It was dark. So, so dark. The blackness that wrapped suffocating arms around her was pulling, yanking at the long strands of fiery hair that lashed pale cheeks. Tear stains glittered in the darkness. It was cold. So, so cold. The frigid wind burned her throat as she took tremulous gasps. Freezing gusts seared the delicate skin on her nose and fingertips, stripping them bare, leaving them red, raw and stinging.
Everything around her was silent. Her drumming heart shook the town with its tempestuous storm. Streets tilted and houses trembled as she ran. The harsh slapping of pounding feet ricocheted sporadically through icy air. She ran on. Spindly fingers grasped at the soft scarf wrapped tightly around her neck, catching her shaky breaths. The puffs of warm air crystallised on brightly-coloured yarn. She ran past the dark, dead homes lining the street. She ignored the garbage-filled bins. Green and brown. Green and brown. Green and brown. She disregarded everything until it was all a blur of whirling darkness, writhing and impenetrable, seeping through her thin clothes, soaking into her body.
She couldn’t see. Everything was out of focus.
Then she was falling. The white canvas of her smooth palms became sullied, dirtied. Red. Her falling body scattering tiny pebbles as she hit unforgiving earth, sending them spraying out in billows of sharp sound. Inhaling breathless pants of biting air, she stumbled weakly onto shaking feet, her limbs numb, and staggered forwards in the darkness, barely able to lift her heavy legs. She wanted to close her eyes as a car sped past her, whipping up the floaty edges of her cream sundress. She desperately yearned to block out that bright, blinding light that branded her weak eyes. But she kept them open. She let the light in to burn out all the darkness.
The tears started to fall.
It’s 2007. High school. She’s beautiful, popular and so far up the social ladder that she could almost touch the moon. Scratch that. She’s way past that stinky block of mouldy cheese. Little Miss Amara Collins is a shining star, perfect and wonderful. They love her. Everyone adores her. Strutting through the corridors, heels tapping that staccato beat onto polished stone, every head turns. And every pair of eyes widen at the Queen of Carmen High’s glowing wonder.
She’s amazing, people whisper as she passes, she can do everything. And it’s true. There’s no point denying it. Calling herself perfect is not hubristic if she is honestly top of the top. Music? Piano, violin, flute, clarinet. There’s guitar too, but that’s more of a hobby. It’s not as though she’s won three different county-level awards for her performances. It’s really not. She sings in her spare time too; people say that she has the voice of an angel and the sass of a diva. But music doesn’t really interest her.
Her grades are perfect too. Straight A*s across every subject. Once, she only got 97% in a test, but that was only because she had been away for three weeks on a modelling photo-shoot in the Swiss Alps for a ski-clothes company. There had been no time for her to revise. It had been a complete surprise. But studies only bore her. They aren’t stimulating.
She’s brilliant at sports too, leading her school to many a national title. Her normal, cool, calm, I’m-far-too-beautiful-for-you personality is replaced by a collected and focused tigress whenever she plays. She’s devoted to sports and she loves to win. Seeing the smiles of insane joy on her teammates’ faces when they win gold gives her a slight, bubbly feeling in the pit of her stomach. The crazy high of winning cracks her icy mask just a little – a small chip on a frozen mountain. But she still isn’t challenged.
There are thousands of other reasons why Amara Collins is perfect but there’s really no time for all of them. If you want to know them all, Head of the Amara Fan club, Betty George will tell you all. But for the rest of you, the only final thing you need to know is that The Queen of Carmen High is beautiful. Not ‘beautiful’ in the way that pretty, blonde Barbie-dolls from American high school dramas are beautiful, but in that simple, time-defying way that took your breath away, before dumping you on the moon with no spacesuits or a handy oxygen tank.
It sounds cheesy and cliché. But what can you do when it’s the truth?
