Enigma

1. Handle With Care

"Jake?"

"Yeah?" The blue-eyed boy turned to face the brown-eyed girl. Smoke poured from her nostrils as her veiny eyelids fluttered closed. She passed him the joint with a shaky hand, and an even shakier smile.

"Do you ever wonder what it'd be like to go away?" Lowry's voice was thick and cloudy from the drugs. He took a long draw, watching the way her freckles seemed to dance on her porcelain skin.

"You mean, run away and, like, not come back?" He finally replied.

"Yeah." She nodded.

"All the time."

"I think...I think I know where I'd go." Her gaze wandered from his face to the sky in thought.

"Yeah?"

"London."

"Why London?" His brows quirked in that familiar way.

"Dunno. Just...just feels right."

"Okay." He loved her. God, did he love her.

***

Lowry wakes with a start. She breathes deeply, heavily.

O n e...t w o...t h r e e.

The small hospital room is dimly lit by weak rays of sunlight that struggle, oh so desperately, to burst through thick cloud. Outside the window – one, two, three, four panes – a tree quivers in the autumn breeze. If it weren't for the current situation, she'd smile. She'd stand and open the window wide, let the breeze play with her long, tangled hair. But the muscles in her face remain stony and the window remains tightly shut.

She glances at the digital clock by her bedside. The glowing red numbers shout: 6:05! 6:05! 6:05!

Lowry is tired. Tired, but not sleepy.

A sigh pushes past her chapped, pale lips. The sixth hour of the fourth day. Everything around her is coloured with shades of blue. Her bed sheets, much like everybody else's, are a very clinical baby blue. The Visitor Chair is blue like the ink that stains her journal. Her skin is blue like ice and fear, with a tinge of yellow that says her liver is still recovering. Frankly, she's quite sick of blue.

There's only one blue she could never grow tired of.

A blue that paints her heart and colours her sky and sees her.

Sees her.

Sees her.

He walks through the door. His steps are as quiet as they can be with tattered Vans on cold tiles, tiptoeing past sleeping patients. He sits on The Visitor Chair.

"It's early." She says, watching him push a pale hand through his hair that isn't as blue as it was yesterday. In fact it's kind of greeny-blue now. Greeny-blue like him. Not one or the other, but definitely not neither.

He's a walking contradiction, and she's great at guessing games.

"I couldn't sleep." His eyes, blue as they've ever been, catch hers. "Did you sleep?"

"A little. But that's not what I meant. How did you get in?" He just shrugs and her gaze wanders to his backpack. "Did you bring them?" She asks, hopefully. He unzips the bag and retrieves a hair brush, hair elastics, and scissors.

"Turn around." A tired rasp is all his voice has become. She remembers when he was a melody, but struggles to recall when he became a whisper.

Gently, the quiet blue boy gathers her hip length hair and brushes it smooth. It doesn't hurt. Or maybe it does. She can't feel much anymore.