Stolen Voices ✓

February 5th

Depression is being colorblind and constantly told how colorful the world is.

-Atticus

February 5th:

Elias finds he watches a lot, getting lost in the most innocent of things. Should it be the white adobe walls of his English classroom, or the brushes of splattered paint on a white canvas. He is now gazing at the painting hung above the mantle. Swirls of blood-red and daisy yellow, forming together, with a few specks of cerulean.

He is hypnotized by it. The way up close, the brash lines of paint created turmoil. You can't tell what the picture ought to be, other than lines that crisscross each other, twisting in coils. He loves that it isn't until you stepped away from its proximity you realize those brash lines create the silhouette of a young boy running away.

Elias feels like this painting. Just a face. Chaos brewing inside the silence of his soul, etching corruption and branding his veins.

Sagging against the back of their leather couch, his body slopes a little as the cushion next to him dips down. The cloying smell of his mother's essential oil shampoo, and his father's sawdust, attacks his nose as he tilts his head to look at her.

His mother is a vision, with nearly black thick hair and eyes so brown you can lose yourself in them. She looks a lot like Elias, who likewise resembles an adonis.

She smiles, whitened teeth and all, offering up a cup of hot chocolate, which he instantly accepts. The tepid liquid sears his throat as he takes in needy gulps. His entire body feeling warm and replenished. Having just been outside in the cool winter's air, working with his father to dig out their truck from the mound of packing snow it was lost in.

"I wanted to talk to you, sweetheart, before your father goes and spills the news," she chuckles, taking Elias's chill hand in her own as if she is afraid he might run. The look in her eyes holds an unreadable emotion, although Elias interprets bad vibes.

He nods his head, slowly and deliberately, preparing himself.

"We're going to Nana's, for Valentine's day dinner. I know it might be hard, but honey, I think being around your cousins will be good for you. To interact with them" She pats his hand, running her fingers over the skin of his bruised knuckles, letting him digest this information.

She tries to smile, as if it will lighten the mood.

Ella James aches on the inside, her heart pinching in her chest. She is a vision to look at, although in the last few years emerged wrinkles where her eyebrows knit in together in apprehension. Deep purple bags forming beneath her eyes with sleepless nights. She covers a lot of her worry with makeup, but her heart still scars.

She will be caught staring out the window, just watching the world shift before her. She watches as summer is quick to fade as soon as it rises, the trees morphing into bright reds and yellows, soon being blanketed with the fresh powder of snow.

She worries for her son, wishing very much that he could just tell her what was plaguing him inside his head. She spends nights awake, breathing heavily as she weeps into her husband's embrace. Elias listens, his ear against the wall, listening to his mother's prayers, begging he would just go back to the happy boy whose mission in life was to out smile everyone.

Then one day, as if a switch had been flipped, his entire face had fallen hopeless. The suffocating air encompassing him, you could feel its tension pulling you into its darkness whenever you're nearby him. Watching, not being able to do anything, feeling as the grief eats him away.