She’s perfect yet empty. And oh so bored. She fills her every minute with wild activity, never giving herself a moments rest. And yet here she is, Year 11 and already a jaded old woman. Every day is the same monotonous cycle of wake up, school, clubs, friends, and sleep, broken up by the occasional meal. But one day, her perfect (so damn boring) life gets another little addition. In her younger years at Carmen High, she had been asked out by many guys, and had turned them all down nonetheless. She had no time for a relationship. They didn’t give up though. But after four years of constant rejection, her stream of suitors has slowed to just a trickle, perhaps a couple a week, as most of them had moved on to easier pickings.
There is this boy though that will just not give up. Ever. He had relentlessly badgered her since the moment they met. She still remembered that first day in Year 7, wandering around the school, head held high, sneering down at others as if she already owned the place. She remembered being stopped by a small cough. Having nowhere better to be, she stopped and glanced over her shoulder to see. Well. Nothing that impressive.
He was short and slim, with a crazy afro of untameable black curls. Nerdy glasses sat on a slightly crooked nose, magnifying his wide eyes. A terrible case of acne was scrawled across his forehead. Essentially, he was someone Amara would not touch with a ten foot long pole. Yet something about him made her stop her tapping feet. Something kept her from high-tailing out of there. He opened his mouth and just stood there for several moments, gawping at her.
She remembered an eyebrow being raised. Slowly.
So with fumbling words and stumbling hands, he asked whether it was alright for him to breathe her precious air, whether she could spare a few moments of her priceless time to have a coffee with him and then went on with some psychobabble she didn’t pretend to understand. Obviously, she turned him down. It was a little endearing the way he was so nervous about talking to her - the trickling sheen of sweat was clear for all to see – but he was honest, and that was something Amara would encounter little of in her future years at Carmen High.
It’s been four years since that day and still, every Monday, he is standing in that exact spot, waiting for her. Waiting to ask her out for coffee. Never ‘I love you’, never ‘please date me’. Always ‘wanna come out with me for a coffee?’. And every Monday she will make sure she passes that spot in the Maths corridor. She will stop and raise that eyebrow at his question. And she will always turn him down. Again. And again. And again. His question is always met with a small, distant smile and a slight shake of her pretty head. Then he smiles back – a small, sad smile – and watches as she walks away.
They never talk outside of their little ritual. She doesn’t sit with him at lunch or pair up with him during class. She doesn’t even bat a mascara-coated eyelash when he’s tripped over ‘accidently’ in PE or when his lunch is ‘carelessly’ knocked to the floor. They aren’t friends. They’re not even acquaintances. They are something else entirely.
But one day, the ritual is changed. One of her hockey teammates finds them in that corridor. She witnesses their secret ritual and has a crazy idea. She tells Amara to agree to his request and go on a date with him. She tells her to be really nice to him – to ‘play him along’. Then they could have fun destroying him.
“Not that there’s much of a social reputation left to destroy,” she giggles, tossing her blonde ponytail over her slim, pale shoulder.
“Hmmm…” is all that Amara deigns to reply. Hockey teammate number 7 is not important. She’s boring.
And so on the next Monday, in that little corner of the maths corridor, he’s standing there, asking that question in a shaky, breathless voice. And she replies with a small distant smile and a slight nod of her pretty head. He stares. Blinks. And then laughs. This surprises her. He finds it funny?
“I can’t believe it,” he whispers. “I can’t bloody believe it.”
And so the date to the coffee shop is set. And all of the hockey team are waiting for Amara to rip this nerdy, little guy apart.
It’s quiet. The warm, homely coffee shop that he takes her to is very different from the super-commercialised ones she’s used to frequenting with her teammates. The soft jingling of bells ring out in the cold November air as he opens the door for her, daring to meet her eyes with a quick, shy glance. He leads her to a table nestled near the back of the shop, tucked away from the hustle and bustle of chattering clients and dashing baristas, weaving through the cramped tables in a constant, circus balancing act. The cushion sighs softly under her weight as she lowers herself down, placing interlocked fingers on the greased table before her. She winces. Perhaps it’s time she cut down a little on the calories. Her friends are far too convincing with careless attitudes and endless supplies of ice-cream ‘girl-dates’.
