Chameleon ✔️

17 elevators

CW: This chapter briefly describes a character injured in a car accident near the middle of the chapter.

I have him meet me in the treehouse after school. Because it's nothing less than symbolic at this point.

"What's this about?" he asks, more than once.

I don't satisfy him with an answer. Instead I sit quietly three feet in front of him, the table cloth spread out beneath us. It's warm this afternoon. In my hand I hold a piece of striped paper, each stripe a different color, the entire sheet color blocked from top to bottom, from margin to margin. We've been sitting in silence for a few moments now, and we continue to for another few moments. I know his attention deficiteness is kicking in when he starts drumming his fingertips on the wooden floorboards on either side of him.

I think of my mother.

Will she be proud of me? Will she be ashamed?

My lips form words before my brain instructs them to. "You asked me the other day who I was," I begin. His drumming ceases in anticipation of further explanation. "I've been thinking about that a lot. It upset me that I didn't have an answer." I open my eyes, and my hands have placed the map atop the old quilt between us. "And then Berthelot asked us again, and I still didn't have one."

I make eye contact with him, and my heartbeat anticipates what's to come, giving me another push.

Here goes nothing.

"Pick a color."

He looks down at the paper. "Is this supposed to be like one of those fortune tellers we made in middle school?" he asks. "Because it's supposed to be folded."

I don't say anything. I don't even look at him. My eyes are closed. If I can see any emotion on his face, I may lose my focus. I hear him sigh after a few seconds in resignation. "Red."

"Red," I repeat. My answer is a slow, calculated one. "Anger. Frustration," I say. "Sometimes passion, if it's the right shade. Pick another one."

"Green." This time he doesn't stall, and do I even hear a hint of amusement in his tone? It shouldn't anger me that he thinks this to be a game, when it only angers me that it isn't.

"Green. Envy. Jealousy." I inhale, and it is shaky. I hope he doesn't notice. But maybe he should. "Another."

"Uh. Purple."

"Lust," I say, opening my eyes. "The darker, the deeper."

"I-I don't understand," he stammers. He never stammers. I've made him uncomfortable. Good. The situation at hand is not one to be taken lightly.

"Again," I command.

"Aspen, just tell me what's going on."

"Again."

He huffs. "Blue."

Eyes closed again. "Which one? There's three."

"I dunno. Just blue."

"Alright. Light blue is calm, serene. Royal blue is confidence. Dark blue is sadness, loneliness."

He picks another without instruction. Finally catching on. "Orange."

"Curiosity."

"Yellow."

"Happiness."

"Pink."

"Magenta: annoyance. Carnation: hope."

The following few moments go by like this, him spitting colors and me spitting their corresponding emotions.