True Colours

"So Oli," Mr Jacobs started cooly, walking towards my desk and pulling up a chair causing the metal legs to screech against the floor and making me wince. I always did hate that sound. I couldn't stand anything that screeched. Not after what happened. "I read your file."

Oh God, here it comes.

'So, you're a loonatic' He'll start and I'll nod, of course.

"You've been through a rough time, huh?" He asked caringly and I nodded simply. I wasn't one for sympathy. Sympathy meant attention and, frankly, I'd rather keep my distance from attention as much as possible. Attention gave people more and more chance to tease and bully. "I'm sorry about what happened."

They were always sorry. I didn't understand why people apologised, I mean, they hardly did it. It wasn't their fault. The person who did it was locked away in a prison somewhere in New York. Somewhere far away from me and the rest of the people I cared for. I hoped he'd been ass-fucked so many times that his prostate didn't work any more. I hoped he'd dropped the soap so many times that he feared to pick it up. I hoped he felt so guilty about what he'd done that he couldn't sleep at night.

I hoped he was suffering like I was.

I nodded to Mr Jacobs, trying my best not to be cynical of the situation, and shuffled uncomfortably in my seat as he looked at me inquisitively. Great, another 'looker'. My last therapist was a looker. She'd just stare at me and wait for me to talk, it was a little unnerving actually, and when I didn't after half an hour or so she'd just widen her eyes, expecting me to react when, in reality, I'd just get even more scared of her than in the first place. She had the curious eyes, curious green eyes, much like Mr Jacobs' right now.

"I saw you mouthing along to Romeo and Juliet." He changed the subject, thankfully, and I nodded. Again. "You know it?" I nodded. "You don't speak much, huh?"

I sighed silently and opened my sketchbook, swiftly flicking past the drawings I'd scribbled onto there at some point, and wrote down a quick "I thought you read my file" in a font that expressed my sarcastic tone before turning it and showing him.

He laughed softly and nodded, "Well remembered."

Not really, you said it like two seconds ago.

"As you can speak through this, mind answering me why not?" My eyes widened slightly at his pushy nature. He was a teacher, not an annoying therapist. "Not to be pushy, I'm just curious."

"I can't." I wrote down and shoved it towards him again. He gave me a questioning glance so I put graphite to paper once again. "I choke. I try and speak, I really do, but every time I want to I just choke. I have the inability to socialise, in my 'therapist's' words." I scrawled across the page and pulled my hands back when they began to shake slightly. I knotted my fingers together and rested them in my lap, staring down at them as he assessed the paper. Not in a test kind of way, just looked over it intently.

"Well, if you need to, you can always come and speak to me... Except, not speak speak-well, you can if you... You get the idea, right?" He asked, exasperated, and I laughed nodding. I liked Mr Jacobs, he seemed really lovely.

I took my sketchbook and stood up when he said that I could leave, stuffing it into my backpack before slinging it over my shoulder again and walking out of the classroom bewildered as to where I could spend this free period. I sighed and leant against the wall, resting my head back against it and pinching my eyes shut.

What was I going to do with this free period?

"You okay?" A soft voice came from opposite me and I quickly opened my eyes to find Alex leant up against the wall opposite to me with a small smile on his face. I nodded and gave him a curious expression. Curious as to why he was here at all. "I, um, thought you might like someone to spend free period with?" He asked sheepishly and I tilted my head.

Nobody's ever gone out of their way to keep me company before, then again, nobody ever wanted to keep me company.

"It's okay if you don't want to, I just thought you'd be lonely and I know what that's like. It sucks." He shrugged nervously, unintentionally giving me a little more confidence. I nodded towards him with a big smile and bit back a giggle when he mirrored me, the massive smile spreading across his face now. "We can go hang with Jack and stuff if you like, or I could give you a tour of the school?" He suggested and I was stuck of how to answer without opening my mouth.

"Nod for the first, poke my shoulder for the second." He smirked, so I reached over and poked his shoulder. "Tour it is then." He smiled confidently and crossed the hallway to me, nodding in the right direction to go. "Come on, I'll show you the art department first since you seem so interested in drawing." He winked and I grinned.

I wanted to say 'thank you' so badly but decided he wouldn't know sign language. Would he? No, barely anyone knew sign language. I only knew it because my therapist needed me to speak and writing down angst-filled words to her wasn't really what she wanted. She wanted answers as to why I wasn't speaking. What I was feeling.

It was only when they threatened me with a vacancy in a mental institution that I used the sign language.

If they'd have shoved me into a real mental institution to 'fix' me then I'd have had to attend multiple therapy sessions and tolerate people at my age every single day. There wasn't anything wrong with me, I wasn't insane like some people thought, they just wanted me to speak. They wanted to know how I was feeling. They wanted to ask that horrible question "and how do you feel about that" repeatedly so they could figure out how to 'treat' me. I didn't need treatment either; the anti-depressants they put me on before just made me worse and any other medicat--

"Watch out!" Alex woke me up from my thoughts with a squeak and grabbed my hand, pulling me out of the way of a locker door. "Are you alright?" He asked once I'd steadied myself from the tug and touched my face, checking if I'd hurt myself despite the fact I hadn't actually hit the locker. I was extremely aware that he was still holding my hand tightly and shuffled uncomfortably when he got closer, an eyebrow raised. He had such nice eyebrows. "Earth to Oli? Are you okay?"

I nodded and he smiled brightly once again, taking a step back. I felt his hand get slightly sweatier when he noticed he was still holding mine before he released mine and wiped his on his jeans.

"Sorry, I didn't want you hitting your face on your first day." He laughed shyly and I shrugged smiling. That's two things I had to thank him for. I'll count them from now on.