He’s staring at her. That’s nothing new and it shouldn’t make her feel uncomfortable. She’s used to it. His eyes are bright in the semi-darkness of the coffee shop, gleaming with a kind of light that she has never seen before in anyone at Carmen. A waitress comes to take their order as if they were in a high-end restaurant. She orders a low-fat mocha and he a roasted espresso with a shot of caramel. She wrinkles her pert nose in disgust. So much can be learnt about a person from their preference in coffee.
A nervous twiddle of the thumbs. It’s been going on for ten minutes now as they wait in silence for their orders to arrive. He opens his mouth to speak. Once. Twice. Five times. Desperate to break the awkward silence between them. Yet he backs down every time. She had wanted to seem less intimidating for their date, in order to make things a little more comfortable between them. No makeup. Check. Glasses instead of contacts. Check. Simple jeans and tee-shirt. She shudders. Check. Simple, loose ponytail. Check. Completely unthreatening expression. Check?
“Imnotverygoodatthis,” he chokes out finally, clamping his mouth tight as soon as the hurried string of unintelligible letters was spat out.
There is another long pause.
Their coffee arrives in all its piping-hot, glorious glory.
She reaches out and wraps her freezing hands around the steaming mug, revelling in the rush of warmth.
She takes a sip.
Another wrinkle of her pert nose.
No sweetener.
Yuck.
Silence falls again, broken only by the gulping sounds of two teens swallowing mouthfuls of scalding coffee. There’s no talk, no laughter. Nothing that would be expected on a first date. But they weren’t friends, let alone an ‘item’. They were different. And so no words were exchanged. Once they had finished their coffees, they left without saying goodbye. No mobile numbers. No chaste kiss. No heated blush and tingling rush of fluttering butterflies.
They meet again the next Monday. He asks her on a coffee date and she agrees. And the next Monday, and the Monday after that. Without realising it, their little maths corridor ritual has become a coffee shop meeting. Half an hour of blissful, peaceful silence, filled with coffee-related joy. No talking. No ‘friendliness’. Just coffee. And those Monday afternoons were to be the happiest times of Amara’s life.
Her friends mock her though. They don’t understand why she would want to hang out with a nerdy guy when she could have fun with them. Nevertheless, she never misses a single one of their coffee breaks. One day, when exams where almost upon them, he takes out a chemistry revision guide and asks her for her help on nanotechnology, claiming he doesn’t understand the concept behind nanotubes. Somewhat doubtful of the truth behind this statement (he was the only person who had gotten higher than her in the last test), she agrees anyway. They don’t talk much, and whenever they do it is completely focussed on the task at hand. But that day, they stay for an extra hour, buried in the intricacies of science at nano-scale.
As exam pressure mounts, they begin to have meetings every Friday as well. Stacks of books are always piled up around them as the two converse softly over the benefits of using regenerative breaking systems in road cars. For the first time in her life, Amara feels just a little challenged. He talks about new inventions, tells her all about the latest innovations in science that his family discuss over the dinner table. He’s interesting. His mind is fascinating.
Exams are over and her summer is filled with pool parties and beach trips with friends. Nevertheless, every Monday finds her sitting in that dark niche, drinking coffee with the most interesting person in her life. They continue their debates on worldly topics. It never gets heated, just calm arguments presented with logical facts and statistics pulled from their immense memories.
When they begin sixth form, she moves to a posh private school in central London. It’s tiring, getting up every morning at 5 o’clock, but the teachers there are more skilled. Her studies take up more time in her life. She forgets about her hockey teammates. She stops playing the guitar. Things change but she adjusts quickly, slipping into the top clique at her new school without any effort. Her father moves away. No explanation. He’s just gone. Her mother cries for days, smashing photos, curling up in the bed-far-too-big-for-one, and ignores her.
