Watercolor Blue

2-Grey

Lying in her new bed, in her new house, in a far corner of a new city, she tried again to imagine what it had been like for him, how it had felt like to be covered in crimson threads. She wondered if he had accepted his fate, if he had thought of her mother's soft hands, or her chatting presence, if he...if at all had thought of how his family would cope without him.

Her dreams were the color red and they rendered her sleepless for days, if there was one thing she feared; she feared being a prisoner of her ever evolving mind. It was the 31st of December 2015, 8 days since the death anniversary of Roth Stone. And the Stone family had faced the music years since.

Naima Stone fiddled with the spoon in her ever bitter coffee, her mind still wrapping around the idea of him being dead; it still felt like an uninvited dream. The tastes of her brew just as cruel and so she found solace in it. Sugar coated fantasies were long forgotten and buried alongside the man of her dreams. Now they had to relocate to her homeland from Chicago.

Constance shuffled out of her queen sized bed and watched her younger sister sleeping blissfully, no nightmares seemed to have been disturbing her. She got ready for her first day at college sluggishly and spent ten minutes staring at her own reflection. She had to look human enough for college at least.

At 7:45 she was already at her new college, she twisted the strap of her backpack staring at the countless heads pouring through the wrought iron gates. A long stone pathway winded ahead of her, snaking in the middle of the grassy school lawn. The crowd walked in silence, perhaps all of them shared a mutual thought; perhaps a mutual hate for mornings.

At 8:00 she faced her class mates for the first time.

"Hi" A small faced girl smiled shyly.

"Hey"

"I'm Sandra, Sandra Keynes"

"Constance Stone" the corners of her full mouth curved slightly.

She shifted her feet agitatedly; everyone seemed to have been staring. A pair of girls in head scarves walked past the window, whispering to one another; their eyes fixed on Constance' slender face.

"So what are you subjects?"

"Arts and design, English and psychology" Constance blinked thrice.

"Oh that's different; I'm in the science group." Sandra grinned.

"Medical eh?"

"Through and through"

"What about you? I suppose you'd want to be an artist?"

"I can't say what I want to be exactly..."

"You don't know? You're in college and you still don't know?" Sandra raised her eyebrows.

"Not a clue." She answered plainly.

A gentle breeze wafted into the room and with it, it brought the strong smell of a woman's perfume. Constance stared at the wearer of the fragrance and felt her mind dispose of all panicked thoughts, for there before her stood a work of art, a muse for inspiration, a ball of color; a middle aged woman sparkling with at least three different colors of eye shadow and a vibrant parrot green traditional dress.

There was a wide smile painted on her lips with pink lipstick and at once Constance knew who brought all the color to the teacher's staff room.

"Hello Miss Stone" She was expressive with her pronunciation and made big 'o's' with her lips as she said 'stone'

"We're glad you could join us, I'll leave Hunter to show you around to your classes" she pointed at the boy who had been staring earlier "He happens to be our head boy" she glared at him as she spoke her last sentence.

Hunter rolled his honey colored eyes dramatically. "Okay Miss Tina, Okay"

Sandra looked at Hunter with a smirk on her face and disappeared out of the room for her first class. The teenagers in the stuffy classroom spared Constance several glances before drifting off to their different classes. Hunter too grabbed his backpack, walking towards her cautiously.

"So..." Hunter whistled awkwardly.

"What's your name?"

"Constance" she replied sighing, her feet were aching again.

"Subjects?"

"Arts and design, psychology and English language"

"You draw?" he asked with doubt dripping from his heavy voice.

"Why else would I be in Arts and design?"

"People are crazy, they'd do anything" he said as he walked out of the classroom.

He ran his hand through his closely cropped hair, brown like a bear. He clenched his jaw with ignorance as a group of girls strolled past him, their eyes lingering a second too long.

A 5 ft. 1 Constance struggled to keep pace with Hunter's long legs, she frowned as they walked past giggling groups of girls, and it appeared as if they were herds of cattle gazing at a large expanse of grass. They walked a few corridors in silence and at the end of the second one he pointed at a plain white door.

"That'd be your Art studio"

"Okay"

"The classroom in which we were sitting would be your English class and the one next to it will be your Psychology class. This here is your timetable"

He handed her a clean piece of paper that had all of her classes printed on it neatly along with the timings.

"Thank you" she said quietly.

"Your first class is Arts and design, I'll show you around at lunch hour" he told her this with a smile.

She sighed as she watched him retreat. His presence had made the hot august weather feel like a snow storm and she couldn't quite decide if he was someone she could be friends with. An uncertainty always lurked behind anything new she tried.

This place felt like the grey of decayed concrete.