Two.

"You have a pretty face, you don't want it broken." He said even more nervously.

Three.

I did the sign language for 'thank you' and hoped he'd understand. Unfortunately, I wasn't that lucky. He gave me a confused smirk and I waved it off quickly, nodding forwards.

"So you can't actually speak? Are you a mute?" He asked as we began walking again. I shook my head. "Oh, you just don't speak then?" I nodded. "Fair enough, sometimes I'd rather not speak."

Finally, someone who understands.

---

"Dude, where were you at free period?" Brendon asked Alex as he and I walked into Science. It seemed that I had a lot of classes with Alex, we had a lot in common too.

We'd sat down halfway through the tour, mostly because Alex couldn't be bothered to walk anymore and I needed to digest the information he'd given me throughout the time we'd spent walking through winding corridors and hallways, and I got out my sketchbook, on a blank page of course, and a pencil so that I could talk to him without the constant nodding or shaking my head. It got annoying after a while, y'know. I managed to fill the page with all different kinds of fonts scrawled on with my, now blunt, pencil.

When Alex started talking about himself, I'd listen intently and draw in the corner of the page. I always needed something to do with my hands. So my page was filled with both text and doodles. Alex complimented my doodle of Pete Wentz and Dallon from Panic! At The Disco and said that the scales were accurate. Since Pete's small and Dallon's extremely tall, I exaggerated that fact and drew a teeny Pete and massive Dallon- Pete's drawing having "I love Patrick Stump" next to it in a bubble. So it made me laugh when he said they were accurate. Alex made me laugh a lot actually, which is pretty unusual since I've only laughed at my own sarcasm or internally at other people's failures for years now. I liked laughing genuinely, it felt awesome.

Alex seemed like a sweet guy and was obsessed with the same bands as I was meaning: Blink 182, Green Day, Fall Out Boy, Muse and My Chem. But not Panic! At The Disco, he hadn't heard them yet. So I decided I'd show him sometime. Another unusual thing; I actually wanted to reach out and show someone something rather than keeping the wonderful things to myself in fear that they'd laugh at me because the music was "shit". I, for one, loved Panic! At The Disco- it was just girls like my sister that didn't appreciate their talent and amazing music. So I was going to show Alex Panic! At The Disco, if he wanted to hear them of course.

"I took Oli on a tour." Alex shrugged, smiling at me, and I smiled back before abandoning him to go give Mr Quinton - the science teacher - the note I had to give every one of my teachers.

It just bluntly explained why I was here although they should already know that I was here. Teachers should be prepared for new students if they were notified about them a week before like Mr Marks - the head teacher - explained before finishing his lecture off with a "thank you, and welcome to the school". Speaking of 'thank you's: I owed Alex seven 'thank you's so far and was intent on giving them to him, except I didn't just want to write them down. I felt the need to say it out loud to him, with feeling. He'd made my day so far easier than it should've been and, for that, I was grateful.

I didn't bother going back to Alex when Mr Quinton finished reading the note and nodded at me, telling me to get some notes from some of the other students. I just went and took a seat at the back of the class, hoping nobody would sit next to me, as I always did. I grabbed my sketchbook from my bag and placed it in front of me along with a pencil and the colours of Alex's face, hair and facial features. I wanted to finish off my drawing since I already knew everything about the topic of diabetes.

I'd seen it written on the board and knew immediately that I'd no reason to listen. I had type one diabetes myself and knew about type two too, and dad had forced me to listen to endless lectures from my doctor telling me of how I had to keep a healthy diet and exercise regularly. So I went jogging every morning and evening, and ate healthy foods but allowed myself junk food. I'd already been threatened enough about my decrease in weight by my doctor that I had to eat large amounts of food.

I'm not complaining, of course, I like food.

I broke from my deep thoughts when light cough came from beside me, waking me from them. I turned my head and, to my despair, a purple-haired girl was stood there with a curious smile. "Hi, can I sit here?" She asked softly and I nodded reluctantly. "I'm Primrose. I already know who you are." I shook her hand before knotting my fingers together again and resting them on the table, trying my best to avoid a conversation with the girl without being rude, and made sure that she took no interest in my sketchbook. "So, you're the girl who doesn't speak?" She questioned.

I tried my best not to look confused at the speed of gossip and shrugged, glancing up at the sound of a familiar chuckle that was quickly cut off by whoever made it. Primrose just stared at me, giving me no clue as to who giggled.

"How come?" I shrugged again and rolled my eyes when she made an irritated 'oomph' sound. "Is there something wrong with you? Mentally?" I shook my head. "How do you expect to get friends if you don't speak?"

'Ah, here comes blunt Oli' My subconscious grinned darkly and, for once, I agreed. I was going to be blunt.

I opened my sketchbook to a blank page once again, smiling softly when I passed my side of Alex and I's conversation, and put the graphite hard to paper giving my words a ebony tint rather than grey and a little angst about it.

"I don't." I wrote down and underlined it twice for emphasis. I held it up to her and smiled when the same familiar giggle surfacing the atmosphere. It wasn't Primrose laughing of course, but I liked the laugh. The Primrose girl scoffed.

"Nancy, stop making up names for yourself and being such a bitch to Oli. Just fuck off." Alex's voice laughed and I looked behind myself, which would've been to the side of me if I was sitting straight, to find Alex stood there with an amused expression while Nancy/Primrose rolled her eyes and stood up, strutting off to a group of girls.

Eight.

"Um, Brendon abandoned me for Ryan and I figured--" I cut him off by pushing the seat the girl had been sat on towards him to stop his babble only making him smirk. He sat down on it and pulled it over so he was sitting beside me. "Thanks."