“So stupid,” I repeated.
Wes’ hands were on my shoulders immediately, and he crouched down in front of me looking up into my eyes. “I don’t know what’s going on right now, but you are not stupid,” he commanded. He stood, and my head followed his upward movement.
He’d told me those exact words that day when he found me ripping apart my painting and stuffing it into the trashcan by the lunch quad. He had asked me why I was destroying it, so I told him honestly that I was stupid. He told me more earnestly than I had ever seen Wes up until that point that I was not stupid. He said I was brilliant, and talented, and beautiful, and that the piece of art I had just destroyed reflected all of that because when an artist created, they produced a part of their soul. Then he turned around and walked away, hopping the fence to ditch.
I turned my attention from the memory toward Wes’ eyes and on the conviction they seemed to hold.
Brilliant.
Talented.
Beautiful.
Breathe…
“I’m colorblind, Wes.” I said it. I know I did, but the frantic blood in my veins drowned out my hearing.
Wes’ head cocked to the side, and he raised a single eyebrow but didn’t say anything. At least his lips hadn’t moved. His hands did. They moved gently from my shoulders down toward my elbows.
“I’m colorblind,” I repeated in case I truly hadn’t spoken the words that, until now, had never fallen from my lips. “I don’t see color. Well, not all color.” I turned away from Wes, unable to witness his reaction.
“So—Wha—” Wes started but stopped himself. “Come’re,” he said taking my hand, and pulled me to the back wall. Wes sat up against it facing the mural and pulled me down next to him.
I leaned my head back against the wall and sighed. I was doing this. I was going to tell Wes about my colorblindness. No one knew except for my parents. Not even August.
When I had been diagnosed with colorblindness, I was just three years old, and my parents said they decided not to share my colorblindness with anyone. They told me in later years that they didn’t want me to be identified by an inability to see color, and they didn’t want me to be prejudged. I knew they had my best interests at heart, but that single decision created a sincere insecurity in me that had affected my entire life.
I’d often wondered if I wouldn’t feel as anxious about my colorless life if I hadn’t had an insatiable need to paint. If art was just an activity, and not the marrow of my bones, I’d be okay.
“Tell me about it,” Wes spoke gently.
“I’m red/green colorblind, so pigment that has those colors in it looks brown to me. Even though the grip of a paintbrush or pencil in my fingers steadies me, my inability to see color has always pushed me off balance. I feel like I’m constantly trying to prove to myself that I am an artist, but that I’m destined for failure because I will never be able to fully grasp the one thing that makes me whole. Sometimes I feel like, I don’t know, like a fake.” Wes sat up abruptly to refute me, I was certain, but I put my hand on his where it sat on the ground.
His fingers twitched, below my own, and then ever so slowly, he turned his hand around so that we were palm to palm. I waited for him to lace our fingers together, but he nodded for me to continue.
I breathed deeply. “I’m blank.” Wes’ fingers moved softly, dancing against the palm of my hand. They tickled circles onto the surface of my skin as if he were painting or drawing, adding an imagined depth to my meager being. “I don’t just wear a lot of white because I can’t screw any sort of matching up, I wear it because it feels the most like me.”
Wes’ fingers stopped. “You think you’re plain?” Wes asked but didn’t look at me. Instead, he cocked his head still facing the mural, and his fingers still hadn’t moved. I didn’t know why his still fingers against my palm mattered so much to me, but they did. I wanted them to move.
“Stand up,” Wes said suddenly rising to his feet. He turned around and gave me his hand.
“Okaaay,” I said placing mine in his. He led me by that hand that still craved his tickle, over to the cans of paint.
“Do you trust me?” he asked.
“I’ve never told another soul about me,” I said honestly. He nodded a singular quick nod because that was enough.
“Stand right here,” Wes said squinting up toward the fluorescent lighting. “Turn a little this way,” he directed, gripping my upper arms in his and adjusting me. He took a few careful steps back and sent his eyes on a path up and down my body though nothing about it was intimate. It was business. “Now take your shirt off.”
“Wha-at?” I stuttered. He folded his arms across his muscular chest and challenged me with his eyes. Damn him.
“You suck,” I said before grabbing the bottom of my white shirt, tearing it off over my head and dropping it next to me on the floor. Much like the tearing off of a Band-Aid, I waited for a sting of humiliation. It never came. What did come was a rushing heat from my head to my toes in the form of Wes’ stare.
“Sometimes. I like to bite, too,” he said tilting his head with a lopsided grin.
“Why am I shirtless?” I asked ignoring his attempt at flirting. Or maybe he was only being funny. It didn’t matter because all that mattered at that infinitesimal moment in time was that I needed to survive. I needed to keep standing when the grin on his face became caught between his teeth.
With one heavy step toward me, his entire body tilted in one direction. My knees trembled beneath me.
Step.
His chiseled frame rocked to the other side. My chest heaved rapidly beneath my satin bra.
Step.
He brought his hands together. His fingers stuttered against the roughness of his skin as he cracked each knuckle one by one. I brought my own hands together and wringed them together, my palms gliding against the dampness of my skin.
Step.
He leaned toward the floor. I sucked in a breath and pulled with it the taste of his clean scent that surged with his downward movement. The anticipation of what was about to happen was almost too much to bear. My stability wavered on faint knees.
I heard the unmistakable pop of the paint can lid and looked down at Wes.
“What are you doing?” I asked him in something embarrassingly close to a pant.
“I’m giving you your first tattoo.” He smirked up at me. “If you’re down?”
“Yes,” I immediately replied. So way, way down.
Wes laughed easily. “Okay. Hold still.” My eyes followed the dip of two of his fingers into the rich texture of the paint. The drag of the liquid clinging to his fingers when he pulled them out kept him connected to the pigment.
“You’re using your fingers?” I squeaked.
Wes gulped heavily and nodded his answer.
I looked up toward the ceiling of the gym, focusing on the inhale and exhale of my breath. The nerves within me flickered irregularly and buzzed with the lights above me. I tugged my eyes closed, too overwhelmed to watch.
Cold fingers met my bare hip, bringing an instant stillness to my breath. They smeared in soft delicate circles across my waist gently kneading into my skin. My whole body tightened, grasping onto itself.
“I’ll never forget…” The rumble of Wes’ voice brought me back. “That day you came in from painting out in the rain.” He looked at me from under his thick lashes. He took his fingers from my skin to dip them into another can of paint. I missed his touch immediately. “Do you remember that?”
“Yeah,” I whispered, shocked that he did, too. I’d never forgotten that night, and I imagined that I never would. It was the night of Ella’s funeral. The abnormality of the entire day was too much. Saying goodbye to such a small and innocent person who was taken before she ever had the chance to make a best friend, to fall in love, or to find her passion. It was so achingly sad and just too wrong.