In Color. {l.r.h.}

him

Luke muttered a never-ceasing string of profanity at his idiot self on that park bench. He let her walk away. He'd never again see the girl with eyes the color of steel and mismatched clothes, the one who tripped over her own words and made him think twice.

He almost wished she'd just been a girl rudely staring at him fumbling to keep the sun out of his eyes and not trip. Maybe he wouldn't be kicking himself for letting her be an almost-love of his. Maybe.

He took out his phone to text the boys.

Luke: "Come to my place in an hour. Bring pizza."

Ash: "Gee thanks for the heads up."

Cal Pal: "Yeah what's up with you?"

Luke: "I think I met an angel."

Mike: "You are freaking ridiculous mate."

•-•-•-•

Michael picked up the last slice of pizza from their third box. "Okay, we're here, we ate, now tell us about this 'angel' you met."

"Yeah did you die?"

"With his lack of coordination, I wouldn't put it past him."

Luke frowned. "Don't bully me in my own house. You guys are the worst."

Calum rolled his eyes. "Oh, would you just get on with it?"

"Right, well I was at my cousin's birthday party earlier today and--"

"Please tell me this angel is older than four."

"Oh God, I'm not that weird. Yes she's our age." His friends all let out sighs of relief. "You guys suck at listening to stories. Okay, so I was walking around to look for cell signal, and I tripped over this root sticking out of the ground because I'm an idiot and my legs are longer than they should be. So I saw this girl staring at me, and I was a little..." He cleared his throat, mumbling, "hungover."

"At a four year old's party. Nice, man. Really nice," Ashton snarked.

Luke rubbed the back of his neck. "Yeah. So I went to go tell her off, which I don't usually do because I'm a wimp, but I did. And I was going off on her for staring and then she told me--get this--she's blind."

It was silent for a second until the room erupted with laughter.

"Oh, that's low."

"Did you cry? I would cry."

"Yeah, what did you do?"

Luke bit his lip. "I apologized. A lot. She asked to touch my face to see what I looked like, but I'm not so sure it worked. I'm pretty positive she'd never done that before. And we talked for a little and she left. She was really nice. And funny. And I let her go. She was so special, and I let her go."

"Did you get her number?" Calum asked with wide eyes. The boys all seemed to be mesmerized by his story.

"No. Because I am an idiot." He laid back, looking up at the ceiling. "She was an artist, you know. And then she went blind. I didn't even ask her how she lost her sight."

"What was her name?"

"Yeah, and what did she look like?"

He smiled faintly. "Her name was Halli. She had the lightest blonde hair I've ever seen, and her eyes are as grey as the sidewalks in Central Park. Her cheeks were rosy and her lips were chapped. She wore clothes that didn't match and made jokes I didn't get."

"To be fair, we all do that," Michael said with a grin.

"But she was different. I can't get over how she said my name. I can't get her out of my head. I let her walk out of my life."

Calum put a hand on his friend's knee. "Then go get her."