Who Names The Colors

The Ladder Of Fire

Jo was in a haze. The way that Ethan said Harry's name - the tone and hitch, the beg were all so familiar. Ethan was talking when she tuned her senses back into the room. Harry was still above her, he hadn't moved so much as constricted, but he'd shrunk out of her.

"You must have a thing for Smiths you fucking Judas." The quiet broken windowpane of Ethan's voice ripped into Jo's flesh and though she was still damp, it felt like the clamminess of a grave.

What the fuck did that mean? Judas?

"You're fucking my mum?" Ethan's voice went up in volume that time. Harry closed in on himself on top of her, dead weight instead of shelter.

Jo pushed at him to get him to pull his body off her, to get some fresh air. She could barely breathe, the air was fetid.

He pulled back and just before she could catch her breath his murky green eyes caught hers inside the surround of his hair and he said, "Sorry." She realized then her cheek was wet and she wasn't sure whether it was him or her.

Harry rolled to the side and quickly grabbed for the boxers she had removed with her feet a lifetime ago.

This was a new life.

Once he was covered a bit, Jo watched him put on something else when he took a huge breath and turned to her son, who stood seething with hands clenched in silhouetted. Harry was contrite, but stood straight and looked to where Ethan had come farther into the doorway. 

Ethan's face broke Jo's heart. She could barely see anything with the light behind him and it was still all that she could see. Shattered. Jo covered herself up to her nose, but she could still smell her crime.

Harry spoke then inside the stifling air. "No! I'm not fucking your mum! I love her, she loves me."

"Yeah! Like you loved me?" Ethan shouted in return.

What? Jo thought. What was he talking about?

"Ethan! You do not get to rewrite history." Harry was yelling back, she'd never heard his voice like that, not even after the awards banquet.

"I'm not fucking rewriting history, you sick fuck. Both of us?" Ethan started towards Harry.

"Ethan!" Jo uttered. He looked at her and she thought of the way his face would melt when his dad didn't show up before she gave up trying to facilitate a relationship all together.

"It's not like that. We couldn't help it. We were around each other, all the time. She's...." he looked at Jo then. "She, I couldn't help it."

Ethan scoffed. "This some way to get back at me, because I didn't want people to call me a faggot. Wouldn't be with you, hold your bloody hand at college? Is this some sick way to get back at me?"

"It's not about you at all!" Harry stood mostly naked, sweating, maybe still from being inside of her, or from the increase in temperature in the room.

But Jo had chills.

"It was always about me Harry, you were fucking obsessed with me." Ethan threw his hands up, he'd come to the end of the bed and Jo could hear his face was red, though it was too dark to confirm.

"Oh, and you felt nothing for me, Ethan!" Harry puffed his chest up. "Never whispered how much you wished for me into my neck?"

"More than I should have, you piece of shit. How could you? My fucking mum, she's all I have. You ruin fucking everything!" Ethan's voice was loud, and fragile like a note held too long in the air. "Ruined me, loving you."

Oh god! Jo's heart broke on her son's note. Loving you. She could totally see how loving Harry, or no longer loving him, could crack your voice. It was a peak into her near future she grieved.