I try to live in black and white
But I'm so blue
~•~

Asher

"No fucking way," I gasp as I stumble upon a section of the bookstore that has a brilliant collection of books from Edgar Allan Poe. A gold mine.

My fingers move gingerly along the spines of the books and I can't seem to decide which one I would like to read first.

Eh, we cross that bridge after we get them all settled into their new home: the bookshelf in my room.

And I thought it couldn't get better than having to escape the torturous heat of the summer. The dim lighting and musty smell of the store comforts me in a way no one can and I'm just grateful for the familiarity.

The Raven and other poems, Tamerlane and other poems, Eureka: a prose poem...

"Yes, come to papa," I whisper as I stack them on my arm and proceed to make payment but before I leave, I end up flipping through a few pages to just get a glimpse of his beautiful work. His words stab at tender places in my chest and I let out a small sigh.

And all my days are trances
And all my nightly dreams
And where they dark eye glances
...

Deep into that darkness peering,
Long I stood there wondering, fearing
Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal has ever dared to dream before

I squint as soon as I step out of the bookshop, needing a few moments to adjust to the light before moving over to my next stop of the day.

I push open the door of the coffee shop, whistling a song by Cigarettes after sex and I'm hit with that wonderful scent of grounded coffee beans mixed with the sweet aroma of baked products. My backpack lands on an empty table with a thud as if to remind me of the books I'd purchased earlier. I suddenly hear my name over the chatter in the room.

My forehead creases as I whip around, staring in the direction the sound came from.

"Asher!" the, soft, masculine voice calls out again and my eyebrows shoot up as I recognise the owner of the voice.

Ah fuck. I don't really want to have a chat with anyone at the moment but I don't want to be rude. He's a friend from school and he isn't so bad to talk to anyway so I don't have to worry that much. I grab my bag and saunter over to him.

After we order something, Josh starts to ask me about college and I have to hold back my sigh as I reply to his questions.

"I just want to stay out of trouble and graduate with a good CGPA I guess. Nothing much about it to be honest." I take a sip of my iced coffee and he nods. "You?"

"Man, I don't know to be honest. I wanna go somewhere far from home but I'll kinda miss home. And my girlfriend is staying back here and..."

I feel myself zoning out and my mind wanders off to a place I don't really like to go. A dark place that I would love to block out of my mind forever, but even if the memories fade away it doesn't ever really leave, pain, does it?

***

"I'm going to miss my baby when he leaves," my mom cries dramatically at dinner and I refrain myself from rolling my eyes at her.

"Jesus Christ mom, I'm not dying. I'm not even going that far, I'm literally still here in the state. I can always come to visit you and dad."
My eyes sweep around the room lazily as I take a bite of the food in front of me.

My dad regards me with a hardened expression that makes me squirm in my seat but my mom steals his attention back on time.

"You promise to study hard and stay away from bad friends?"

"Yes mom," I murmur, my voice sounding foreign.

Or any friends at all.

My eyes dig holes into my plate and the grip on my fork tightens. I clear my throat in response to the silence that ensues.

When I look up at them, I'm surprised to see their expressions softening and I notice the faint creases lined across my moms forehead. I wonder if she's thinking about the past year, about everything that went down that crazy period.

"I'm sure Ash has learned his lesson. He's a smart boy and I'm know he will excel at college. He takes after me. You know, back in my day, I was nicknamed Newton ..."

I manage to block out their voices, their seemingly innocent words that are disguised as concern. It's like they're still admonishing me, yelling at me. I can still remember how hopeless I felt, how scared, how heartbroken I was.

Worst part is that it's always there, maybe a lot less painful than it used to be but it's definitely still there.

I suddenly recall a line I read earlier today that I can't seem to get out of my head.

In the depths of sorrow, I find solace

"Good night mom, dad," I say as I pack up the dishes to go and load into the dishwasher. Anything to escape, even if it means chores.

My door shuts with a click and I'm hit with the feeling of sudden overwhelm. God, I barely spoke to anyone today and I'm feeling so drained.

I rid my heart of all the angst that has built up since the start of the day as I scribble furiously in my journal. That and my poems are the only ways I can process the hurt and anger I've faced.

