See you next week, thanks, bye.”
I turned and bolted.

That went well, I guess. At least I got away from her. But she was right. My head was filled with pure crimson, pulsing through my nerves, manifesting itself in my balled up fist and gritted teeth. I’d kill them. I’d kill them. I’d kill… who? I had no idea who I was angry at. I mean, for all I knew there wasn’t anyone to be angry at. Maybe I just didn’t want today to be a yellow day. The worst day I’d ever had had been a yellow day; they never boded well for me.

I’d woken up to the sound of a tap-tap on the front door. Sneaking down the stairs, I peeked through the railing. At the door was a man in uniform. He said something, and my mother’s face crumpled. She started sobbing desperately. I needed to know what was going on. If I’d only turned away.
“Mom, what’s happening?” My voice felt raw and unused, my mind already blank with unspoken horror at the thoughts that my imagination brought up.
“Dad’s…oh god….he’s dead. They… they found him. He…”
She didn’t speak for the rest of the night. I didn’t either.

The worst thing about it all was that I wasn’t even surprised. I’d known it the moment I’d seen him. The look in his eyes, the fatigue in his voice. He knew it was over, and I did as well. Sometimes I wondered if Dad saw things like I did. I saw the black in him, threatening to spill up out from under his skin. I saw my own fear in the watered-down yellow tinge that lapped under my pale cheeks. And I saw my mom’s pain in the days after as she drifted between red and blue, black tones underlying it all. She sort of shut down under the pressure of it all. My sister, I sort of forgot about during those days. I threw myself into my artwork, hoping to stop seeing it all, the colours, the pain and anger and fear and sadness and misery. I recklessly poured colour onto canvas, for the first time in ages. I took a brush and channeled it all into a single scene, trying to lock away myself in oil and acrylic. I drew dark scenes, light scenes, happy scenes, scenes of misery, pain. It was never enough though. One day I just stopped, and looked at them. They stared back at me; proof of my own pain, almost mocking me about my inability to cope. They seemed to come to life, and that day I burned them all. That’s what woke mom up, she told me afterwards. The crackling and the blistering heat on the pale white tiles, the acrid smell of burning paint and canvas. She ran out of the French door in the back, looking like a madwoman, and grabbed one of the paintings that hadn’t lit yet.
The next day, she’d gotten me into a gallery.

Home wasn’t that far from the “Mental Health Centre”, which was good. I didn’t like having long walks; they forced me to think about things. Besides, it was already pretty late. I had to get home and paint. I had to stop thinking about the rumors at school, the whole autism thing, all of it. But that plan was ruined by my phone ringing, an incessant vibration in my right pocket. Pulling it out, the fake leather case warm on my cold palms, I looked at caller ID. It was Amber.
“Hey, Vince, what’s up!”
Vince? She never called me Vince. And what was that music?
“Look, I’m at a party right now, and you’d better come!”
“What’s the occasion? Do I need to wear a suit and tie? Get a present? Also, what the fuck is this?”
“What do you mean?”
“You, you know I don’t do parties. I don’t even like people.”
“I thought you liked me!”
“You’re wrong there. I don’t mind you.”
“What? I can’t hear you!”
“Look, I’m not coming to whatever you’re talking about.” I practically yelled at my phone.
“Owww, calm down! Ok, Vince, what do you think your problem is?”
“Uh, I don’t know, people think I’m crazy?”
“No! You don’t have friends! How are people meant to empathize with you when you’re Mr. fucking Robot Boy?”
She was crazy. Did she not get the fact that I just didn’t make friends? Did that concept not make it through her skull?

I still had no idea how she talked me into it when I stepped through an open door. The first thing that hit me was the smell of beer. It literally overwhelmed me; I even choked a bit before getting myself under control. I had to walk down a smoky corridor (hopefully just a smoke machine) before a door opened up to a decently large living room, which was unsurprisingly filled with drunk kids, some of whom I recognized. Pushing into the crowd, I heard a few people shout my name like some kind of tribal greeting. A girl brushed up against me, looked at me for a second, then wrapped her arm around my neck and dragged me down. Her lips were soft and smooth, but I was put off by the beer breath and I pulled myself away from her grasp. Completely unaware, she slipped off back into the crowd, probably to find some other guy to kiss. She must have been completely wasted.
“Vince! You’re here!”
She was pink cheeked and as she ran up to hug me, I smelt the beer on her breath as well. She wasn’t that drunk though, because she still seemed to be completely in control. She grabbed my hand and dragged me to a corner of the room through the people. Here, everyone seemed to recognize her. I even recognized some of them; they were her other friends. Some just glanced at me for a second before turning away, some didn’t even bother. But Amber refused to give up.
“Hey, guys, you know Vince? He’s a cool guy, here, give him a beer!”
A freezing cold can was shoved in my face, probably from a fridge or something. I didn’t bother even reading what it was; I just popped the tab and started gulping it down. It was bitter and fizzy, but I’d had worse. Besides, it’d make getting through the night a bit easier.

A few beers later and I was starting to forget any inhibitions I had. My head was kinda fuzzy, and I think people were starting to forget who I was, cause they’d started talking to me as well. Oh well, nothing wrong with that right?
“Hey there, how you doing?”
A petite blonde girl snuggled up next to me, grabbing my arm and staring into my eyes. I didn’t really notice the beer breath anymore, but I still had enough control to push her away when she tried to kiss me. What the hell? It took a few seconds for me to realize, but as I watched her slink away, I saw her; she was navy blue.
“Hey, you okay?” I called out without thinking?
She looked back at me for a second, gave me a searching look, then left in search of some other company. I wondered who she was; she was really pretty.
“Vince, what was that?” Some guy who Amber had introduced me to said. Was his name Greg? Something macho like that. He grinned, then turned and called into the crowd.
“Hey, Amber, your boyfriend’s cheating on you! Hey, guys, look! He’s got the hots for Casey!”
I couldn’t see Amber, but I heard her voice clearly as she yelled back. “Fuck off! He’s not my boyfriend!”
Greg (Probably his name), laughed and slapped my back. Jesus he was strong. I staggered under the blow, and for a second I was smothered by the crowd. Getting back up, I found myself face to face with my sister.
“Vince… uh. Hi.”
“What’re you doing here?”
“I got invited. Got a problem with that?”
Already on the defensive. Okay. I decided to just pretend I hadn’t seen anything and turned away. My shoulder hit someone’s face and they shrieked in pain. Looking a bit down, I saw the girl who I’d turned away a few moments ago. She looked pissed.
“What’s your problem? Jesus, come here.”
She took my arm and I let her pull me into a bedroom before realizing what was happening. I was a bit tipsy, I guess, so I wasn’t really thinking straight. The world blurred in front of me for a second, then I looked up at her. I was bent over, hands on knees, trying not to heave. I moaned, on the verge of vomiting.
“You don’t go out much, do you?” The girl wasn’t blue anymore. She was radiant orange, like at sunset, and she was laughing. I felt my face get redder.

