Who Names The Colors

Starry Night

"What are you doing here Harry?" Jo nearly dropped her groceries and was thankful that Zoe finally started listening and held onto her pant leg when her hands were full. It was meant to be more when they're in a parking lot or garage or summat, but Jo was just glad she was listening about it now.

It was a truly unusual day. Jo had woken up that morning to sun. Sun, in middle England, in November. She'd been in a bit of a funk since she'd run out on Harry a few days prior. She'd made it to her classes of course, but her nights away from department meeting were filled with Zoe cuddles, Netflix and wine binges, plus attempts at going to bed early. Attempts because little sleeping was happening.

She saw Harry everywhere. She usually never saw him at school, and of course, she'd seen him driving in last week, in the car park, and then him walking with some girl and they were laughing and Jo hated it. Later she saw him at the coffee stand - meaning she had to forgo her fix. Which she'd desperately needed, because she'd been seeing him an unusual amount on campus, but it was nothing compared to how often she could see him at her own home.

Every time she closed her own eyes she saw the mysterious green shade of his. In her studio, she saw him shirtless waiting for her and telling her not to say his name while silently cheering for her to scream it. And worst and best were the dreams.

He was most certainly there, and in those she could feel. Jo was having the most vivid dreams she had ever had. The feel of his plump lips against her own was so real in her subconscious, she could actully feel it against her neck, a place his lips didn't make it to. And she could most certainly feel his knee between her thighs, and his bulge too, which she had only ever felt through cloth.

And those were just the a sleeping dreams. The waking ones were worse. In those, she saw him telling her about his art, and realization dawned during his soliloquy that his woman was Jo too, so he'd methodically undressed her to check he was right and found  nothing wanting, no dissimilarities but became obsessed with sketching her angles and rounded bits before touching them. The trace of his pencil was a sound she could hear and the eventual trail of his fingers was like lava devouring streets. It gave her goosebumps, huge ones.

He was a daydream.

A literal one at the moment. Harry looked like all of her mental hopes and dreams on the concrete step that led to her door. His legs bent high, covered in tight dark denim, but the right knee cap showed through and his lanky arms hung off his patellas like a lever ready to launch her into the sunny sky. His hair was up in a bun and Jo loved and hated it. It was so endearing and homey, but she wanted to see the ringlets around his hair. He was a jawdropper in the sunlight.

Of course the sun is out today. It came out because he was coming to her. The sky needed to be sure to set the proper scene for him to ensure that Jo couldn't ignore him in his true form, sunkissed and well-made. So Jo can no longer run or avoid him.

She had been doing just that for the last several weeks. In class she would coast her eyes anywhere he was not and had created an entire unit culminating in short class presentations for extra credit so that she could sit in the back of the class and not look at him. This was perfect until it was his turn.

Harry followed proper presentation etiquette, like the ambitious student out for a first that he was, but his eyes lit up when they fell upon her, like he was a flame and she was oxygen, fire and what fuels it. Jo watched his presentation and knew he had picked it just to press on her buttons. The ones he had installed and found. She had never dated a creative person.

Not that she was dating Harry, but he knew things about her that went without saying. Things no one else knew and she'd never been able to explain.