Play for Keeps.

Chapter XVII.

~ N i a l l ~

As the last signup, I must give my final speech on the last day of school. We don't do too many speeches in this class so this counts as my final exam.
I button my top button as I stand up and walk to the front of the room. I stand behind the podium before beginning.

"Colors. They are more than something we create. They are more than a medium to us. They are more than a reflection of light.
Colors are the promises made between two people. They are what we breathe, what we become.

When you're sitting alone on your bed thinking about how alone you are? Hugging your pillow as you fall asleep. As you fall in love with love itself? Red. It's the color that burns your body while your best friend holds you. It's the color that leaves you when you throw up everything you have. All for someone.
But then it turns to purple. It turns into a distance. A guard between you and someone else. A boarder that separates you from any connection. But at the same time, your favorite song. Everything that makes you feel, it melts into a lavender that surrounds you and makes you feel almost safe.
But then, your life flashes with yellow.
When people draw cartoon lightning, they color it yellow. Truthfully, lighting isn't yellow. Yellow is the butterflies in your stomach when you're falling in love. When you tell your best friends "no, I could never like them. They're too much of a bad kid for me." but you know exactly what's happening. You know that you're scared he'll touch you on accident, and your breath will catch ever so slightly. You can't help but smile when there's space between you and your crush filled by an aura of yellow.
Followed by blue. God, blue. It's more than just the color of eyes. It was the lack of color. Everything that people should feel but don't. The wall they put up to save them from a broken heart. And everything that comes after. The way your first kiss breathes. The way your lips graze. The feeling between you when you sleep in the same bed. It is them.
Green. When you want to dance with someone, but there's no one there. No one to hold you hand. No one to take you by the arm. No first dates. No first holidays together; first snowfalls. The color of holding on. When you hold onto something so tightly, like your life depends on it. Because it just so happens that it does. But you don't hold on tight enough. You let it go. While something may be good, it is also bad because it came back from the dead. You experience adversity and tragedy. You stay up late thinking too much. And your friends? They tried to tell you, but you're a big kid now. You can make your own choices. You'd just better make the right ones.
But finally, snow falls. And it rains white beauty, but you're all alone. Even though there are so many spaces between you and everything else. But maybe that's what you fell in love with in the first place. The spaces between... they say so, so, so much. Yet, you sit in a place that once made you feel like nothing could hurt you, but now? Now it reminds you that you are human. People can hurt you just as easily as they can fix you. And people will tell you that you can't save anyone, but white is a note to yourself. You can. Saving people doesn't mean you fix them. You give them a chance to start over-- something you have to give yourself as well. You have to, have to, have to give yourself a second chance. You cannot throw away everything you've spent three years, seventeen years, eighty-three years creating.
Even if you make a mistake, or you do something so terrible, you still deserve something real. You should still be granted the chance to- to feel. Although, you have to feel something. If you need to feel sick, feel sick. Angry? Be angry. Feel whatever you need to feel. But overall, feel like you are so much more than a boy.
Because you're not. You're not just a boy, and these aren't just colors.
They are everything you breathe into your lungs, even if they suffocate you."