Her name was Casey and she’d decided to become my personal guide to parties. I’m not sure how she changed her mind so quickly, but she introduced me to her friends. A bunch I recognized from my art classes. They grinned at the sight of me and a guy with black eyeliner, red lipstick and jet black hair shaved on one side came up. I knew him by reputation: he was Michael Green, the emo guy at school. I’d seen his art a few times. It was really good actually, but he’d never seemed like the kind of guy I’d be friends with. He came up and hugged me straight away, like we were some kind of long lost soul mate thing. Unusually, he didn’t seem to have been drinking at all. In fact, now that I looked closer, everyone looked awake and alert. Strange.
“Dude, I’ve been waiting to talk to you for ages! Your art is fucking awesome! It’s so deep and emotional and all that shit, like that one with the crying baby? Fucking deep man!”
He was friendly, too friendly. I backed off a bit from him, my eyes tunnel-visioning in the dark haze. His face filled up the entirety of my view. Turning around uncomfortably, I saw some of Casey’s friends dragging her to the bathroom.
“Sorry about that, our little Casey drinks way too much for her own good. And by the looks of it, you do too.”
Was it that obvious I was drinking, I wondered? Then I remembered how quickly I’d noticed other people were drunk when I’d come in. What was the time?
“Hey, do you know what the time is?” My voice was slightly slurred as I spoke, and I felt like giggling. A strange sound came out of my mouth as I tried to smother the giggle, like a cross between a gag and a hiccup.
“It’s like twelve. Yeah, I think it’s time for you to go home.”
“But I didn’t say goodnight to Casey. Aww, let me stay for a bit longer.”
What the fuck was I saying?

It took twice as long to get home when I was staggering around. Seeing straight wasn’t an option. I tripped and stumbled and basically crawled my way home, but thankfully no one saw me. I finally opened the door to home, feeling dirty and exhausted. Dumping my bag in the hallway, I basically pulled myself hand over hand up the stairs, into my room, where I collapsed onto my bed. The ceiling wobbled a bit as I stared at it. I looked at the night sky. It was grey and cloudy today, and I couldn’t picture anything apart from me about to throw up on a girl I’d just met, talking to a guy with half a shaved head. I looked at the tendons in my fist and realized something. I wasn’t sure what I was right now, but today definitely wasn’t a red day. Somewhat relaxing in the thought, I let my body lie there and unknot, drifting peacefully into sleep

It was a few weeks later when I saw him again. He wasn’t at school much apparently; at least I thought he wasn’t. I’d never seen him at art much and we didn’t share any classes. So I was kind of surprised when his hand gripped my shoulder and he whispered in my ear.
“Hey, miss me?”
I didn’t recognize the voice at first, but when I turned, his face was right in mine, just like that night. A cheeky grin split his face as he registered my shock. He slapped my back, followed me all the way to class, and just like that we were friends.

Casey told me to eat lunch with them the same day. We passed each other in the hallway after fourth period, and to be honest I barely saw her because she was so short. But she saw me, and she squealed!
“Vince!”
Her face wasn’t as red when she wasn’t drunk, but she was apparently just as uninhibited. She hugged me and kissed me on both cheeks, which was received with a bunch of wolf-whistles from all around. I blushed and kept my head down, which also meant staring into her eyes. She looked back at me, the bubbliness giving way for a second to something more serious, then she grinned.
“Come with me. I have something to show you.”
She dragged me through the hallway, completely ignoring the stares from both guys and girls. I wasn’t as used to the attention and I muttered a complaint; something like “Wait, give me a second”. Of course, she didn’t hear me. Bursting out through the front doors, she turned and with one grand motion displayed it to me. It being an ancient Ford Transit.
“Ta-dah!”
I stared at her for a second, not sure if she was serious.
“What am I meant to be looking at? The van?”
“Well, duh. Look, that’s where we hang out ok?”
“We?”
“My friends. Mike, you know, and the rest of the crew!”
I stood there shocked for a second, then began to laugh.
“That van looks like it belongs to some creepy old pedo!” I gasped breathlessly.
“C’mon, come with me! I swear to god, I’m not kidnapping you.”
Gathering my composure, I turned back to serious me. She looked at me curiously, probably weirded out by the sudden change. I heard the sound of muffled rock music coming from the van. There were people in there. Too many people. I shook my head and walked away. I wasn’t here to make friends.

I was pretty sure I’d pissed her off. I was completely sure that she was when I recognized one of the guys who was with her at the party, and he flipped me the bird. I looked away, refusing to meet his challenge. What a dickhead. I saw her again in Biology two days later and not wanting to start something with her, I tried to hide in the back of the classroom. It almost worked as well, my head down and my fringe covering my eyes as I sketched in the back of my book mindlessly. I got so absorbed in my drawing that I didn’t realize what I was doing. I’d begun with a template for a face, noone’s in particular, but I found myself drawing those sharp gelled locks, that half shaved scalp, the rings of black around the eyes, The decadent gloss of the lips. What the hell was wrong with me? I looked up, and as fate would have it, she looked backwards. Our eyes met for a second and her eyes widened but she didn’t say a word. She just scrawled something on a piece of paper, folded it, and gave it to the guy behind her, whispering something in his ear. That guy passed it backwards again, then (surprise, surprise) Amber turned and was about to pass it to me. She saw my face I guessed, because she quickly unfolded the note and read it, then gave me a curious look. Giving it to me, she turned away. I wondered what that was about, but I forgot all about it the moment I read the note.
‘Sorry about the day before. I was too sudden. Come behind the gym. Want to talk.’
She was sorry? She didn’t even do anything.

