You’re still blue. But you’re pink also. So pretty and bright.
You should tell Audrey your colors. She put them on you.
“I—” That one word caught in my throat and I choked around its sound.
As I coughed awkwardly, Audrey unleashed a smile that left me breathless and convinced I’d die in this moment, finally a happy man. She held my gaze as she said, “You don’t have to say anything,” and it occurred to me that she didn’t believe her feelings would be reciprocated. And how was it that she could seem so perfectly content in settling for something so sad and mediocre?
The remainder of my bricks fell with the crushing realization. Ignoring the pain in my busted hand, I reached out to lay my palm against her cheek. “Jake told me to tell you that you put the colors on me,” I confessed.
“What colors are those?”
“Blue,” I told her, and with a deep breath, added, “and pink.”
Audrey’s recognition hit her in small doses. First, with the lift of her chin, and then, the parting of her lips. She nodded slowly and whispered, “That’s the color of love.”
I nodded, knowing nothing else needed to be said, but needing to say it anyway. “For the first time in my life, I made the decision to feel hurt and angry with someone else and not alone. You make me so fucking vulnerable, Audrey, and I hate it so much. I fucking hate that I don’t have a choice in any of this shit, and that nothing makes sense anymore. But I love you, and I guess that’s all that really needs to make sense.”
Her smile wobbled as her emotional control slipped away with tears that flooded her eyes and slipped over her cheeks. I brushed away what I could with sweeps of my thumbs, but the battle was impossible and I succumbed to the defeat, settling for a kiss instead. I relished in the wet warmth of her tears against my face, the salt that moistened her lips and mine, and the taste of passionate joy on her tongue as she kissed me with the strength of every confession she held in her heart.
Nimble hands gripped my cheeks and inked hands gripped hers, and when her forehead touched mine, she whispered, “Thank you, Blake.”
“The hell are you thanking me for?”
Shrugging, she smiled and smoothed the hair at my temples. “For letting it happen.”
I choked on a gruff chuckle. “I don’t think I ever had a say.”
“But you stopped fighting it,” she pointed out gently.
Audrey’s mother announced her presence with an awkward clearing of her throat. Unable to control her smile, Audrey released my face and went to change into her pajamas, leaving her mother to wrap my hand. Ann worked in a gentle silence, periodically taking a glance at my eyes to smile. Her touch alone was a healing agent, soothing and softly affectionate. I watched as she weaved the bandage meticulously and tightly, but not so much it cut off the circulation, and I could understand why she’d chosen to care for people for a living. It’s who she was. But whether it was simply her professional bedside manner, or a true affection toward me, I relished in her touch and in being cared for.
When she was done, she gave my bandaged hand a soothing rub before laying it on the table. “You should be fine until tomorrow, but you’re going to the doctor whether you like it or not, got it?”
With an obedient nod, I replied, “Got it.”
“No more punching refrigerators, okay?” She smiled warmly, crinkling her eyes.
I chuckled. “I’ll try not to.”
Her smile slowly faded as she packed away the rest of her bandages in a zippered bag. Then, with sincerity, she turned to me and said, “I don’t know if it’s my place to say something, but after the way you showed up here tonight, I feel like I should.”
“Okay,” I said, nodding and permitting her to continue.
Folding her hands against the table, she went on, “I don’t know what the situation is with your family, but I do know how close you are with your brother. What your parents are doing to you is abhorrent. But not just for you, but Jake as well. As a mother, and knowing how you two are together, I couldn’t imagine separating you.”
I sucked in a deep, controlled breath before saying, “I guess they think they’re doing what’s best for him. And I don’t know, maybe they think that keeping him out of my place is going to help me, so I guess—”
“Honey,” she stopped me with a term of endearment that made me want to crawl inside her chest and call her my own, “it doesn’t take a doctor or specialist to know what’s best for the both of you.”
The comment was sobering. Eye-opening, even, and I began to wonder if it really was that obvious to everyone. And if it was, then why didn’t my parents see it, too?
Or did they?
“I always knew what was best for my girls,” Ann continued, revealing in her sorrowful smile the perpetual sadness of losing one of her daughters. “Did Audrey tell you Sabrina was a lesbian?”
I shook my head. “No, she didn’t mention that.”
Ann nodded and fiddled with a ring on her middle finger. “It was an adjustment for her father and me. Truthfully, we didn’t take the news all that well, and now, I look back on that night with so much embarrassment, because why does it matter, really?” She shook her head at the rhetorical question before going on, “But even still, when I met the woman she had fallen in love with, I fell in love with her, too. Because I knew right away that she was what was best for my daughter.”
Then, she reached out and tapped my good hand once. “That’s how I felt meeting you for the first time.”
Snorting, I replied, “Oh, I’m sure that was great for you.”
“It was,” she answered without hesitating. “The way Audrey looked at you, I knew you were exactly what she needed. She was broken for a long time after losing Sabrina. We all were, but she took it the hardest. She hid it well—she had to, to be what Freddy needed—but deep down, she was battling something dark. You put the light back in her soul.”
I could only nod, absorbing her words and knowing there was truth in that for me as well. Audrey had glimpsed the darkness in my chest and lit a match. She’d started a fire and given me the reason to believe I could, in fact, have a soul. Something bound only to flesh in this life, something with the capability to move from this world into another. It felt crazy, but wasn’t everything?
Ann laughed gently. “And no, maybe you’re not who I would’ve picked for her. You’re a little more, uh, decorated,” she tapped one of my fingers, “than I maybe would’ve preferred. But God doesn’t always package the best ones in what we’d expect. That’s what makes them harder to find. And more worth the wait.”
“Hm,” I grunted contemplatively, lifting one side of my mouth into a lopsided smile.
“I bet she’s not exactly what you expected either, huh?”
“Nope,” I laughed.
Audrey returned to her small kitchen, freshly showered and wearing a pair of shorts and a sweatshirt I’d left behind a couple of weekends ago. At the sight of her, standing there in my shirt, I felt ragged and worn, exhausted and ready to curl up in her warm bed. To forget about this day for just a few peaceful hours of sleep.
Ann excused herself with one last pat against my hand, and the moment the front door was closed, my shoulders slumped and my eyes closed against the weight of weariness sitting heavily on my back. Audrey wrapped her arms around my shoulders and pressed my head to her chest.