Colors

Twenty Three

"All of our stuff is still at Ashley's house and she'll need to pack some things so is it cool if we go past there before we leave?" Troye asked as we started walking down Mitch's street, each of us being as quiet as possible and aware of our surroundings. It was still early, so most people were at school or working but we still needed to be careful.

"Yeah, of course. We still need to be fast though, unless you know somewhere we can stay overnight that's a kind of close to the border?" Kirstie asked, moving to walk beside the red girl.

"Uh, Josh's house is pretty close to the border and I'm pretty sure his parents are away at the moment. I'll get Mitch to call him while I'm packing my bag and ask if we can crash there for the night." We started walking down a small alleyway, careful to avoid the main roads. "It's probably better for us anyway, to go in the early morning rather than late at night."

"You're right. We'd have the same advantage of time because the guards won't be prepared along with the ability to see one another." Kirstie mused, looking around the alley with a fake smile plastered on her face. I knew the feeling. There was rarely any litter or dirt on the roads in blue but it seemed to be pretty regular in red, I wondered what that was about. I pushed it to the back of my mind though, I was learning that it wasn't something to look down on. Troye, on the other hand didn't seem to care about his surroundings, humming something under his breath as we all walked along.

Ashley walked out ahead of us to make sure the coast was clear before we all wandered out of the alley and followed her down a street. I wasn't sure where we were but I heard Alex mumble a 'not far now' and I smiled, unsure if it was an encouragement for me or himself.

Without thinking about it, I took Mitch's hand in mine as we walked beside one another, starting to lace our fingers together. Before I managed to get our hands settled comfortably, the warmth was gone, Mitch yanking his hand away like a frog dropped in boiling water. 

"Tough crowd." Alex breathed and put his arm around my shoulder comfortingly. "Did you manage to get any further with the whole figuring out how to marry him?" He teased, but there was a genuine concern in his eyes that always managed to lure me into telling him everything. 

"I told him I loved him." I said softly.

"Oh? And how did the lucky guy respond?" Alex smirked and wiggled one eyebrow at me.

"He threw a lamp at me." I laughed softly, seeing the humor in the situation for the first time. It was such an out of character thing for him to do, however it was a pretty comical response in hindsight. Alex seemed to think so too, clapping his hand over his mouth as he snorted and started to laugh hard. I hushed him and we both focused back on the task at hand.

We followed Ashley as she got to one house and slipped down the side gate, not giving me time to even see the light red building. I didn't have to see much of it to know that it was huge as we followed her through a giant back yard with a swimming pool and tennis court. The house was so... Blue.

Each of us had to take our shoes off before we all filed in through the back door, along a hallway, up a set of stairs and through a door to get to Ashley's room. Everything was perfect here, not a single vase out of place on the pale red tables and benches throughout the house. Large paintings that clearly cost a lot of money as well as mirrors hung on the walls and not much else, the house having a cold stillness to it that reminded me too much of my own home. Her room contained a large four-poster bed with white sheets and an extensive amount of pillows. I saw the small pile of backpacks in the corner and knew that those belonged to the others as they calmly sat down on the bed, reminding me silently that I was the only one in this room for the first time.