à la folie

Lesley had been half-way through a sentence when the green-haired boy appeared. He had been talking about how annoying Annabelle’s sleepover were, and how they kept him up all night, then that boy had just stepped out of no-where into our path and grinned, a very white, pretty grin.

“Oliver!” I flinched at Lesley’s yell but he didn’t notice as he flung himself at the strange boy, wrapping his arm around his neck and jumping up to get his legs around his waist. ‘Oliver’ staggered backwards but hugged back equally as enthusiastic. I looked down at the floor.

“I didn’t know you were getting back today! Could have texted me at least!”

“Sorry, we got back an hour ago, I wasn’t going to go to school but I missed you man” Oliver had a very pretty voice, like his smile. Calming and slow, deep and throaty. They continued on with their conversation and I just stood there, taking in their voices but not their words. It sounded so much more musical that way, how the world should be. Sound couldn’t be blue.

“Oh! Oliver, this is Fleance, he is- was new” Lesley gestured to me, half-turning towards me. Oliver focused his green eyes on me. They were darker than Lesley’s, more intense. I wanted to get lost in them, away from all the blue. Green was such a pretty colour, I wish everything was green, I wished I could close my eyes and see nothing but green.

“Macbeth?” he asked, no smile, just a raised eyebrow and a slightly hunched figure, no pressure to be ‘happy’. In all honesty, he didn’t look like he cared. But people made no sense to me and I don’t know him, and I never will because people confuse me with multi-signals and too many words.

“Yeah” I responded, looking away from him, hating the eye contact but loving it for being so green.

I wish I had green eyes.

Oliver paid me no more attention after that, but engaged in conversation with Lesley about Spain, where he had been staying for the last month. He had a nice tan from it, caramel coloured with darker flecks of freckles littering his skin here and there. It was pleasant colour which reminded me of stretched out toffee I had seen on a school trip so many years ago.

“You still with Gerard?” I almost pulled my gaze from the ground at this, wanting to hear more about him, but I kept my steady glare on the ground and listened more intently instead.

“Yeah” came Lesley’s unenthusiastic response, I could feel an emotion rising in the air, an unfamiliar one I couldn’t interpret. It hurt to try and figure it out, so I left it.

“Your cheek?” The conversation seemed to move rapidly on, and I tried stopped listening, except I couldn’t get my ears to tune back into their voices and not their words.

“Drop it, Oliver”

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[Psychopathic condition]
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“You’re from England then?” I nodded, looking away from the boy with the green hair, eyes and cardigan. He liked green a lot, evidently. Like me.

“My cousin lives over there, says it rains a lot” After a few moments he seemed to be expecting an answer from me, and I just nodded, not sure what he wanted a response too. It did rain in England, more than America, but was that a lot? What was I meant to compare it to? I liked the rain, so was it meant to be a bad thing, or a good thing? The rain was nice and cold and real on my skin, it was what the world was meant to be.

I remember when I was little, I used to draw rain.

I coloured it in blue.

“Quiet?” I nodded again

“Quiet and English, you’re my type” He laughed, but seemed serious as he turned back to the front of the classroom, lazily balancing a pencil on his finger.

“You are gay, aren’t you?” I shrugged, and then remembered he wasn’t watching.

“I don’t know” My voice sounded raw. Not enough coffee, never enough coffee.

“Oh” I wasn’t sure how to respond, so I didn’t. Staring down at the scratched and beaten table instead, trying to submerge myself in my own thoughts. Why wasn’t my brain working?

“Not going for Lesley are you?”

“What?” the word slipped out before I could catch it and the lack of control made me frown. Breathe. In. Out.

“His boyfriend is brutal, wouldn’t trust him” Again I let the conversation drift away, unsure of how to keep it going and why I would want to keep it going when my head was buzzing and my throat was aching.

“Wouldn’t blame you though, he’s pretty fine” He seemed to want me to say something, but I couldn’t quite catch his drift. He was talking about Lesley. He liked Lesley. Who didn’t like Lesley?

I stayed quiet.