I didn’t get to her till about two hours later. I’d wound up being held up by my English teacher wishing to ‘discuss my unsatisfactory marks in the recent weeks’. I bullshitted my way out of that one, but by that time at least fifteen minutes had passed in the lunch period, and I doubted she’d still be there, waiting for me. I decided, whatever, I’ll just go buy some lunch first. I ducked into the canteen and bought a shitty overpriced burger. The canteen guy was greasy and I swear his grin was exactly like the Cheshire Cat’s from Alice in Wonderland. He leered at me as I gave him the money, and I tried not to think about the fact that the burger was made by the same guy I’d just bought it from as I wolfed it down. I passed crowds of mostly red and blue people, all with fake smiles plastered on their faces, and I just ignored it. That was my usual reaction to that kind of thing, not like how I acted with Casey. Casey was only because I was drunk. Trust me, I knew how weird it was to have a stranger come up and ask if you’re okay. I got plenty of that after the funeral. Slipping through a quiet alley around the side of the gym, I turned the corner and saw her blue reflection against the ground. The funny thing was, all the times before, I’d never really looked at her. This time, I saw her properly, the way I saw all my portraits, the way I saw everyone. She was mostly a mass of shifting colours, but the blue of her eyes tinged her skin, her hair, weighing down on her shoulders. Then she looked up and saw me and she began to glow. I’m not even kidding, I swear that just then, the shadows of the alley disappeared, like she was a tiny sun.
“Hey, what the hell, you kept me waiting!” Her voice was indignant but happy. She grinned at me. She really was pretty, you know, not like Amber as in swimsuit model material, but sort of real, the kind of thing I could imagine being with. I realized I was staring at her; and she didn’t seem to mind? She was just staring back at me with her green eyes. They were so deep, flecks of gold and blue around a green pool. For a few seconds, I wondered how I’d paint it. How would I ever get that kind of depth into a painting? I couldn’t imagine it. For the first time, I’d found something that was completely beyond me. I just didn’t understand her enough. She wasn’t one dimensional, not like Amber and her friends. Even Michael was pretty depthless. But I could see something under her surface. She was hiding something in those deep eyes, some kind of pain I’d guess. But either she was really good at faking her emotions, or I was just being delusional, because right now, I couldn’t see anything but her smile.
“So… look, I shouldn’t have just dragged you right off before. I figured after the party you’d be a pretty chill guy and would be cool with me doing that, but I guess everyone is different when they’re drunk. Anyway, I just wanted to say the offer’s open whenever you want, but you don’t have to. Seriously though, I’ve seen you around school and you never seem to be with anyone. Who’re your friends?”
“Why do you care?” A hint of defensiveness crept into my voice. She put her hands up and shrugged.
“I don’t know. You just seem like a nice guy and I can’t tell why you don’t have friends.”
I laughed out loud and I must have looked crazy for a second because she flinched.
“I don’t want friends; it’s that simple.”
“Seriously? I don’t believe that. No one wants to be alone forever. You’d go crazy.”
“And what’s wrong with that. Look, I barely know you, and for some reason you’ve been acting like I’m some charity case, being all nice with your bullshit. Newsflash: I don’t care.”
I turned away but she grabbed my shoulder. The smile had disappeared. The light had faded and the shadows trickled into her. Her warm green eyes turned into the colour of the jungle, dark and shadowed and so mysteriously threatening. This was what I’d sensed before. This was the real her.
“What do you mean, you don’t care? What the fuck is wrong with you? You’re meant to say yes, you fucking idiot! How am I meant to do this… how?”
Well, the cat was out of the bag, or whatever it was that people said. She’d snapped. She slapped me then shoved past me. Something wet dripped onto my shirt. Her tears.

Everything went downhill from there. Casey must have been more popular than I thought, or people had already been on the edge. If they’d been whispering behind my back before, they were yelling it in my face now. Calling me freak, retard, crazy, a dickhead. Shit shoved in my locker, loose feet slipping in front of me all along the hallway, not so friendly shoves on the shoulder, even the occasional punch or two. I just ignored it, acted like it wasn’t happening. That probably wasn’t the best idea: if they couldn’t get a rise out of me, they’d dig lower and lower for something worse to do. The first time I realized that was on my way home one day two weeks later. I’d seen it in the faces around me. Their red anger blazed with something brighter, a rabid excitement that raced through their veins. The first kick had knocked me onto my knees, smashing them against the pavement. I didn’t even get a moment to yell; the next blow was to my chest, knocking all the wind out of my lungs. I collapsed winded onto the pavement, and someone grabbed my hair.
“Make sure his pretty face isn’t hurt. We don’t want anyone seeing this, do we?”
Some deep laughs echoed around my head. My head was spinning as it tried to process the flaring pain in my stomach, my lack of oxygen, me choking on nothing. Another blow to the side of my head and I stopped seeing anything at all.

The sun had already set when I woke. I was tucked not so neatly in the corner of a tiny park, my back slumped against a corrugated iron fence. Every single part of me hurt. It took a few seconds for my eyes to focus, then I wiped the tears away. My mind completely blanked for a second, still absorbed in the terror and the pain, and I tensed up and jerked forward, then it kicked into drive. Taking stock of my situation, I told myself it could be worse. Everything still worked… to an extent. My workbooks were drenched in Coke, but at least they were still there. My biggest problem would be explaining all this to my mom. I’d figure that out on the way back home, I decided.

Thankfully, I didn’t see mom first. Instead, I ran into my sister on my way up the stairs, before I got a chance to change. I must have looked like hell, cause she stared at me for what felt like a minute before regaining her composure (to an extent) and saying something.
“What the actual fuck happened to you? Are you okay?”
On the spot, I came up with the story I’d stick with.
“I, uh, fell down the stairs. You know the one in Science Block that the teachers always talk about repairing. I feel like shit, so could leave me alone for a bit? You know, act like you normally do, k? Thanks.”
Patting her head like she was still five, I walked past her. I wanted to see her face so badly, but I still had some pride left in me. Getting into my room, I looked into my mirror. Jesus, I did look like shit. My hair was all over the place and smothered in dirt, my face not much better. Pulling my shirt off, I winced as the muscles in my stomach cried out in protest. They were already starting to bruise, mottling my chest and abs a deep midnight blue. I looked kind of like a Smurf, and I almost laughed except even thinking about it made my body hurt. Pulling the rest of my clothes off, I tossed it in the hamper and grabbed my towel. I’d just lie a while in the bath. Maybe it’d make my bruises heal faster. It’d definitely feel good. Shivering in the cold as I waited for the bath to fill, I wondered who the hell had done this to me. Closing my eyes, I began to rewind time in my head. I went back to walking home, still bruise free. I remembered falling, then someone grabbing me by the head. The voices blurred and mixed in the air, but suddenly my eyes shot open wide. I remembered the voice. It was Amber’s friend, the excited one. What the hell?

