Who Names The Colors

Rainbow Road

The plane ride isn't that long. It takes five hours to leave his whole life and everyone he loves, Harry discovers. He's bitter about it for more than a few minutes. It seems like it should take longer or be more painful, at least more uncomfortable.

The worst part about the entire day is that he's really too tall for the seats and he wound up by the window, so he's folded in half, and if he were a glutton for punishment he could look out the window and watch his world get further and farther away, smaller and smaller.

He's a glutton.

Always has been. His mum loved to tell this one story about him discovering the chocolate-covered biscuits when he was about two years old and eating them until he wretched in the pantry. He was supposed to be napping. She had been.

"Did you eat all the biscuits Harry?" She would've laughed at his solemn response if she wasn't trying to get him to fess up, she'd explain.

"No Mummy!" He shook his head and folded his brown-covered hands together. His face had been covered in chocolate too.

"And then he'd said, 'I don't feel good' and he tossed up all the cookies from the package on my feet. His stomach felt better then," Anne would conclude, and whomever she was sharing the story with would be rolling with laughter.

As such, Harry sat with the shade up and bit his lip hard to keep the tears at bay. It wouldn't due to have to be comforted by the flight attendant, the blonde one was already giving him the eye.

He wanted no one's eye. He didn't want anybody to look at him. He felt fragmented, like his whole life, self was in pieces, and if anybody looked long enough they would see it.

This was the hardest thing he had ever done. It was out of character, actually. Harry knew he was selfish with his affections. Not that he kept them to hisself, just the opposite. He poured them out like a waterfall months after record snowfall. When he loved someone, he loved them so ardently, he overwhelmed them. Drowned them in affection. He'd chased Ethan away with it. The need to be loved the same way.

Ethan, he had his own reasons he couldn't.

And Jo had too. Always had. And her reasons were valid, but she danced and swam and rose like a mermaid in his deluge anyway. It was why he thought they might be forever, pushed for it. He wasn't too much for her, he was just enough, or almost enough.

So, leaving, that wasn't his style. He held on until he was pushed away.

He was certain Jo would have gotten there. He'd been watching her wrestle with it. Her eyes were swollen, a lot, though he rarely caught her crying when they weren't making love.

That was a knife to his heart. God, the memories of being with her were what fueled his fire most days, the chance to do it again. That changed towards the end. He loved when she let go, let him in. But she was hurting, and couldn't hide it when he was inside her. He remembered her being radaint, but to see her in anguished pleasure rather than rapture? He wasn't sure how long he could have done that.

Jo was in famine. Women are stronger than men though, and he knew her endurance would have carried her to the end. The end of her.

And that was unacceptable. He couldn't let her waste away. He was biting his hand now, staving it off. Harry knew the exact moment he had to go. He'd told her, tried to say in words, the inadequate parcels they were, how much he loved her. He'd meant it as a balm, but she'd broken open over it. 'I love you, more than anything.'

The selfish little boy inside him, who just wanted to be first, be loved more than anything, preened, tried to grow.

But Harry thought about those words the entire way back to his place, while the water beat down on him his tears mingling seamlessly, through the tasteless sandwich he choked down, and through his studio doors.