It's such a beautiful form of art, poetry.
It helps me say the things I can't normally say in such a satisfying way. With it, I found my voice and I've said so many things, so many raw, dark confessions that I wouldn't normally say to anyone.

The thought of having someone to talk to about these things seem nice, though. It'll be nice to have someone who I can be raw and vulnerable with...but no way in hell I'm trying that again. My eyes go through the words on the pages that I've written and for a moment, I feel a sense of calm. It's like I can manage the pain. As I doze off that night, the words of Edgar Allan Poe ring in my head.

From deep into the darkening twilight
I hear the voice of years that are gone
...
And so let us be sad, good friends,
For all things have an end.

◑ ⁠◑⁠ ◑

Rhea

Fear. It's an emotion that I'm so used to, ever since I was a kid. It's lived within me for the longest time and now I think it's just a part of me.

Daniel throws the small plastic packets containing some whitish powdery stuff and some pills on the centre table and everyone around perks up. I'm young but smart enough to know that the things lying on the table are bad. Everyone but me reaches out to grab them and some already begin to sniff, swallow or snort with such a desperation, exhaling in relief after the intake.

Great, even more uncomfortable, disgusting things.
I thought the smell of cigarette smoke was bad enough. I'll never ever have a stick of cigarette in my life.

"Ferret," Daniel calls. I look up at him from the empty packet of cigarettes I'm holding. The federal ministry of health warns that smokers are liable to die young, it reads. "Want one?"

He takes the dangling stick out of his mouth and shakes it in front of me.
I shake my head stiffly but he only laughs and walks over to me. I swallow thickly as the shadow of his tall, heavily built frame envelopes me. The smell of cigarettes and alcohol is too much on him and I'm suffocating.

"It's not so bad ferret," he says and takes a puff, clouds of dense white smoke flowing out of his nose and between his lips. I let out a choking cough.

He steps back, noticing my obvious discomfort.

"But smokers are liable to die young..." I whisper, not really being able to understand why they still do it. Can't they read?

He only lets out a coarse, dry chuckle. "We're still all gonna die one day kid. World is fucked up, you should know that by now. And this helps."

I look up at him, eyes wide, trying to ignore the rest of his words and focus on the last ones. "It helps?"

He nods at me after taking another puff. "Takes the pain away."

He raises a brow at me and shakes the stick in front of me. "Wanna try?"

That was my first cigarette.

***

I'm in a dark alley, I'm surrounded by familiar faces. I'm a bit older now, say maybe 16. They're all staring down at me, their expressions twisted and menacing. Their eyes glow with such an intensity under the moonlight. I can see Joel, Marcus, Peter, Daniel...all inching closer to me, making this torturous moment last longer than it has to. I feel trapped, I can't breathe. I let out a piercing scream.

***

"Stop! Stop it, please!" I hear myself scream as I thrash on the bed.
"Hey, hey, it's fine, it's fine, I'm here," I hear a familiar soothing voice right beside me and the pounding in my heart reduces. I grab her hands and she squeezes. "It's okay. You're okay."

I roll to my side, exhaling.

"Which was it this time?"

Normally, I wouldn't want to relieve those scenes but I found that talking about it helps, surprisingly.

"When they... found me. Then the alley way," I murmur, still trying to calm down my racing heart.

"I'm so sorry," she tries, reaching out to hold me but I roll off the bed and stand up straight, adjusting my pyjamas.

"It's fine Marley, wasn't your fault. Besides, they're just dreams, they can't hurt me, remember?"

She smiles at me, nodding.

"It helped you a lot, Rhea. Why did you stop therapy?"

"I don't need therapy. I'm fine," I insist, reaching out for a bottle of water on my side table and she regards me with her soft blue eyes for a moment before letting out a sigh.

"Alright, Rhea."

She gets up the bed and strolls over to give me a quick hug and a smile before leaving. I don't deserve her.

I take a hurried shower, pull on my jeans, t-shirt, favourite leather jacket, put on my assorted jewellery, grab my packet of cigarettes from my side drawer and head to the balcony.

