The Color of Music

The air was tense and he looked over again apologetic for the revelation that he too was capable of emotion.

"I just don't know."

Confusion. Pain.

All emotions I had been familiar with for so many years. But this was different.
Mike was the all-seeing eye.
The one who always knew the answers when nobody else did.
Streetsmart but not book-smart.
Twenty but way beyond his years. And now here he was, coming to me with confusion. Confessing that beneath the knowledge, slick talk and wit, he was just another boy confused about love and unwilling to remain vulnerable to it. He wanted me to have the answers.

I brushed another strand from my face tapping excess off of my last cigarette.

"You just do what's right, Mike. What feels right?"

Probing. Looking to me as a girl blossoming into a woman, Mike probed and pushed for another answer. An answer I couldn't give him, so he made his own.

He leaned into me closing his eyes as his palm pressed delicately against the back of my head

But I stopped myself.