I soaked into the tub, melting into the soft, smooth water. My body disappeared into nothingness and I floated in between consciousness and nirvana. I groaned for a second in bliss, then realized how weird it sounded. Coming back to life, I sat up in the tub. Already I was feeling better. Stretching my arms and legs as much as I could, I winced again as the pain kicked in, but it was becoming more of a dull ache. I started to think about what I’d just remembered. So Amber’s friends were part of it, maybe even the only ones involved. Did she know about it? What if she’d been in on it? What the hell would he do? Could he do? It wasn’t like she owed him anything; if anything, he owed her. He owed her for sticking with him, for trying to make him friends, for generally being a good person. But if she’d been behind this, that changed everything. She wouldn’t be the innocent, carefree, happy-go-lucky girl that I thought she was. She wouldn’t be the friend I thought I’d had.
And then there was Casey. It was obvious that this had all started that day when I’d blown her off, but I didn’t think she could have done something like this either. At least… unless the face she’d shown me was the real her. Then I could easily imagine her being the evil queen, plotting my downfall step by step. Oh well, I’d talk to them soon anyway. I scrubbed at the bits of me that didn’t hurt for a few minutes, running my hands through my tangled hair, dislodging tiny crumbs of dirt from each strand. After a few minutes of this, the water was dirty brown. Sighing, I got out, dripping water everywhere, and drained the bath. It took another few minutes for the bath to fill again, and I stopped thinking about anything, just staring at my swelling chest, the lumps on my body welling up. They were sort of beautiful, a dark blue melting into my own blueness, my blackness, my exhaustion, my sadness at everything that was happening and had happened. I felt tears welling up in my eyes, but I choked them down and got back in the bath.

Sleep came easy that night.

The bright red fire had waned. Taking its place was an all-consuming river of red, crawling through cracks in the ground, enveloping everything in sight. It oozed from the earth, dripped from the sky, began to soak me through to the bone. It chilled me, but at the same time warmed me. It was alive, and it burned me with its existence, with the pain of its presence in this world. He tried to scrape it off, at first disbelievingly, scraping at it, tearing at it. Then, as it poured down and began to drown him, his motions became more desperate, more rushed and terrified. He clawed at his arms, his face, the red gel choking his movements. Then, it disappeared. But the red didn’t stop oozing. Now though, it was dripping from him. It first came in tiny rivulets, slipping down his face and arms, soaking him. Then the burning pain hit, and he began to scream, and the blood became a torrent. He melted in the pain, and a few seconds later, it was all over.

I didn’t actually get a chance to talk to either of them. It had been a Friday, I didn’t have Casey’s number (I doubted I’d ever get it, given the state of things), and Amber wasn’t picking up, which was suspicious in itself. She never ignored a call, no matter who it was from. It was one of her personal rules; kind of weird but helpful at the same time. If she wasn’t picking up, it meant she had an important reason for not talking to me. And if I couldn’t talk to any of them, who knew what could happen to me if I stepped outside? I needed to solve something, but that wasn’t my goddamn strong point! I just made stuff, I didn’t fix them. If I fucked up a painting, I worked around it. This was too much for me to deal with. I was kind of panicking. There was only one thing I knew that would calm me down was to paint. I got up out of bed a bit late and it was already midday, so the sun would have already gone past the attic window. Sure enough, it was dark and gloomy inside, almost pitch black. I switched on the light bulb, a flickering faint yellow light diffusing through the room. I limped over to my stool and crumpled onto it. There was no blank canvas on the easel. Shit. I normally stretched my own canvases, mostly just to feel like a real artist, but I’d forgotten to this week. I’d have to settle for one of the shitty spares I left for times like these. They were the ones I’d messed up. Digging through the pile, I found a half decent one. Propping it up on the easel, I picked up a brush and dipped it into the palette blindly. This was how I started most of my artwork, the ones I hadn’t planned out or the ones that weren’t portraits. One random stroke of colour streaked across the canvas would become the curve of a wing, or the foggy breath of a bird in the morning, or a drop of blood glinting in the light. Today, I’d picked yellow. I instantly knew what I was painting. The curved back came first, slapped messily across the white in bright, bright yellow. The body began to take shape roughly and I began to really work. The man in yellow was curled up on a black background, painted on thickly in several layers over several hours. His face was shrouded in a faceless scream, his body shrouded in the shadows of hundreds of faceless people reaching over him. The shadows stretched around him in pure black, and he roared in fear as shadows closed in. Curling up even tighter, he tucked his arms underneath his chin, keeping his eyes shut from the terror. He was the embodiment of Fear itself, and in that moment, he was the only thing that existed.

I didn’t know how to react to what I’d just drawn. If I were my therapist, I’d probably comment on something about how the yellow represented my own fear, or some made up philosophical shit like that. I just knew I felt sorry for the man in the middle, caged in by his own fears. I looked at his screaming face, and for a second, it seemed to come to life. It was my face, my sister’s face, my mother’s face learning of my father’s death. It was Casey waiting for me. It was Amber herded in by a crowd of sex hungry boys, trapped in a corner. It was the world, everyone I’d ever seen; no one wasn’t scared. Did that mean I felt sorry for everyone? No. Some people, they were beyond pity themselves. They’d sunk so low that so that they didn’t deserve anything. The only reason I felt sorry for the faceless man was that he was innocent; at least in my eyes. If I didn’t know anything about anyone, I’d probably be helping out at a shelter feeding the homeless. But I knew, deep inside me, that at a certain age, no one is innocent anymore. It just wasn’t physically possible, no matter how hard you tried to be good. Believe me, I had given up long ago. No matter how hard I tried to deny it, how anyone tried to deny it, they weren’t just the terrified ones, the blameless ones. They were the shadows and the fears and the anger. They were the reason the world was as bad as it was. They were the reason darkness existed in this world. But if the world didn’t have its bad guys, how would we know who was good?

I packed up my stuff, putting everything in a rough order. It took longer than usual, given that my muscles were now cussing like sailors at me, telling me to stop moving. Even walking down stairs made me wince. I didn’t like pain and the dislike was reciprocal. Mom was home now, but I should’ve been able to avoid her if I’d been careful. Unfortunately…
“Vincent, is something wrong? Why are you limping?”
Mom was a nurse, so she’d always been able to tell when something was wrong. I decided it was better to start my campaign of lying earlier rather than later.
“I fell down the stairs at school. I’m kind of bruised so I’m going to lie down for a bit.”
“Do you need me to do anything? Are you sure you’re going to be okay?”
“Yeah, mom, calm down.”
Thankfully, she was cool with that much. What a surprise. Something must’ve been on her mind, but it was fine as long as she didn’t ask too much about this.
“Why are you lying to her?