My legs are crossed and placed up on the small table at the edge of the railing. The honking of horns and the occasional barking of dogs feels like music in my ears as I watch the city through the dense, grey smoke that escapes my mouth at intervals. My eyes are trained on the city skyline, my olfactory nerves register the unpleasant but familiar smell of tobacco and my hands move in a repeating motion of taking the stick out of my mouth and placing back after I let out the smoke, yet my mind is somewhere else.

"I tried to scream
But my head was underwater
They called me weak
Like I'm not just somebody's daughter

Coulda been a nightmare
But it felt like they were right there
And it feels like yesterday was a year ago
But I don't wanna let anybody know
'Cause everybody wants something from me now
And I don't wanna let 'em down..."
I find myself singing at a point and I let out a sigh of relief. She understands me.

It's like she's me from another lifetime... only we exist in the same timeline.

I desperately want to let go of the past but it's hard. It's a part of me. I just wish it didn't drag me down. The thought of college feels like some sort of escape to a new world where I don't have to think about my past but I don't know, it might never get better and that's my biggest fear.

***

I'll miss Marley. She's my best friend in the world, my family, my home...The only one I've got. She rescued me from a dark place and I'm indebted to her forever. From the apartment to my college is a two hour drive so I can always come back to visit on weekends. I can't stay stuck in a place forever, hiding and so I want to use this opportunity, getting a music scholarship to study at Winchester University, to see if I have a chance at partially living a life that I've always dreamed of ever since I was a kid.

I had a dream
I got everything I wanted
Not what you'd think
And if I'm being honest...

I pause my packing when I discover a book I haven't gone to in a while. My journal from childhood and early teens. There's a lot of dark stuff in there that I don't want to go through but I hold it to my chest and shut my eyes tightly. I'll need it at college. I tuck it safely into the corner of the suitcase but it doesn't stay perfectly and when I try to reposition it, a small, beige coloured note falls out of it and I immediately reach out to pick it up.

My heart beat ceases in my chest as I unfold the paper. I instantly recognise the symbol drawn in the centre of the paper and my eyes drift involuntarily to the side of my left forearm where the exact symbol is tattooed, blending in with the myriad of tattoos scattered across the rest of the arm. Right under the symbol, a phone number and a name is scrawled carelessly.
(512) 67-0927. Daniel.

Tears prick at the corner of my eyes. I'm not going to cry, I'm not weak. I swallow to stop my throat from hurting. Daniel was like a father to me. But I couldn't ever call him that again after what he did to me.

◑ ⁠◑⁠ ◑

Leo

"I-I lose my breath," I belt at the top of my voice. "when you're walking in. Cause when our eyes lock, it's like my heart stops! I-I lose my breath-"

"Right now I feel like dying, and I'm lying, on the tilings when you walk in the room," Jeremy murmurs from my table at the edge of the room as he sorts through his and my schedules.

"Freezing but you're steaming, yeah I catch my breath every time you make a move."

"Can you be a part of my life?"

"Girl I need you right by my side."

"When I look in your eyes I'm out of breath."

"l'll always be here, I won't ever run. Cause you took the air right out of my lungs!"

"I-I lose my breath, when you're walking I-..." He pauses, and the terrible crack in his voice registers. I can't tell if it's the crack in his voice or the silence that ensues that makes me burst into a round of laughter and when he turns around to glare at me, he makes it worse.

I find myself rolling on the floor of my dorm room till the point that my stomach starts to constrict and it only gets worse when Jeremy joins in the laughter.

"Stop please," I gasp and stretch my hands out to him but he only laughs harder with me.

If someone were to walk into the room in the state we were in, they might have been worried. Luckily we were able to calm ourselves down and most importantly I didn't die.

"Leo," Jeremy calls out from his spot on the floor next to the table, his chest heaving.

"Jeremy," I respond as I run my hands through my hair.

"Something is really wrong with you." He gets up and moves over to the chair, getting straight back into the papers he was sorting through.

"So how's it going?" I ask as I get up smoothly from the floor and stroll over to him, peering over the table.

"Lectures begin next week and on Monday you have a class by 9:30am-10:45am and another by 1pm-2:15pm." He places his pencil between his lips and flips through the papers, taking it out when he's done. "As for me, I have just one 9:00am class."

