"I'm distracted from the boy I've bumped into when the world around me begins to change. The grey and white I've seen ever since I was born into this world slowly begin to bleed away, like rain drops sliding down a car window, being replaced with bright, bright pigments. They cover everything, bring to life the world around me. The gravel underneath my feet is no longer a dull grey, the sky is no longer white, the bricks of the buildings no longer black. They're different, beautiful, bright, extraordinary, breathtaking. Colors, I realize. These are colors." x Natalie Grayson has lived her whole life in black and white. She's been waiting to meet her other half- her soulmate- who will make both of their worlds burst in color. It's what she's been dreaming of ever since she was little. She wants to know what color is, how it feels, what it looks like, if it's really as amazing as everyone claims it to be. On her seventeenth birthday, while walking back home through a sketchy part of town, she bumps into a stranger. Before she can even apologize, the last thing she expected happens: the black and white of her world begins to bleed away and is replaced with something else. Colors. When she looks up, Natalie isn't expecting to lock eyes with a rebel. But she does. She also doesn't expect him to run away. But he does.

Jas gives me a sympathetic look. She sighs heavily, long nails tapping against the wooden table, dodging the 'Missing' posters scattered all over the surface. "Maybe," she finally says, "Just maybe, he doesn't want to be found, Ava." I clench my jaw. "No. I refuse to believe that. He's not like that." "What do you know?" Jas snorts, finally withdrawing her hand from the table and turning back to look at me. "You don't even know him." xx Ford Wilson was in three out of four of Ava Jackson's classes. They had one mutual friend, did a project together once in sophomore year, and had the same lunch. When Ava's car had broke down, she had even ended up parked outside of Ford's house, asking for gas. In Ava's life, he was everywhere. And yet, she didn't notice him until he was nowhere to be found.