It was my sister. She leaned against the door frame, arms crossed in front of her. Her front lip was quivering. She was purple, livid and bright. She was angry, I could tell that without having to think about the colour. But the blue element meant she was… sad? About what?
“What’re you talking about?”
“I know. About how those guys beat you up. About how you fainted. About all the shit you’ve been dealing with.” Her eyes were glossy and glinting. “Why didn’t you tell me? I’m your sister! Goddamnit Vince, we’ve been through worse!”
“Uh, Jess, you okay? I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Oh. It’s like that, is it, huh?” Her body shook feverishly
“I… guess?”
“Okay then. Fuck you.”
She turned and slammed the door.

She knew? This wasn’t her business, this was mine. I had to deal with it myself! Besides, what did she mean ‘we’ve’ been through worse? She wasn’t the one who had to deal with a basically comatose mother. She wasn’t the one who saw mom break down. She just sat on the sidelines while I cleaned up the mess. She didn’t have any right to butt in now; not anymore. And it’s not like we even talked much. What did she expect me to do, go to her room and cry “I’m being bullied!”. I’d deal with it. I swore to myself that moment, I’d definitely deal with it myself.

I didn’t speak to Casey or Amber on Monday. This was partly because I was scared to, scared of the truth, but mostly it was because the torment had stopped. The taunts and shoves had disappeared over the weekend, like they’d completely forgotten what had seemed like a mortal hatred in the space of two days. I decided to see how long this would last. Life went on like before. I screwed around in class, drawing in the back of my book and generally not doing much learning. I painted when I had spare time, but I veered clear of any parties. Parties were the domain of Amber and her friends, or possibly worse, my sister and her friends. Either way, nothing good awaited me in the world of keg parties and being drunk off of my face. I’d just keep my head down and become forgotten again. I mean, it was what I was best at, after all. It wasn’t like I had anything that special about me, apart from my art, and no one really cared about that. And for a bit, I thought everything had really calmed down. But of course, like any good happy ending, it was all a lie.

Act 2

The beginning of the end was when Amber began to speak to me again. I’m not sure what it was, but one day in maths, she came up and said hi.
“Long time no see! What happened to you? I haven’t seen you anywhere?”
For a second I stood there shocked that she was saying something to me. Then I realized I had to say something back or I’d look like a complete dick.
“Oh hey… yeah. I dunno, I guess just bad luck?” I laughed nervously. I think she noticed as well, because her eyes narrowed suspiciously. She had to leave then thankfully, because class had started, and for most of the period she seemed like she wasn’t that interested in me. But the moment class ended, she grabbed me by the arm and dragged me out of the room.
“Hey, let me go!” I protested. She removed her grip from my arm.
“We need to talk.”

We went to the canteen together. Sitting down at an empty table, she patted the seat next to her.
“Okay, look, I get why you’re avoiding me. My friends told me some things about you and I figured that if you didn’t want to talk to me, I wouldn’t disturb you. But some shit’s gone down. I can tell. Like, you’ve become quiet, like you’re trying to hide something.”
“It’s none of your business, ok. Besides, what the hell do your friends know about me? It’s all bullshit probably.”
“I… shouldn’t tell you. Anyway, I’m still your friend, ok! No matter what happens, you can still talk to me about whatever’s happening.”
“Oh. I see. Well, then, can you tell me why the fuck one of your ‘friends’ and his thugs beat me up? Can you explain that, huh? Can you help me make nice with all your fucking boy toys? Huh?”
She reeled at that sudden outburst of anger. So what? I was pissed, and she deserved some kind of pain. Especially after all the shit I’d been through.

Her face changed. It contorted with anger.
“What happened, Vincent? Tell me, now. Who did this?”
Wait, what? She didn’t know?
“Don’t bullshit me, Amber. You know what I’m talking about, right?”
“Really! Do you really think I’d be involved in that? Do you really?”
Honestly, I didn’t, but I couldn’t get rid of the burning coal of anger smoldering in my chest without letting something out.
“Who knows? Do I even know what you’d do?”
“What the fuck, Vincent? What…”
She was turning from red to yellow, her expression weakening. Tears welled up in her eyes. What did I mean?
“Look, this whole us being friends thing? It’s all in your head, ok? We’re not friends. I just say hi to you sometimes. We talk, and not much else. You don’t have to be part of my life; I sure as hell am not part of yours. If you want your friends to beat me up, that’s fine with me. Just don’t come crying to me afterwards.”
I got up and left her crying behind me.

I was so tired, drained after it. Like I’d said before, she was basically in my every class, and every time I saw her eyes red and sore from crying, I felt a tugging in my chest. I wanted to go over there, hug her, say sorry. But she didn’t deserve it. Not after what had happened. I took out my notebook instead, and began to draw. Today was a bad day. Today hurt. I had to get rid of it. I drew an arm, hands clawed, grasping at the air. It stretched across the page, crying out in agony. Down the left side, a claw of red lead scratched itself into the flesh, starting from the wrist and etching itself to the crook of the elbow. From the lips of the wound, blood seeped, some of it a thick dark red. I followed the path of the blood down the arm to where it pooled around the base of the arm. It was a thick, glutinous crimson. It gelled around there and melted into water, dissipating and turning into a watery pink. Tiny thick strands of blood danced around in the pink water, stretching their stems around. And just above the water, a single clear drop hovered. Someone’s tear. The final cry for help from the arm’s owner. And for a second. I imagined being there, being in that bath, a razor drifting into the base of the ceramic tub as I lay there, drained of any emotions I may have had.

School finished, and I didn’t even really notice. I felt so out of it. I wasn’t really part of the world at that point, just drifting in and out of existence as I watched the dim colours of the crowd mix and spread, sadness, loneliness, happiness, excitement, anger, fear, all weaving themselves together to form the tapestry of life in a disappointingly watered down rainbow. For a second, I wondered; was this all life had to offer? This shitty substitute for that dramatic, action-filled life that you’d see in art just wasn’t enough. It didn’t satisfy. It wasn’t enough for me. I floated home on a cloud of my own disenchantment, thinking about death and fear and how the world was so much worse than everyone had made it out to be. Maybe it’d be better to just leave this hellhole; it’d be so much easier. I wouldn’t have to deal with all of these emotions. I could just forget the mysterious façade of Casey, the constantly out-of-reach Amber, the glares of hate I got from every face I met. Maybe my dad had been right, that night he’d drove his car straight into a brick wall. Maybe it just took longer for him to realize the truth, just because of how absorbed he had been in his art.

