Drowning in Her Blue

"It's a simple question, Adrian. Do you love her?" Isabella asked.
He wasn't a man who believed in favorites-not colors, not people. In his world, attachment was a weakness dressed in pretty lies.
And yet... there she was. She had walked into his life like she didn't understand silence. Talking, smiling, asking questions no one had dared ask in years-as if he weren't a name whispered in fear, but just... a man.
"What's your favorite color?" she had asked one afternoon, spinning in his office chair like she owned the place. He didn't answer. He just watched. Her laughter, easy and unrestrained. Her eyes, sparkling with curiosity, untouched by disappointment. He almost told her the truth. That he didn't have one. That nothing ever stayed long enough to matter. But then-
"Blue!" she blurted, "You look like a blue person."
He raised a brow. "A blue person?"
"Mhm," she nodded, unshaken. "Calm, deep... a little sad too. But pretty"
He should've corrected her. Should've told her she was wrong. Instead, he said quietly, "You guessed right." Her face lit up like she'd won something priceless.
And that... that was the moment everything shifted.
"I didn't have a favorite color," he would admit later. "Not until she said it."
Not when he started noticing the sky.
"She yelled it out like it mattered," he continued. "Like it meant something to be right about me."
And maybe... it did.
"The first pair of eyes that made drowning feel like the best thing that could ever happen to a man like me..." He exhaled slowly, the memory heavy.
"She is..." he paused, searching for a word that didn't feel too small. "...the most beautiful pattern stitched into the fabric of something I never thought was meant for me."
Before her, what scared him most? Nothing. Not bullets. Not betrayal. Not death.
Now? It was the terrifying, breathtaking realization that, for the first time in his life... he finally had a favorite.
And she could be taken away. 💙