"Meh," I say, flicking one of his bouncy curls, which irritates him. He ducks away. "We'll probably skip anyway."

He sighs in resignation, knowing I'm right, and gets up after placing all the papers in a neat stack. "Without me you're useless."

"That's why you're my best friend. Now let's go grab breakfast. It's past nine." I reach for his hand but he slaps it away with an eye roll and leads the way out of my private dorm room.

***

"I'm telling you man, she was totally checking me out," I say to him and take a sip of my steaming latte. The hot, brown liquid runs down my throat in such a satisfying way. I can feel the gears in my brain spinning already.

Ah I love coffee.

"She was waiting for you to pay for your coffee you idiot," he tells me a bit harshly.

"She was looking at me... everywhere."

"Firstly, she wasn't. Secondly, where do you expect her to look, behind her?"

"Huh?" We're strolling around campus and I'm still getting used to how pretty it is, with the huge trees, vibrant flowers and impressive buildings everywhere. It's kinda surreal, like I'm actually in college. Like what?

"Never mind."

I chuckle as I take another sip of my coffee. I swear sometimes Jeremy acts like he'd probably sell me if he had the chance or the need for money. I don't know why he keeps me around.

My eyes are trained on a really tall building made out mostly of glass when Jere starts to talk.

"By the way, you should watch where you're going. You know you always-"

"What the hell?" a red haired boy standing in front of me cries as my half drunk coffee spills over his nice looking pair of jeans.

"Spill your coffee," Jeremy finishes.

"Fuck, I am so sorry," I tell the guy who's shooting me daggers. The coffee is spilled over what looks like a brand-new, sparkling white pair of sneakers and I cringe internally, my face going hot. And when I'm embarrassed I tend to ramble.

"Hey now it looks like those Nike SB Stefan Janoski sneakers."

"The fuck?" he asks, staring at me like I'd lost it.

"You know the new coffee edition? It's a collectors item."

"Leo," Jeremy calls out, placing his fingers on the bridge of his nose.

"You know this is art," I go on, surprised the guy is patiently waiting as I go on. "Its all about embracing the artistic stains."

"Leo, stop."

"Look, I'm sorry," I say seriously. "I didn't watch where I was going. I probably have to pay for them now-"

To my surprise, he bursts into a round of laughter. "It's cool. It's nothing, you just ruined my fit. I'm Steven by the way."

My brows perk up. "Leo. This is Jeremy." I point at Jere.

He nods at Jeremy and reaches out for a fist pump. "See you around."

***

"He's kinda cute," he tells me.
The rhythmic ping pong sound as the small white ball bounces across the table is soothing to my ears. My eyes as focused on the path the ball takes at every second of the game and at Jeremy's stance at the same time.

A smirk tugs at my lips at his statement. "You know what else he probably is...? Straight," I deadpan.

"You don't know that."

"Okay, I don't," I say, positioning the ball in front of the small wooden bat, ready to make a serve. "So what if he is? Gonna make a move?"

"No." He hits the ball down, aiming for the farthest corner of my side of the table. I dart to the right but I'm not able to catch it on time.

"So what's the point?" I ask after returning with the stray ball.

"You thought the chic that served you your coffee was cute, but you haven't asked her out yet," he shoots back cleverly.

"Not yet," I say with a smirk and he rolls his eyes.

"Anyway, are you ready for the school year?" he asks as we hit the ping pong ball back and forth between us. I honestly prefer this, no winning, no losing, just this continuous back and forth. It's therapeutic.

"I don't know, to be honest."

"Wow, that's the most reasonable thing you've said today."

"Shut up." He laughs at me.

I've been evading thinking about the new college year, not because I'm not excited and hopeful about it but because I'm not sure of what it'll bring. I'm also not sure of what I want to do with it, but I know that I'm not just going to let my first year of unlimited freedom go to waste and the way I see things, just like at that after-party, I think I'm going to go all out. I just need to make up my mind for one little thing.

A/N
The Nike SB Stefan Janoski sneakers are actually real😭 incase you're wondering...