Yellow

8

-Day 17-

Blue white and yellow, like the sky. Her house is a part of the sky come to earth.

I'm standing in front of it and it's blue with white shutters and a yellow hammock on the veranda. So, just like the sky, the clouds and the sun. I take a deep breath and exhale almost immediately, my heart still racing from my ride here. Now that I'm here I'm not too sure on what to do. I could just knock and ask her parents if she's home at the moment, or I could wait out here until she either leaves or returns, or I could find her window and throw little pebbles at it even though I already know that I wouldn't find the right window and that I wouldn't even hit that window once because I really suck at throwing, or I could just go back home again of course. But, I don't want to. I want to see her and talk to her and get lost in her way of doing everything and mainly, I need to stop feeling numb and empty and sad. Actually, just the sight of her house managed to cheer me up a bit, I'm okay with breathing and thinking now. Or maybe it's just because I'm outside in the fresh and cool air that successfully cleanes and clears my mind, as usual. I straighten my hair and and walk to the front door, trying to stay calm and thinking of something to say, depending on who opens the door.

In the end, it's her mother who answers the doorbell and leads me up a sprial staircase. She hasn't stopped talking since I introduced myself as 'a friend from school' about a minute ago and I don't interrupt her, I just follow her until she stops infront of a plain white door. "Alice? Dear, here's somebody who'd like to talk to you!", Alice's mother says softly after knocking on the door. Only seconds later the door flies open and there she is, her hair pulled back into some kind of ponytail and smiling up to me. "Alright, thanks Mom.", Alice says politely to her mother and gestures for me to follow her into her room. She has painted her walls blue, and there are about a hundred of photos and posters attached to them, making her room look very comfortable and very Alice-like, colourful and crammed with interesting things. Alice closes the door behind me and throws herself onto her bed, where she was obviously sitting before. Her laptop is also standing on her mattress, playing some kind of indie or maybe even folk, I'm really not good at guessing a band's music genre. "So, hi.", she finally says after a short, very awkward silence. I'm just as awkwardly standing in the middle of the room, overwhelmed by the fact that I'm actually here. "Listen, I'm sorry, I should have called first to make sure you are free, I know that it was extremely rude of me to just come he-", I stutter, my thoughts flowing straight out of my mouth in weird sentences and she starts to laugh, pats the spot next to her on the bed and invites me to come and sit down there. "It's fine, Arthur. I'm really glad you decided to be so rude.", she's still smiling and appears to be very calm. "I was just searching for a movie to watch anyway, not doing anything important at all, just as per usual." and she laughs and I laugh too because her laugh is one of the most contagious laughs I've ever heard and it's clear and bubbly, exactly the way I imagined it to be. "Did you already watch 'Into the Wild'? I guess I'm kind of in love with that movie.", I force myself to look directly into her eyes instead of focusing my gaze at the wall or the floor or just anything except her. I tend to do that a lot, avoiding the eyes of others, because I get intimidated easily. "My friends told me to watch it but as soon as I start searching for movies to watch, my mind just goes absolutely blank and I forget everything I ever learned and every movie I ever planned on watching. But we could watch it now, if that's okay for you?", she asks and gently puts the laptop down on her knees so that I can see the screen too. A huge smile forces it's way through my barrier of self-control and I nod, trying to suppress said smile because I don't want her to realize how happy I am right now. She starts the movie and makes herself comfortable, snuggling back into her pillows. I lean back against the headbord and try to enjoy the movie that inspires me every single time I watch it.

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"Okay, so why don't we just get up now and leave to explore our beautiful world surrounding us?", she asks timdly as soon as we've finished watching the movie. I laugh and shake my head, because I feel the same urge to experience some freedom and wild nature. "We actually could, if you wanted to. Not for days or weeks or even months, but we all could in theory get up and leave our houses and go exploring all the time, whenever we feel like doing so.", I mumble, not wanting to disturb the peaceful silence. And of course, because she is Alice and Alice does stuff like this, she immediately jumps out of her bed and starts walking up and down nervously, all the while grinning and thinking out loud about where we could go and what places we could visit.

"Alice. It's Wednesday, in the middle of the week and we've got school tomorrow. In reality, we can't exploring whenever we feel like it, we really can't.", I say and I can feel the fog rising up again, but this time it's okay because she's here and that actually does help. "Arthur. I know what day it is, thank you very much. I was thinking, maybe we could visit a really cool place somewhere near here on Saturday? We'd have to make plans first, of course, and it's just an idea, but I don't know, what do you think?" she asks, nervously kneading her fingers. "I'd love to do that, to be honest.", and because of her being nervous infront of me for the very first time, I get up too and go over to where she's standing and kind of open my arms and just hug her.

"That's cool, really cool. I can't wait for Saturday to come around.", she mumbles against my chest and I finally am completely okay again.