I was curled up in bed before I knew it. I was too tired for any of this. I just wanted to sleep, sleep until it was all over, until the story had finished and I was safe. I drew my curtains, I shut my eyes tight, and I just turned off. No one woke me up that night. They just let me immerse myself in blue. They just watched as I sank into the abyss, without a thought or a care. And I was too tired to save myself. Too…tired…

Today was blue. Everywhere I looked, there was blue. A deep indigo sky, withered blue leaves, blue eyes framed in blue faces staring at me through the blue air. The monotony of the color wore down at me. Where was the red? The yellow? The green? The life and love and greed and envy, everything that made people just a little bit different? Where had it gone? Just yesterday, I'd explored an world of iridescence, the rainbow represented in every facet of life, in every window of the kaleidoscope. Sure, the colours had been dim and exhausted in every clichéd way possible, just history repeating itself in the same scene like an artist painting the same thing with repetitively watered down paint, but still, they were there. How could I be an artist in only blue? I could only learn to drown in this.

I didn’t even bother looking at anyone today. No one wanted to see me, and I didn’t want to see want anyone. Not in this world of blue. I just trudged through the corridors, earphones in my ears. Cold white walls closed in on me, the blankness of them finally just appearing to me. They were bleached bone white; dead and emotionless, uncaring for any pain that they happened to see. I wondered just how much they had seen in their history, in their motionless years as they herded crowds of disillusioned teenagers to their rooms. I felt a crushing pain in my chest, and I wondered if I could even feel empathy, and if that was it. Just some pain, no determination to help, to change anything. Perhaps that was all it was. I didn’t really care, either way, but for some reason that question dogged me for the rest of the day. I wrote it in my book, on the desk, all over the walls, the same word. Empathy. Like a mantra, it followed me around, begging me to understand it. And I tried. I tried to empathize with those boys who’d beat me up. I tried to imagine myself in their shoes… and I just couldn’t see it. I couldn’t feel sorry for anyone, not even Amber and her sniveling.
I had art most days, but unlike the rest of the class I had a special arrangement where I could basically do whatever I wanted, as long as I could prove that it was art. Most days, I’d just paint with everyone else, conjuring images from my mind, doing pretty much whatever. I didn’t feel like it today. I couldn’t see any colours other than the sea of loneliness that dragged me down into nothing. I tried to pick up a brush and start something. Anything. It just wouldn’t happen. My hand shook and I felt my body loosen against the backrest of the seat. I couldn’t do it. It wasn’t appearing in my head. I felt drained and finished. This was it for my art. The teacher must’ve noticed my defeated expression because he came up to me.
“Vincent, what’s wrong? Do you need some help?”
I shook my head. I didn’t feel like talking, but he’d probably be even more annoying if I didn’t say something.
“Nah. I’m okay.”
“If you say so.” he said doubtfully.

Normally when I painted I took inspiration from my emotions, just putting paint on canvas in ways that felt right, but today it wasn’t happening. I just did a stock portrait, step by step, the way a professional portrait artist would. I didn’t need a model; there was no real point to this. But unlike the burning man, this one wouldn’t become anything greater than the sum of its parts, not much more than a portrait of a clean shaven man in a business suit, hair slicked back and an arrogant grin splashed across his face. I almost went on autopilot as I added the shadows and the highlights, hands moving on instinct to the places where I’d memorized to add certain shades of grey and red and pink to make it look right. My mind drifted elsewhere, to Amber across the room, both trying to avoid looking at me directly and desperately searching for any sign that I was sorry for yesterday. And right next to me, shuffling uncomfortably, earphones shoved in his ears as some kind of wordless rebellion, was Michael Green. Remember, the emo guy? He was in class today apparently, and he’d gotten the word that I was an outsider, because he was anxious to prove that he didn’t know the boy to his left, the boy who even now glanced at him questioningly. He turned to some random kid behind him and whispered something in his ear. The kid passed him a brush from the tin on the other table. I realized this was a silent message: I’m not talking to you. He could have easily just borrowed my brush, but he refused to. Seeing the steely look in his eyes, I turned back to my drawing, pretending to be absorbed in it. I went to the eyes, which I’d left till the end. I kept trying to make them a warm hazel, but the colours kept gelling and mixing into a soggy clump of dirt. Scraping it off over and over, I groaned in frustration. This normally never happened. But today all the colours were rebelling against me, I noticed. The pink of his cheeks had run into the grey of his nostril, his white teeth stained with red like some Ribena-addict. I couldn’t get anything down right. I gave up the moment the bell rang and I looked down at my canvas. It had degraded from an actual face to something you’d find in a kid’s art class. Tossing it with the rest of the class’s works in the cupboard, I slung my bag over my shoulder and left class. Someone shoved past me, their hair just brushing against my shoulder. Looking down, it was a small blonde girl. Casey.