On 1st April 2009, she starts her first job working at their coffee shop. Now, she’s one of those baristas that dash around, balancing drink on perfectly circular trays. It takes her a few tries to perfect the technique. Their coffee breaks become the only constant in her life, so she makes sure to schedule her free time every Monday and Friday afternoon from 4 to 5. She meets up with him and they talk. Without realising it, she has become dependent on those lively debates. Those shining, unworldly eyes are the only things clear to her in a world of swirling colour.
On 6th November 2009, he breaks tradition. He buys her a pecan and maple Danish pastry. She thanks him, splits it in two and they eat it together. Slowly, they work their way through everything offered by the café. But at home, her mother isn’t getting any better. She’s too quiet, too loud. She screams silently, yells nothing, and waves her arms through empty air, hitting nobody. Quicker than they can work through the café’s dessert menu, her mother is falling apart.
On 18th July 2010, she graduates sixth form with flying colours and her mother dies. She doesn’t cry at the funeral five days later. Her mother left her a long time ago. That Friday, she sits down in the coffee shop and tells him she’s going to UCL to study biochemistry. He tells her that he’s going to UCL to study biochemistry too. It’s a strange coincidence but his words make her feel safe. Secure. Everything about him is secure.
University is cool. The studying is hard and the assignments are a pain on a good day, but it’s fun. Especially because she shares some of her lectures with him. They spend more time together and migrate their meetings to a homely restaurant a few streets away from their dorms. Together, they decide to start from the top of the menu and work their way down. It takes a while to get settled somewhere that’s not their niche but the food is warm and filling. The colours start to settle again, but those blue eyes burn brighter than ever.
When the second year of university rolls around, they move into a small studio near the college. It’s cramped, the shower doesn’t work, it’s too hot in the summer and too cold in the winter but it’s safe. And secure. Because she is with him. They both work part time to support the rent. Amara is still a barista at their café and he works for a small bookshop where he sorts books. Money is tight but his parents send him a stipend every month so they survive.
Another year later and they both graduate with first-class honours. He decides to continue his studies but she wants to start work. So together they hunt for jobs around the city and write her CV. He comes with her to every interview, telling her that missing a few lessons won’t hurt him as much as if she felt alone. It goes on for many months and she’s about to give up. She wonders why she bothered to study so hard when no one bloody cares. When she starts to cry, he holds her for hours, rocking her, telling her that he cares about her, he cares so much, too much. She told him she cares about him too.
Finally, she lands a job in a research facility in a mediocre university. She’s ecstatic and he’s so happy for her. They buy a bottle of cheap champagne and drink it over Chinese takeout. At the end of the meal, he leans forward and kisses her. It’s quick, barely a brush of their lips, yet it tingles pleasantly like alcohol. That night, she goes to sleep confused.
A few years down the line finds them living more comfortably, he’s finished his masters and finds a job in the inner city. Being the devoted worker, she gets promoted by the end of her first year so their combined paycheque is enough that they can start saving little bits for the future. Neither are big spenders so the money in their bank accounts swell, and both begin to have ideas about how to spend it.
On 6th November 2016, he invites her back to their coffee shop. Together they make their winding path to their niche in the dark corner. They sit and then there’s silence. It has always been quiet between them, for them the old cliché ‘silence is golden’ means more than those words can speak. They order coffee when the bubbly waitress wanders over. A soft tenderness falls over their table. She stares down at the swirling groves of wood, tracing the concentric circles with a fingertip. Without offering an excuse, he leaves.
She sits and waits for her coffee. Out of the corner of her eye, she can see him arguing with the grumpy-looking man behind the till. He’s bent forwards, his glasses slightly fogged, hands jerking and fingers twitching in the way they did when he was nervous. The man grumbles something as he wipes glasses with a dirty cloth. She can see him shudder a little in disgust, nose wrinkled. He’s annoyed, she can tell, something’s not going to plan. He begins to gesture more wildly, arms almost pin wheeling, nearly taking the head off a poor barista wandering past. She pauses, probably to chastise him. But then she leans closer, intrigued. Suddenly, her loud laugh rings through the heady café air. She casts her a face-splitting smile. Amara wonders what he’s said that’s so funny.
