Spotlight |h.s|

Five

Aubrey Hart

I hate this. I hate this, I hate this, I hate this. Why the fuck did I even say yes to this? I know there's money involved, but it's pure torture.

Harry is sitting in my living room for the second time now. I'm spending my Friday night here with him instead of doing something enjoyable. What has my life come to?

After our failed attempt at a get to know you thing at breakfast, Max made us these stupid cheat sheets that we have to fill out and memorize about each other. They're full of a bunch of random questions that we could easily be asked and have to know the answers to. We have to ask the other person the questions and write their answers down so we can read over them and practice them. This looks like we're going to be speed dating or something. Max says it'll be a "good bonding experience".

I say it'll be a terrible way to spend my Friday night, but I don't have a choice in the matter.

I'm sitting with a lavender knit blanket covering my lap, legs crossed on my small couch. He's on a white chair to the side of it, facing me with a Cosmopolitan magazine under his paper to make it steady enough to write on from his seat. My smart idea, by the way. We both have colored gel pens in our hands since it's all I have. His is green and mine is orange.

We haven't started the questions yet, both of us awkwardly getting situated in our seats. I really hate Max for coming up with this idea, but I want this money. I'm not being stingy or anything when I say that. I have a good reason for wanting it, I swear. I'm not keeping a penny.

"I'll start," he breaks the silence, "What's your favorite color?"

"Green."

"That explains the weird couch." He starts writing.

"You don't know anything about interior design, so your opinion doesn't matter." I clap back.

"You've never seen my place. You can't say that." He disagrees.

"Whatever. What's yours?" I ask the same question.

"Black." He shrugs after thinking for a second.

"Black? Really?" I shake my head, "That isn't even a color."

"I don't focus on colors very much." He shrugs.

"How can you not? I mean, look at where you're sitting." I gesture around the room.

I'm on a green couch, a lavender blanket draped over me. There's an orange record player on the table against the wall next to the tv, a yellow kitchen in our view from here, and a bunch of pictures and paintings are on the walls all cascading with different shades and colors.

"I can't tell a lot of them apart, to be honest." He actually sounds genuine as he explains.

"Are you colorblind?" I remember that men are more likely to be colorblind than women for whatever reason.

"Yeah." He shrugs as if it's not a big deal.

"Can you see color at all?"

"It's not black and white, just colors of the same shade look the same to me. A lot of them get mixed up in my head." He explains, me writing "colorblind" in the favorite color spot.

"Well, if you can't see color fully, you can't have a favorite." I conclude.

"I guess not."

"I'll go first this time," I start, "Parents' names?"

He tenses up at the question even though he had to be expecting it, reminding me of his not so pleasant family history. I don't know much about it. Just that his mom was never really in any headlines and his dad seems like an asshole.