Colors

One

Blue.

I looked around and fixed my hair in my mirror before cleaning my face and brushing my teeth. The same routine as always.

I usually got the bus to school, but I slept in today which meant that I had to walk. Well, run.

I left the house, my backpack over one shoulder as I locked the door behind me and started along the same path as always, my feet hitting the solid blue pavement. When I got to the corner of the street, I looked out over the city, smiling to myself as I saw the skyline, split into areas of different colours.

As a kid, I always thought it was beautiful how they set out the city like that, with the different colours sectioned off. But now I just feel trapped. It's not that I get sick of seeing my own colour, because that's how it is and that's how it's been as long as anyone can remember, but sometimes I catch myself daydreaming about what it would be like if everyone lived together, to see blues and reds and yellows and greens all crossing together and meeting. I think that would look beautiful.

But that's not how it works.

So I continued toward the all too familiar school gates which had been etched into my memory, from passing them day after day. I couldn't wait for the day I didn't have to move between them, the day I didn't have to experience the dread that filled my body. I looked around at all of the familiar faces, slightly different shades of blue, and yet all the same.

I mean, school wasn't too bad, I guess. I wasn't exactly 'nerdy', but I definitely wasn't popular. I was just me. No one bothered me, and I didn't bother anyone. Oh, except for my best friend Alex. Alex and I were as close as two people can be. We grew up living next door to each other, like all of those friends in the movies you see. Our parents were best friends too. We shared everything.

Even our sexuality, although if anyone found out, who knows what would happen.

We were both gay. Which really wasn't something that was accepted. Apparently other cities welcomed it with open arms, but not here. That's a story for another time, though.

Alex and I always spent lunch together and had fun, but that didn't really make class any less boring. Teachers loved me and always gave me good marks, but it was hard to find joy in that.

It was all just so... Blue.

I walked home after the last bell of the day rang out across the school, but I almost always took a detour from the path that the rest of the students followed on their way to their houses, sneaking off into a park a few blocks before my house. There was a hill where if you sat in just the right place, you could see down into the yellow city. I always thought that the people living there would look ridiculous until the moment when I actually saw them. They're not the harsh, blinding yellow you would assume, instead a nice pale yellow with hints of brighter colours on some people. It was really quite beautiful.

I wished I could see the more than just the buildings of the other cities. I'm sure red and green and pink and orange are beautiful. Maybe one day.

I had to push those thoughts to the back of my mind as I stood up, remembering that we weren't supposed to think about what it was like beyond our cities.

Blue was who I was, and there was no changing that.

Go to school, get a job, find a wife, raise a family, retire, die.

That's it. That was my life, and the life of everyone I walked past every day. A sentence. Obviously no one was too happy about it, but there was nothing we could do. I remember talking to Alex about it one night, we were looking at the stars in my backyard and talking about the future.

"Do you think you'll ever get married? You know, to a girl?"

I was always the first person to start these conversations, but he was more than happy to think about it with me.

"I don't know. I guess I will. I'll probably marry a lesbian and we can see other people. No one has to know."

"I'd rather die."

"Don't say that, Scott! You know it has to happen."

"You never know, I could run away and live somewhere else..."

"Like where? Red? Green? Orange? You'd stand out like... Well like a blue amongst red..."

Alex's voice had dropped to a whisper now, we couldn't risk anyone hearing our conversation.

"Maybe there's somewhere else..."

"There's nowhere else. You need to accept that."

"I guess... Hey Allie?"

"Yes?"

"Can I kiss you?"

And I never really forgot the feeling of his lips on mine. They were different from the girls I'd kissed, when I was trying to convince myself that I was straight. But there was still something missing. It was like kissing a sibling, and he felt the same, but it didn't ruin our friendship or anything like that.

We just never spoke about it again.

There usually wasn't much to do when I got home, except homework or video games.

I picked video games.

When I was at a yard sale once I found a video game that had a green character and a red character, and other characters of all colours. It was the most amazing thing I'd ever seen. Of course it wasn't on sale, it was on the top of a pile of trash nearby.

So I took it.

I felt so guilty for the rest of the week, I'd twitch whenever anyone looked at me and I'd panic even more when people asked to talk to me. There was one time I walked past a police officer and almost had a complete panic attack.

It was all in my head though, because nobody knew. It's been two years now, and it's still my own little secret. I want to show Alex, because I know that he'll be a lot of fun to play the game with, but it's kind of like having a favourite song. The kind that you want to sing from the rooftops and tell everyone about, but you never do because it's yours. It's your favourite song and no one else's.

This was my game and no one else's. It was my experience of how the world could be if everything wasn't so blue.

At the sun started to set, I pulled on a sweater and walked out to my backyard just in time to see Alex coming over the fence. He'd lay with me and we'd look at the sunset until it faded into the stars, and we'd watch them too.

It was almost a ritual, you know? Watching the sunset, talking for a while about anything that came to mind, and then Alex going home. We didn't always talk, sometimes we ran out of things to say, so we just watched the sky.

It was the only time we got to see something that wasn't blue, white, or black. And it was always breathtaking.

Sometimes I'd fall asleep out there to avoid having to talk to my family.