The barista bustles of, but not before winking at him, the look of two people sharing a secret. Her stomach gives a little roll of discomfort. Minutes later, he returns, retaking his seat. He casts her a sweet smile, those blue eyes innocent and adoring. The light is so bright it burns. It hurts. But she stares back, deep into his cobalt pools. Then he turns away, and the light is sucked out of her. Immediately she feels fine goose bumps spreading over her bare arms. He’s watching the door that the barista had disappeared through earlier. The rolling is back.
When the doors are thrown open, he gives a little start. His dark curls bounce a little as his head gives a slight jerk in her direction. He begins to twiddle his thumbs, long fingers tightly interlocked. The barista is stalking towards them, her stride long and strong, very different to the usual stumbling weave. She has purpose. Her gaze locks with Amara’s. Her eyes are boring, a leaden, muddy green. Some may have called it emerald, or viridian glasz, but to her, they were dull. It doesn’t burn. She feels nothing. And yet she is compelled to close her eyes.
She stops at their table, her smile showing off too many perfect teeth. She must have been popular in high school, Amara thinks blearily, and now she’s working in a coffee shop.
Just like you.
She sets a plate down in front of her. Her nails are painted - a checkerboard of black and white. It’s pretty but tacky. Much like her. She can feel his gaze on her again, and it burns worse this time. She could feel her skin searing under his blazing blue scrutiny. She looks down at the plate and pauses. All the colours start to spin again. Blurring faster and faster. Her field of vision narrows down to the contents of the plate. She forgets about the smiling waitress. Her chest feels tight. It’s like the rolling but so much better. She lifts her heavy head; her neck had suddenly lost all ability to move. And her eyes burned again, stinging with salt. Slowly, she links fingers with him. Neither speak. Everything can be expressed without words. Actually, her whole world now boils down to four words, a disgusting dessert and beautiful blue.
On the cool expanse of white sits a simple pecan and maple Danish pastry. On the matted brown pastry layers, spotted with dark ochre nuts, piped in delicate snowy icing is:
Will you marry me?
She doesn’t need to reply. They both know her answer from the tightness with which she grips his hands and the simple silence that stretches between them. No one else notices their most precious moment but the barista. A mere tilt of plump lips is the only reaction to their lodging milestone. A few words hover in the air. And then they are left alone.
Everything from that moment is a confusing spiral of events. They merge their bank accounts and start house hunting. They decide on a comfortable flat on the south bank of the river. It’s nothing impressive but it’s theirs. They can decorate in whatever way they want. She’s so excited. After buying half the DIY store, they giggle and laugh their way through self-decorating their new home. They make a mess but everything’s perfect. The living room is painted vivacious red, the bathroom a cool, timeless blue and their bedroom walls are slathered in plush burgundy.
A year later, they get married. It’s a private ceremony. Neither have many relatives or friends. The day is theirs and their alone. She’s beautiful in miles of silky satin, a fiery angel risen from hell but dressed in the garb of a servant of heaven. That day is the first time red becomes more vibrant to her than his blue. But that night, the purple of their bedroom seems more like a rich indigo in the fading light of the setting sun, splaying their hopes and dreams across their walls.
Life is content. All the colours are now ordered in a double rainbow, one for him and one for her. One day, their rainbows begin to split, merge and create a third. When they find out, he’s over the moon with excitement; he never shuts up about how beautiful she is and how amazing their future’s going to be. He’s so thrilled to be having a family. She’s not sure how to feel. The idea of having something living to prove the solidity of the blending of their colours sends bursts of warm through her body. But she’s so, so scared. The idea of being responsible for a tiny, fragile life causes her to wake up in cold sweats and bring up the rolling content of her stomach in panic.
