CakePops

Warm and Cool Colours

  Crow and Cecil sat alone in the living room, Crow on his phone and Cecil spaced out staring at a wall. Crow’s mom had gone back to bed so Misty took Enzo outside, leaving the other two. Crow looked up from his phone at her, trying to figure her out.

  “Penny for your thoughts?” He asked. She glanced at him quickly, refusing to meet his gaze. He raised his eyebrows and tried to lean in front of her.

  “Cecil what are you thinking of?

  She giggled and turned towards him. “You, kinda.”

  Crow grinned and sighed smugly, leaning back to where he was. “So what’s your thoughts on me?”

  Cecil took some of Misty’s goldfish to give herself time to collect her thoughts and find a way to explain them. Crow respected this and got up to grab a glass of water, putting himself far enough away so he wasn’t pressuring her to talk or making it awkward but still staying close enough that she could easily start talking whenever she needed.

  “Just kinda thinking about,” she hesitated. Cecil knew she had to talk about her and Crow eventually, but did it have to be now? “All of us, technically.”

  He looked up from his glass. “Meaning?”

  She shuffled anxiously in her seat. “Well I’m thinking about you, June, and Xavier but also not June and Xavier.”

  Pouring the rest of his water down the sink, Crow came back into the living room and sat beside her. “So just me then. Like you said at first.”

  “Well yeah I guess. When we were at the amusement park when we were talking about all of us and I said that thing about, like, us, and I’ve just been thinking about that. It’s harder than it usually is to decide with this.”

  They both smiled at each other. Crow reached over and straightened the blanket hanging off her shoulders. “Anything I can do to help?” She stared out the window on the other side of the room watching Misty and Enzo hula hoop in the backyard. Crow followed her gaze and ended up so entertained by Enzo beating Misty at hula hooping he almost didn’t notice Cecil hooking their pinkies together.

  “I really don’t know.”

  “Take your time, I don’t need a response any time soon.”

  “Yeah I know you don’t but-”

  Crow cut her off, gently turning her towards him. “I know you wanna make everyone happy, Cecil, but it’s really none of their business and if either of them try to convince you otherwise then maybe they aren’t worth it.”

  Cecil thought about this as she pulled the blanket tighter around herself. “Neither Xavier or June would do that, I just wanna make it easy and less complicated if I can.”

  “I know you want to make it easier for everyone, you’re sweet like that, but you shouldn’t make a choice just for someone else. If you don’t like me like that it’s just fine and if you do that’s great too. Anybody would be lucky to have you but I don’t want to have you just because someone else said so.”

  Cecil looked down at their fingers brushing against each other. She wrapped her fingers around his wrist, pulled up his sleeve, and turned his arm to see it better. The sudden change in attitude and the bizarreness of what she was doing kinda freaked him out.

  "What."

  Cecil broke out into a wide smile, slightly sticking her tongue between her teeth, as she traced his patches of light skin with her index finger. "Would you maybe be open to me painting you sometime? I could map it all out on your arm and do cool colours on the lighter skin and warmer colours on the rest of it or vice versa depending on the design. I could map out a bunch of ideas in my sketchbook and you could pick one, oh it'd be so fun Crow please"

  "Sure. If you draw out a bunch of designs I'll pick two. One for each arm." She beamed and laughed in excitement as she took photos of his arms for reference. Sitting on the couch with him she couldn't really understand what Misty had said.

  "Hey, did you hear what your sister said earlier?"

  Crow turned backwards away from Cecil so she could get photos of the back of his arms. He shrugged and asked which part of it.

  "Me being hard to read?"

  "Yeah, Misty said it sympathetically and when I first met you again I totally thought the same thing but you're not like that anymore. I mean kinda with June."

  Instead of turning back around, Crow leaned backwards so he was laying beside her. "I don't really know how to explain it," he stretched his arms above his head. "People get all anxious when they don't understand me so I usually exaggerate myself. I don't really need to around June and I do it more around you and emo cause it's less tiring. I don't do it at home."

  The couch creaked as she laid down beside him, purposefully stretching her arms so they'd bump into his. "I understand that."