Prismatics (Sweet Pea x Betty)

Smaragdine

Smaragdine: Pertaining to emerald-green in color

The first color Betty ever saw was green. It was a deep green, something she imagined the rainforest would look like if it were ever anything other than the monotonous gray and white she saw day to day.

She was six, and at that point, had heard adults talking about this strange colored world, one she did not know what they meant, not in any real way.

Betty may not have many memories from her young childhood. Most of the memories she holds she knows are faux, in such a way that it's her parents describing events to her that she has committed from memory. The 'memory' of Betty dancing in the streets after a big storm where nearly all the roads were flooded comes from a picture on her father's desk. She looks at it and sometimes thinks she does recall that time, but she's also not sure if she'd remember it if the photo wasn't there. Or, the time she found a stray cat and dragged it all the way back home despite it clawing at her arms because Betty just knew it needed a little TLC, she has a video of. She thinks maybe, if she tries hard enough, she can bring forth the thought of the scratches that marred her skin for weeks (and of course, she wore it proudly), but once again, she's sure the narrative has been tainted by her mother's hatred of that mangy animal or her father's sighs when she retells it.

There is only one memory that Betty knows is her own, unblemished and still perfect to this very day.

The day she saw that greenish hue, in the middle of Riverdale.

She knows it can't be fabricated because no one else around her saw that color. No one else in her family could have known why she was suddenly distracted at the supermarket, in the aisle near the check-out lines where there was a small assembly of toys.

Betty and Polly did not want for much. Betty could admit now that she was spoiled, so it was not as though her feet led her to the collection of dollar-store toys because she felt the need for one, it's because she saw the flicker of something else as her eyes scanned the aisles of food and wares. Like she was pulled on a string, Betty escaped her mother's grip and stumbled over to the wooden shelving units.

"What's that, Betty?" Polly asked, jumping after her.

Betty grabbed the toy off the shelf, staring at it with unbridled awe, her hands digging into the plush softness. She ran a finger over the fuzzy length, moving the fur and watching the colors shift if even a shade lighter as the color underneath was revealed.

And she was just about to ask, "Well, can't you see it?" because it was so obvious why Betty was enchanted and she couldn't understand why Polly wasn't shaking with joy either until she looked at Polly's dubious face. She picked up the toy, as though searching for the meaning of the universe.

That's when Betty understood. Polly did not see the color.

So, she told no one.

"Get away from that!" Alice snapped, grasping it out of Betty's hands and putting it high on a shelf, "You have much better toys at home. That would fall apart in a day. God, you give me such a headache, Elizabeth." She said, but Betty did not understand the amount of anger she was seeing from her mother right now. It didn't seem to match up. Other than she knew that Mother always had a headache. This was nothing new.

"But, mom, I-,"

"Elizabeth Cooper, not another word," Alice said in a tone that Betty knew meant 'shut up or else', "If you continue on like a spoiled child, we won't go to the library for another book."

Betty gasped out loud. This was about the most severe threat her mother could make to her at the tender age of six.

She had just finished reading the latest Nancy Drew, and of course, she was itching for the next one. She'd always been an early reader.