Colors Part II

Everything is Blue: I

As I run my fingers through my dark, dry hair I regret all of the years I insisted on dying it. It would have been fine to at least continue dying the very tips of my hair when I went through my somewhat rebellious phase, but over the years I slowly transitioned into dying my entire head and shook people off when they said I was a living smurf walking around with blue hair. And although now my hair is back to its natural color, it still remains dried out from years of lack of care.

I remember when I first dyed it, I was so scared of my mom finding out. Thinking about it now, I can't believe that dying my hair and waiting to see my mothers reaction was my biggest problem. I was sixteen, a good girl and afraid of her words at times. I spent every day with my nose in a notebook, my head in the clouds and occasionally walked myself over to the coffee shop where I spent even more time writing or having my head in the clouds. But now, I find myself drinking the same drink I've had since I was sixteen. It's been five years and for the past two of them, I've been coming in a lot more lately, ordering a drink and sitting near the back where I allowed myself to work on the manuscript of my first novel for hours on end until it was complete.

After the summer of my sixteenth year, I started writing more than just my silly short stories and poems. I began working on a bigger project that consisted of weeks straight of just writing, tirelessly editing until 4am and contacting anyone I could find online that had anything to do with publishing. One week after my nineteenth birthday, I got the call. There was a publishing company that wanted to talk to me about my manuscript. I suddenly thought of all those long nights and reclaimed them as worth it instead of just looking at them as another day where I couldn't sleep. There was nothing more exciting than holding my first book in my hands.

Everyone loved the idea of writing about two girls falling in love, which was what my book was about. But no one knew that a lot of the things that happened in my book, actually happened to me. There were many things that related to my life at the time I wrote it and I had no idea it would go anywhere else except for my laptop and my own two blue eyes. I didn't know that people would now read about the painful nights I faced after possibly the best summer I ever had ended. Although my book isn't best seller, its nice when I walk into the coffee shop on a late Sunday night and a young girl comes up to me just to tell me they loved my writing.

Between writing and taking some college courses, I keep myself somewhat busy living on campus in a small dorm room. My roommate tries to get me to go drinking a lot now that we're both 21, but I'm that one girl who stays in on her laptop all night. And it really hasn't been that bad, I'm fine with staying in my comfort zones. But now, in a place I would usually feel the most comfortable, I felt completely out of touch when a flash of red hit the corner of my eye. My body went numb, the way it always does when I think I've seen her, but it's always someone else. It's never been her. Biting the inside of my lip and turning slowly on my heels towards the end of the bar at the coffee shop, I held my breath and began gasping for air when I saw the girls figure. Her hair wasn't nearly as bright, but still red. She had the same hips and same build. Her hands rested against the bar and she turned her head just slightly to watch the barista make her drink. I looked over. She was making a latte macchiato. There's no way it could be her. She hates coffee. She always has. It's not her.

The girl with bright hair turns her head more to take her drink from the barista, and that's when I see it. The red pandora bracelet around her wrist. I look up and see the definition in her jawline, the one I knew. Naturally red lips, the ones I fell in love with. The scatter of freckles on her shoulders, the ones I claimed as stars upon her skin all those nights I found myself kissing her body. I gasped, alarming an old lady behind me waiting for her drink.

"Darling, are you alright? You look pale!" Her wrinkled hand touched my arm. I turned away and faced her.

"Yes, I'm fine," I assured her. "Thank you."