It’s nice to see how concerned he is over her. Every time she feels a little under the weather, he’s there to hold her and whisper sweet words into her ear. Many nights, they simply sit on the sofa, wrapped up in each other’s warmth, relaxed and free from worries. After four months, she starts to show. Her belly swells. And she hates it. She can’t fit into any of her clothes any more, her hair is lank and oily and her complexion pale with dark smudges under tired eyes. It’s so desperately embarrassing. Her colleagues gush and coo over the growing bump but they would occasionally let slip careless comments: ‘are you sure you should be eating anymore? I’ve heard that it’s not as easy to lose weight after pregnancy as you think’. She knows they mean nothing by it but that doesn’t stop her cheeks from flushing every single time. It stings more than anything. Beauty had always been her greatest pride. Her appearance was something no one could disregard. They would look at her and think yes, she’s beautiful. She’s not vain. Not really. But it still hurts.
He notices. Of course he does. He knows everything about her and more. He’s good at comforting her too. He buys her the food she wants, never complains when she yells or snaps, and is always, always there to tell her over and over again that she is beautiful. It’s like having a tree to hug during a storm, a mast to cling to when the wave rolls in. The months blend together in a whirl of dark, murky colours interspersed with specks of shining light. She remembers feeling the first flutter of movement in her womb; she had imagined a tiny foot scraping against her flesh as she gasped in shock. The next few hours had been filled with warm huddling on their bed, four hands clasped over her stomach, laughing softly whenever there was another kick. His eyes had shone brighter than she had ever seen them. They were glowing in the dusky, winter light, a bright, bright blue. And it was so beautiful. He’s so beautiful. So different to her.
On 4th May 2018, their daughter Violet comes into their world. She captures her heart with her soft black curls and wraps Amara around her tiny fingers. She looks like him and it makes her cry with happiness. Through her tears, she sees weepy eyes open, lashes still sticky with unmentionable fluids. She can’t stop herself from feeling the tiniest twinge of sadness when she realises her eyes aren’t blue like his, they’re dull like hers. Dead like hers. It makes her cry for a different reason. She had hoped so much that their daughter would be different to her. She had desperately yearned for their little flower to shine with blue.
But it doesn’t matter much. Violet is perfect. And for a while they are deliriously happy. They move from their flat to the suburbs of London. They settle down and redecorate but that has to be taken care of by professionals as all of their time is consumed by Violet. She quits her job to look after their daughter full time. As she hands over her resignation form, she feels a tug in her heart. All the work she had done to get this job has all been rendered worthless. She goes home and is greeted with Violet’s screams. Hurriedly gathering her into her arms, she pats the sobbing baby’s back, rocking her gently, and begins to sing a lullaby. She finds a delicate hand wrapped tightly around her forefinger. Looking down into Violet’s rosy-cheeked face, she doesn’t regret giving up her career dreams one bit.
When her daughter reaches three years old and is old enough to join nursery, she finds a job working part-time at their local primary school. She learns to love working with children, their colours are so vibrant, their eyes so full of light and dreams. He continues with his job in London and gets promoted as one of the leading scientists in their institution. They can buy a nice car and he often gives her expensive presents. They can afford to send Violet to the best teachers and buy her anything she wants. Everything’s idyllic. But she should have known that soon things would begin to fall apart.
She remembers her physics lecturer telling them in the first year of her university course, “Order will always turn to chaos for that is the way of the universe.”
As Violet grows older, the house gets emptier. He’s constantly busy with his job and is hardly ever home in time for dinner. In an effort to try and stamp out the loneliness, she throws herself into her job. But nothing can divert her mind from the missing hole in her life. One afternoon it all gets too much and she rings him despite knowing that he’s leading an important seminar. She’s directed to his voicemail and can’t stop the tears. Leaving without signing out, she huddles up on the sofa and hugs a cushion tight in her shaking arms. The heavy weight of being so alone is overwhelming.
She lies on the sofa, staring blankly at the ceiling, until she hears the door slam open and loud, angry voices slap her in the face. But still, she refuses to move. He marches into the room, clothes rumpled and face red.