She completely ignored me and it was probably safer for me to ignore her as well. I didn’t have anything to say to her either, so I just tucked my tail between my legs and ran the other way. Well, not literally. I just made sure that she didn’t see me leave. As I was just about to turn the corner out of sight, someone tapped me on the shoulder. Turning around, I saw his face. Mike stared at me for a second, his pale ice-blue eyes staring into mine. We just looked at each other for a second, words not daring to come out of our mouths, both of us waiting for the other to start talking. After an eternity, I decided to say something; just as he did.
“What do you want?” “She’s really hung up on you.”
Our voices mingled in the air, and we both looked confused for a second. It was his face that got me; intense black hair spiked to a razor sharp point, blood red lips framing pearl white teeth. And in the midst of all this seriousness, his face twisted in befuddlement. I started laughing, and he did as well, and for a second it felt like the blue veil lifted; I could see colours again. But it wasn’t enough, not really. He was the first one to straighten his face again, putting on his scary emo boy act.
“She really likes you, you know.”
“Who’re you talking about?”
“Casey. She’s had a crush on you since last year.” He put on a bad imitation of a girl’s voice. “He’s like, soooo hot. I just want to run my fingers through his hair, and oh my god, his eyes are like dreamy.”
“Seriously?”
“Seriously. No, wait, not that whole thing, but she likes you. Honestly, I don’t know why. But you made her really goddamn sad and angry with your whole ‘I don’t make friends’ speech. Can’t you just give her a chance? Like, what did she ever do to you?”
This was completely different to what I was expecting. He sounded kind of pissed about the whole situation. He sounded like… an older brother. Wait a second. Looking at his face again closer, I could begin to see a resemblance between him and…
“Is Casey your sister?”
“What. Why do you care?’
“Just curious, yes or no?”
“Yeah, she is. That’s how I know she likes you as much as she does. Can you imagine how much it sucks to hear your sister crying for a few hours straight over some guy who didn’t even know her? Look, just hear me out okay? Just come hang out with us once for lunch, I swear we won’t bite.”
I wasn’t sure what it was, but somehow I felt obligated to listen to him. Besides, it wasn’t like I was spoiled for choice for friends to hang out with. I let him take me to the same place Casey had led me to before, and sure enough the crappy Transit was in the exact same place in the parking lot. He slid the door open, which let out a roar of rock music, heavy guitars and drums filling my ears. Patting my shoulder, he pushed me into the van, where two guys hunched over in the back area, staring at something closely. In the front seats sat Casey and another girl, and standing right behind them and leaning forward over the gap between the seats was a girl who I recognized from the party. They were talking just as loudly as the boys and to me it looked like they were fighting to be heard over each other. If today was a normal day, I’d be able to see their shifting moods in the hue of their emotions, but the blue overshadowed it all, mostly. The guy closest to me turned and saw Mike.
“Hey du… who’s that?”
His voice wasn’t particularly unfriendly, but it sounded like it could swing either way depending on who I was. He squinted at my face, then grinned.
“Oh yeah, you’re that guy who was with Casey at that party. Welcome to my humble abode, man!”
He was in my year, I was pretty sure, but he already had a pretty decent beard growing and his muscles were massive. If I’d just seen him on the street, I’d have thought that he was somewhere closer to thirty than twenty.
Someone murmured in my quietly, making me flinch in surprise. “You actually came…”
Whoever it was hugged me from behind, their chest pressing into my back. Gulping nervously, I turned as much as I could safely and met Mike’s eyes. His face had an unreadable expression on it.

The scent of mint wafted around my head. It was crisp and clear and it brought me to my senses. Green blossomed in my view and suddenly the world was back in a colour. The person behind me spun me around and suddenly I was face to face with Casey. The girls she’d been talking with leant back to give us space, but they sure as hell were making it obvious how funny they found this situation. She ignored them and looked into my eyes, her green irises staring into my brown ones. I held my breath for a few seconds, not daring to even move. I felt my muscles tense up. Even though there was so much noise around me, it felt like everything had gone silent. We drifted off into our own little world for a bit; then Mike cut in.
“So, uh, guys. This is Vince. He’s a pretty cool guy.” he said awkwardly. I realized all the conversation had stopped, but the music was still playing. I tore my gaze away from Casey’s face and looked around. Now everyone’s attention was on me. I looked at my feet uncomfortably; I didn’t know how to deal with it. If this was one of my galleries, my mom would’ve just diverted the attention to herself. I couldn’t deal with all this.
“Um.” I coughed, clearing my throat. “Hi. So, I’m in Mike’s art class and he told me to hang out with you guys. I guess some of you met me at that party.”
One of the guys in the back laughed and spoke. He was dressed like Mike in a thick black overcoat with thick eyeliner and black lipstick
“Yeah dude, you were wasted! Mike’s told us about you before.”
“You any good with computers? Come take a look. This idiot here, he opened one of those spam emails and now his computer’s fucked. Here, sit.”
He shoved the Asian guy next to him to the side almost playfully and motioned for me to sit down. I crouched awkwardly between the two guys. A blank computer screen met me, only a desktop picture displayed. It was some kind of punk rock band dressed in black eyeliner and spiked hair, kind of like Mike’s. I tried scrolling with the mouse pad, pressed a couple of buttons on the keyboard, but honestly I had little to no idea about what I was doing.
“Does anything work at all?”
“Nah man, I’ve tried everything.” The guy he’d shoved to the side looked sheepish. He was dressed pretty normally, but his eyes had a kind of look that made him scary even without the help of eyeliner.
“You restarted it, right?”
“Didn’t want to risk it. I mean, I was working on an assignment.”
The guy who’d told me to sit down grinned.
“He says he was working on an assignment. I’ve been calling bullshit, but he won’t let up. Anyway, go on, give it a try. It’s not like we have any choice.”
Crossing my fingers in my head, I held the power button down. For a few seconds, nothing happened and I panicked; if I broke this guy’s computer, he’d probably be angry. Then the screen winked out of life and I let off on the pressure. Everyone around me held their breath as I pressed the power button again, then I got collectively cheered as a login screen appeared. The password got put in, then I got a massive hug from the owner of the laptop as the desktop appeared.
“Holy shit, you did it!”
Honestly, I hadn’t done anything special, but for some reason all the guys were congratulating me on saving his computer.

The guy whose computer I’d “fixed” was called Peter and the other guy’s name was Matt. They spent the rest of the lunch showing me some clips of concerts they’d gone to. Apparently they all (I wasn’t sure if that included the girls) were massive music fans and went to basically every music event they could. They told me stories of how they’d bullshitted their way into bars where some of their favorite bands were playing, how they’d once been offered some ecstasy in a seedy back alley after a performance by them (apparently they had a band). They played some songs on iTunes for me, trying to get me to say that I liked it, and honestly I sort of did. But I was too reluctantly proud of my tiny playlist of songs I’d found over the years to admit it. When I said that I didn’t really mind it, Matt demanded to know what kind music I liked. I refused to answer, but that was when Casey’s hand slipped into my back pocket and snatched out my iPod. Tossing it to Matt, he pressed play and the song I’d last been listening to blared out of tinny speakers, choked by the ever present drums and guitars of their music. For a few seconds, it seemed like no one could hear it, and I breathed a sigh of relief as I stole it back and pressed pause. Then Matt started laughing, real body shaking laughter, the kind where you can’t stay up because your stomach hurts too much from the tremors, the kind where you don’t stop no matter how hard you try.
“Bob Marley? Legit?” Peter said incredulously.
“Yeah, what’s wrong with it?” I countered.
“I just didn’t have you pegged down as a Rasta. Like, the whole tryhard white kid trying to be Jamaican thing doesn’t seem like something you’d do.”
“A true bredren, mah bredda!” Matt choked this sentence between what sounded like dying gasps.
“Look, this is the only song of his that I have, I swear.”
Grabbing it off me again, Casey scrolled through my playlist.
“What is this? You have all these random songs, don’t you ever stick to one thing? Look here,” she passed it to one of her girlfriends, “he has Elvis, The Smiths, some random rapper called Biggie, Louis Armstrong, Mozart… dude, you have some kind of multiple personality shit going on, don’t you. It’s impossible for one guy to like so many random different kinds of music! Also, Pete, you’ve got to add some songs to this, it’s practically empty. Seriously!”
I sat there red-faced, but I realized something. I was having fun. Sitting here, messing around with these guys, being welcomed as one of them; it was new to me. I didn’t know how to react, or if I was even meant to. But it was a good feeling to have and I smiled.
“There we go, the tin man smiles!” Matt had composed himself somewhat (he still had a massive grin on his face). Suddenly the bell rang; I would have missed it because of the music, but a tiny echo of it rang in my ear; and I had to go. About to leave, I remembered I’d forgotten something.
“Hey, Casey, pass me my iPod!” I called out.
She shook her head and stuck her tongue out at me.
“I’m keeping this for now. I’ll give it back to you later.”
“No, seriously, c’mon. Pass it!”
She just smiled mischievously and looked away. Damn it. I had to go.
“Meet me here, okay?”
“It’s a date!” she called after me, her voice fading away as I ran back into school. Registering what she’d said, I abruptly stopped in the middle of a dead sprint. Looking back, I saw her talking to her friends excitedly. The rest of the day passed quickly as I pondered what she’d said. Was it just a joke or did she mean something by it? This had escalated way too quickly for me to figure out properly.

