Fix You ~Completed~

Act Thirty

"Blue skies were meant for paintings, for poetry. They don't exist in the real world, not in the way we romanticize they do," Kyla had told me. We were in his old beater, a still sky with little color over our heads. When was the last time I had seen a blue sky? When had I seen what Kyla refused to believe existed? Had I ever seen an authentic blue sky, sunshine?

The town was asleep even though it was time for everyone to be on their way to work, to school, to their lives. Kyla's car informed me it was already eight-oh-seven. School had started a minute ago and yet, for some reason, we were in no hurry to get anywhere. Since dawn, rain had been beating down on our heads, keeping all of humanity hesitant to venture outside the confines of their houses, their cars. They were our safe havens. I imagined that all the town was questioning the existence of blue skies, just as Kyla and I were.

"What about yellow skies, or purple? The red skies in the morning are so pretty," I commented, hoping for some hope. We could live without the blue. That color wasn't as important as purple, yellow, red, or even magenta. Blue created other colors- beautiful colors- but, on its own, it was just a color associated with sadness, with deadly ocean waves, with a lack of oxygen.

I wasn't a huge fan of blue when I was eighteen.

Kyla shrugged indifferently at my words. "They're there. They give the world something that this grey," he pointed to the cloudy sky, "just sucks away."

"I like the grey! I think it's light and it reminds me of you!" I tried again, praying he'd smile at me at least once today. If I could get one of his smiles, I could consider getting out of bed this morning worthwhile.

No smile. Not even the twitch of the lips.

"How? Is it my smoke, my car, the way you feel around me? Do I bleed the color from the world, Clem, and leave you with hues of black and white?"
For once, I wasn't thrown off by his soft outburst. I simply smiled and responded, "You're the most beautiful shade of grey."

Kyla nodded, a laugh leaving his cracked lips. "You're the most damaged shade of red. All blood and lust and frustration. You don't need to bleed the world when you're already in the process of bleeding out yourself. When I look at you, I see pink wrists and red cheeks. I see stained rugs and streaked blades. Red. All I see is red."

"Red is warm," I pointed out, leaning my head back against the seat. To him, I was a color. I was more than just a blank. I was a color. "It's the color of love."

"Love, anger, cherries. Whatever floats your boat. They're all red," he whispered, clicking a button to unlock the car. That was one of the few instances I can remember of Kyla sounding so small and I wasn't even one hundred percent sure why he was shrinking the way he was.
I pulled my knees together, listening to the sound of the denim of my oversized jeans shff at my movement. When he made a move to pop open the door, I made a noise to let him know I had a question. "We weren't talking about physical skies earlier, were we?"

Before the stormy eyed boy could open the door, he chuckled. His head turned towards me on a stiff neck. "How did you pass American Lit? You're such a lag."

Immediately, he jumped out of the car and started jogging towards the school, leaving me to pathetically scamper out of the car after him. Somehow, on my corgi legs I managed to get beside him and smiled meekly, "Kyla, you're my blue sky. You're a sunny day, not a cloud present."

"What happened to my grey?"

"Guess it drifted away," I whispered, my eyes calling to the discoloring on the edge of his jaw. I saw his grey as often as he saw my red. We were just a mess of colors that didn't make sense. "You're less grey and more silver."

"If I'm silver," Kyla murmured, a twitch in his cheek, "does that make you gold, Clem?

I couldn't answer. We didn't even speak again until we parted, him on his way to retake sophomore geometry. "I'll miss you," I murmured to him in the crowded hall, more than a little aware it was impossible for anyone except my Kyla to hear me with all the shouts and off-key sopranos that filled the crowded hall by the math room. My boyfriend was trying not to smile as he lumbered away, hands in his pockets.

I left my bag in the car, my mind on more important things, and didn't even realize until I was sitting in psychology. Somehow, Kyla always had a way to mess me up.

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Can everyone take a moment to appreciate Clem's facial expression in the photo above???