“Where were you?” he yells. He’s never raised his voice at her before. “You left her alone at the school. They had to call me to inform me that my daughter was alone and no one had picked up when they tried to ring you. Do you know how worried I was? I thought something bad had happened to you.”
He is panting by the end of his outburst, his cobalt eyes darkened to almost black. She gives a little shudder. When she doesn’t answer, he sighs. The anger seems to bleed out of him and the pretty blue returns. He’s back to being him. He wraps warm arms around her and she feels wanted again. Burying her head into the crook of his neck, she inhales deeply.
“I’m sorry.”
“I know.”
“I was alone.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Please don’t let it happen again.”
“I promise.”
Everything brightens for a while after that. He’s home almost every day to eat with them and their house is once more filled with compassionate warmth and joyful laughter. She applies to become the head of science at the school and they have a family celebration at a posh restaurant when she receives the reply She’s proud to an extent that she really shouldn’t be over a tiny job promotion but she can’t bring herself to give a damn, not when they’re so happy. A week after, they receive news that their daughter has been pick to participate in a county-wide dance competition. She had never been more proud of her baby girl.
The day of Violet’s big performance finds the whole family gathered around her bed, cooing at the glitter-coated explosion of a dress before them. It had been a pain to order in time for the dance but she had been adamant about having ‘a really nice sparkly, purple dress covered with diamonds’. The last part they managed to convince her to change to ‘pretty, glittery, princessy dolphin-shaped sequins’, but she had still refused all of the dresses Amara had managed to dig up at their local shop. With nowhere left to turn, seeing as neither of them could sew to save their lives, they were forced (by the power of The Puppy-dog Eyes) to spend way too much money online for a custom made dress. In her honest opinion, the thing is hideous but Violet had been overjoyed by the crazy sequins so it is money sort of well spent.
All dolled up and wrapped in a winter coat, she grabs them with her tiny hands and drags them out of the door.
“Sweetie, the keys are still inside!”
They speed down the motorway, Violet squealing in excitement every time she catches sight of a cow. The radio is playing the main-stream pop music that her daughter loves to lip-sync to. She can see him playing along with her, pretending to play an air-guitar as riffs strum out. She does the whole hair-whipping thing and they all break down, laughing.
“Violet, you’ve ruined your hair!”
It’s starting to get dark even though it’s only four o’clock. She flicks on the headlamps just in case. Her favourite song begins to play. It’s really old now, being popular when she was a girl in high school, and she’s surprised that the station is still airing it.
You think I’m pretty without any makeup on.
He gasps next to her.
“Stop the car Amara!”
She doesn’t react fast enough and they barrel into another car. She’s jerked forwards before slamming back into the cushion seat that now feels like it’s made of concrete. The airbag in her face is suffocating her. She can’t see.
“Violet?”
“Amara?”
He calls out to her but she can’t find the breath to reply.
You brought me to life.
“Are you two okay?”
“Daddy? Mummy?”
Her daughter’s scared. They’re both worried about her. She isn’t replying to them. Tears leak out from wide open eyes. Her whole body is numb; she can’t tell if anything’s broken.
We can dance, until we die.
“Daddy, my head hurts.”
Soft sniffles reach her ears and she’s desperate to comfort her.
“Don’t worry sweetie. Someone will come and help us soon. Just hang on.”
This is real.
Oh god, they’re in a pileup. But they don’t seem to be badly injured. Everything’s going to be fine. She just needs to breathe.
Don’t ever look back.
She can hear the screeching sound of sirens coming closer and closer. She tries to raise her hands to push away the airbag but they’re too heavy, she can’t feel them.
“You hear that sweetie? Help is coming. See, we’re all going to be alright.”
Then everything turns red - a fiery burning red that claws at her, ripping flesh from bone. It smothers her, tearing her apart. She can’t hear them anymore. They aren’t talking anymore. Are they alright? Has the red gotten them too?
Let’s take a chance.