I watched the clock count down anxiously. The minute had already passed 3:15 and the bell still hadn’t rung. Bouncing my knee anxiously, I looked at my watch, back at the clock, and swore inwardly at the ball of tension that kept me on edge. The teacher sat at the front of the class, also visibly waiting for the bell to ring. The rest of the class was pretending to work, but they were all like me, mostly, waiting for the bell to finally ring. The air was basically shivering with tension. For a split second, I wondered if it wasn’t going to ring at all, or if it had already rung and we hadn’t heard it. Then the electronic buzz rang through the room and everyone rushed out of the room, grabbing books and bag in a frantic rush for the exit. Taking my time a bit; there wasn’t actually any pressing emergencies for me to get to; I slid out of my chair and paced out of the room, anxious to meet Casey again. She was leaning up against the wall next to the exit casually, earphones in. Her face made it obvious that she was engrossed in whatever she was listening to and I just stood there, not wanting to disturb her. She was humming under her breath, her voice breathy and soft in my ears. The air around her still smelled of mint, but now it was fainter, like a gasp. Someone whispered something behind me and I turned around. I realized people must have thought that I was some kind of creep, especially given my rep, so I tapped her on the shoulder and her eyes snapped open. She looked dazed for a second, like she’d been in a trance, then she beamed.

She gave me my iPod right there. At first I was confused, because she gave me the one she’d been listening to, but then I looked at the library and realized that actually, it was mine. There were way more songs on it though, all of which I didn’t recognize at all, not even the bands. Taking out my earphones, I plugged them in and put one into my right ear. She grabbed the other one and stuck it in her ear. Looking at the screen, she chose a song and it began to play. I noticed just how close her face was to mine; I could almost feel the heat come off of her skin onto mine. For a weird second I imagined leaning over and kissing her, then the guitars kicked in. Their roar blared in my ears, louder than any song I’d ever listened to before. I winced and was about to turn it down. Then I looked at Casey. She had a strange look on her face, kind of happy and kind of in pain, like she could feel that the music was way too loud. But she was fine with it. It was a good kind of pain, I guessed. Leaning on the wall next to her, I closed my eyes and lost myself in the screaming and the drums and guitar, becoming part of the music, imagining in my head how I’d paint the scene. There’d be a dark stage; but there would be rich wine-red curtains, the kind that screamed decadence and excess. The guitars would be plain black, the drum kits bone-white, deep shadows cast around it all. And the band would be up at the front, screaming their hearts out, expressions of pure freedom on them.
She kissed me.

For a second, I didn’t even register it. I just absorbed myself in the music, in the scene I had painted in my head. It came to life and I imagined my brush making it that way, turning every line into something tangible. Then she pushed more insistently, soft lips against my dry cracked ones; merging us together in a hopeless mess of confusion. I didn’t open my eyes, both terrified of seeing her face at that moment and lost in the passion of the moment. When her palm brushed the back of my head, I shivered, tingly feelings running down my spine. I returned the act, my arm reaching around her to hug her closer to me, keeping her tied to me for that moment, which, for a while, was my everything. Then she let me go, taking her lips delicately off of mine, and her mossy eyes looked deeply at me, with a silent promise that this wasn’t the last time; that this was just the beginning of a good thing. A scared but happy little thought danced across my heart, but I didn’t even get a chance to say bye as she dashed off out of sight, the thought just on the tip of my tongue, snatched away by a kind wind. I couldn’t stop smiling to myself all the way home. I still felt that thought dancing in my mind, but I didn’t say it. I think I loved her.

This was the first time a girl had tugged so hard on my heartstrings. I didn’t know how to react to the suddenness of it all. It was too much to handle. I mean, if Mike was to be believed, Casey had liked me for way longer than just a few days, but I was new to her. To this. I didn’t know her, what she liked, what she was like, what her past was, if I even liked her or not. I didn’t know whether the kiss was a random spontaneous decision, spouting in her mind like it did in mine, and she was just brave enough to go through with it. I definitely didn’t understand why I felt so drawn into her, so absorbed in the moment. Because, the way she’d enraptured me, the way she’d captured my mind in her grasp; it was like she was the most beautiful work of art I’d ever seen. Not a colour, a shade, a flat emotion, a bundle of simple motives put together in one mind. She was the real thing, alive, multi-faceted, complex and infinite; like a kaleidoscope. And that was also new to me. Honestly, I was scared that whole night, shivering in fear of what I may or may not have gotten myself into, but in that tension was a sort of anxious excitement. I may have been scared but I knew; I wanted to keep the story going.

Today, I wasn’t late; in fact I was early. Really early. I got to school almost an hour early. Mainly because I couldn’t sleep for the whole night because of a painful knot of unresolved tension twisting in my stomach, telling me that no matter what, tomorrow was going to be something important. I had eye bags from staying up all night, and my mind was fuzzy with exhaustion. I drifted in between asleep and awake, mind locked in a daydream. I couldn’t stop seeing her face, no matter how much I tried to think about something else. Distracting myself with art only ended up with me imagining sketching her. Her honey-blonde hair drifting in the wind, tinges of golden sunlight highlighting each individual strand.