She manages to rip away the airbag. She can breathe again. But she can’t see anything. Everything has been painted red. She thinks she calls out to them. She thinks she can hear a scream in reply. She tries to yank the side door open and cries when it won’t budge. Then she’s comforted by the sight of his blue. He’s right there.
Right in front of her.
If she could just reach him…
The hand she stretches out feels dismembered from her body. She watches as it’s daubed red, skin melting away. But she just pushes it further. She has to reach him. Her salvation. She almost there. So close to the blue she knows she can sink into it and all the red will be gone. Then the blue vanishes. And she’s left alone, bathed in scarlet. She thinks they’re going to die.
The blue’s gone now. She can’t see Violet either. They’re both gone. She closes her eyes and waits for the red to go away.
Be your teenage dream tonight.
Tonight.
Tonight.
Tonight.
She wakes up wrapped in soft warmth. Her favourite song is playing over the radio. She can hear whispered voices to her right. Are they planning on drawing a stupid face on her again? She has to wake up. That pen’s very hard to get completely out and she does not want to walk around for three days with a moustache on her face. Her eyes open. Everything is white. She looks down.
She’s still smeared in red.
They’re gone.
She’s alone.
Forever.
You and I will be young forever.
They tell her their car was part of a pileup on the M3. They say that one of the car’s fuel tanks had been ruptured and that it had started a chain reaction in the other cars. They state that she was one of the few survivors and that she’s very lucky. They give her their condolences; offer her people she can contact for support.
She doesn’t feel lucky.
Because they’re gone.
It takes her several weeks to get better and even then, the scars are disgusting to look at. Her body will forever be stained with the red of that day. They will forever haunt her; remind her of the burning flames that consumed all the other colours. The pities of others smother her.
“It’s sad that she’ll be disfigured for the rest of her life.”
“I know. She was so young.”
“And so pretty too!”
She hates the stares that she receives in the streets. She used to bask in them because those stares used to worship her. Now they condemn her, offer pity that is coated with disgust. Their funeral is a quiet affair, much like their wedding had been. It was just her, everyone needed to make it official, and a few of his business partners. The ceremony is cold. She can’t speak in front of them, just throws a bouquet of cyclamen, camellias and violets down into the pit. The casket is closed because they’re bodies were too badly burned. She had asked for them to be buried together so there is only one long, black box. They begin to sprinkle in dirt. Slowly, the black enamel begins smothered by muddy brown. She holds out her hand. Everyone stops and stares as she reaches down into her pocket and pulls out a single sprig of amaranth. The world moves again.
Goodbye.
You were perfect.
Always faithful.
But you couldn’t give me eternity.
She comes to the graveyard to escape from life. When everything gets too hard, when the whispers and stares hurt too much, she runs to their grave and sits there, leant against the stone, remembering better times. Sometimes she wishes things had happened differently, sometimes she wonders what her life would have been like if they hadn’t gone, if the dress hadn’t been perfect, if one of them had gotten ill. But most of the time it hurts too much to think about anything. So she just sits and forgets. In the rain, in the sun, through freezing winters and baking summers, she is always there. People start to associate her with the graveyard. But nobody approaches. Nobody dares.
She’s alone.
And it’s her biggest fear.
The tears start to fall.
She ran down the familiar path, her whirlwind thoughts naked to the wild winds that tore through the street. Her feet take her on that well-trodden path and soon she was throwing open the graveyard gate, scratchy paint flaking off against her fingernails. She stumbled on in the dark, hands waving wildly, leaden feet leading her to her haven. She collapsed in front of the grave, dew covered grass-icicles snapped under her weight. She felt slippery marble as she rested her weary head against their headstone.
"Take me with you, please take me with you. I want to see your blue again. I don't want to be alone anymore. Please. Take me away."
There was a shimmer in the air and the world distorted for a moment.
And all that was left was the lingering scent of earth after spring rains and a rustling whisper.
"Come with me, let's fly away. Amaranth"