Painting Flowers

"Yeah. Yeah, I'll come," I said. "When?"

"Seven," Danny said down the line. He'd called me as soon as I'd got in the house, asking me if I wanted to come to his party next Saturday; apparently there was going to be loads of hot girls there, to which I was slightly unenthusiastic about. No idea why. "'s in mine, since my mom and dad are away on this business trip thing. Bring a friend if you want."

"Alright," I said, nodding and stepping up the stairs to my bedroom, taking the steps two at a time and shrugging my bag off my shoulder on to the hall carpet as I reached the top landing. "Yeah. Cool. Will there be drinks and stuff?"

Danny laughed. "'Course there'll be, bro! I mean, what's a party with some girls and booze, right?" I nodded (even though he couldn't see me). "Right, so you definitely coming?"

"Yeah, sure," I said, pushing my door open and stepping inside. I smirked to myself as I saw that Alex's window was already open next door, almost inviting me to come in (we had this almost unspoken rule that I'd always go over to his after school, and we'd play the xBox and talk until I had to go home for dinner. It was an easy friendship).

"'Kay, dude, I'll see you tomorrow then?" Danny asked.

"Yeah, bye," I murmured down the line, ending the call and tossing my cell phone carelessly down on my mattress. I stared at it for a few seconds, before my gaze swung around to Alex's open bedroom window, the curtains dancing in the gentle afternoon breeze outside. I strode over to the wall of my room, sliding the glass pane upwards and sticking my head out into the air. I looked around for a little while, taking in the light blue sky and the pearly clouds peppering it above me, before managing to squeeze my legs out onto the ledge of the window, my hands grasping tightly onto the branch of Alex and I's tree so that I didn't fall into the garden (I was lucky that that hadn't happened to me yet).

Carefully, I began to step from branch to branch over the tree, biting my lower lip as the Amelie poster in his room came into focus once I'd managed to work my way around the tree trunk and began to tightrope my way across to his window. To my surprise, however, when I reached Alex's window ledge, I peered inside his empty room. There was no sign of him; no lazily-kicked-off shoes, no bag abandoned by the doorway, no Alex lying on his bed with his nose stuck in between pages of another classic novel. Worry seeped through my body, turning my blood cold.

Had he been stopped by some dickheads in school? No, 'cause I saw him starting to walk home from school when I was on the bus- he waved to me. Did he get lost? Maybe. That was the highest probability. But why was the bedroom window open?

I looked around Alex's room, the inanimate posters smiling at me through the silence. "Alex?" I called, just so that there was some sound. It felt weird to have a ringing nothing in return. "Hey, 'Lex, you in?" I wandered over to his double bed, lifting up the two pillows lying atop the duvet as though Alex was just going to pop up from behind one of them.

I suddenly noticed that the tape I'd leant him a few days ago (Never Coming Home by JFK) was lying at the foot of his bed, a small slip of paper sticking out from underneath it. Leaning forwards, I shoved the cassette out of the way and snatched the piece of paper up, holding it to my face and reading the words that were scrawled on it.

"Jack,
I have an adventure for you! You have to promise not to read ahead at these instructions, though, or else it will ruin everything!"

I raised my eyebrows at this, smirking as the letter continued,

"1) Go back over to your house and get a towel/blanket out. Bring it back over (LEAVE THE BIT OF PAPER HERE, YOU ASSHOLE)."

I laughed, shaking my head and biting my bottom lip. I wasn't sure whether or not to do as Alex was telling me, but I decided, what the hell, he's gone to all this effort just for me. And so I put the bit of paper back down on top of the JFK tape and turned back towards the open window, carefully stepping outside and teetering off the edge of the windowsill. I made my way over the tree quickly, jumping back into my room (I'd left my window wide open) and landing on the soft blue carpet with a dull 'thud'. I looked around my room, my mind racing for where I would have a blanket or a towel kept.

Suddenly, I remembered that mom had saved the blanket that I'd got for my third birthday from some distant aunt back in Lebanon in my closet, bottom drawer. I knelt down on my knees in front of it and yanked the handle forward, my hands immediately stuffed in the mess of old birthday presents that I either didn't like or didn't fit me anymore (mostly "#1 nephew" or "WORLD'S BEST GRANDSON!" and the likes). After scouring my belongings for a few minutes, I eventually pulled out a moth-eaten blanket from the depths of my drawers, decorated in some cartoons airplanes and trains. I smiled momentarily, before stuffing the old tattered blanket under my arm and quickly swinging out of my window again, my feet moving clumsily across the branches as I was filled with excitement to see what Alex's next instructions were.

I jumped back into his room, dashing over to his bed and picking up the bit of paper that was left on top of the cassette.

"2) Okay, so you should have a blanket or towel now. If you don't, and you're just reading ahead to test me, then I hate you. (Just kidding.) Anyway, now I want you to look up and pull down the bit of string hanging from the ceiling (I put a star on it because you can be blind sometimes). Also, take the paper with you this time!!!!"

Laughing, I looked up to see that there was a piece of string hanging from Alex's roof, with a sticky note put on to the frayed end of it. I stuffed the paper in my jeans pocket, holding tighter on to my blanket and reaching up with my free hand to yank it down harshly. However, I had to spring back in surprise as a set of wooden steps fell down as I tugged on the string, leading up to what I assumed was Alex's loft. I had no idea that this was even here. But then again, there were a lot I didn't know about Alex, so I just shrugged and headed up the stairs, holding on to the little railings tightly so that I didn't fall down the steps like a total dick.

Once I had reached safe ground again on the next floor, I was consumed by darkness. I felt around blindly for a little while, my hands feeling along the brick wall carefully so that I might be able to flick a light switch and see. After a few silent minutes of this, I eventually found a switch on the wall and touched at it, my eyes squinting as sudden brightness engulfed me from above. I took out the paper to see what was my next instruction.

"3) So, Jack, you should've gone up the steps by now. If not, do that."

Whoops.

"4) Okay, so you'll have found the torch I left you, and you're probably reading this in semi-darkness. Go over to your left and there'll be a light switch, which you should flick so you can read this properly."

Whoops. Again.

"5) Right, so now you're in my loft. Welcome. Be considerate to the rats. Anyway, if you look to your far right now, you'll see there's a set of steps and a window."

I did. There was.

"Go up the steps and open up the window (push it, don't pull it or else the glass will cave in on you ((some first-hand advice here)) and you will get shards of glass in your eyes)."

Biting my lip, I carefully made my way over to the set of spiralling stairs by a large pile of boxes marked "TOM'S STUFF (DONT TOUCH, ALEX)" and I gulped at that. I shook my head. I wasn't here to reminisce about the dead. Instead, I carefully stepped up the stairs, the paper still clenched tightly in my hand as I reached the glass window above my head, and I could see the blue sky, now tinted with streaks of red and orange.

Gently pushing it, the window pane began to move upwards and backwards until there was nothing above me besides the sky. I managed to step up as far as the spiralling staircase would allow, and eventually, I settled for tossing my blanket up on what I guessed was the roof, and struggled to hoist myself up after it (I really didn't have the best upper arms strength).

But finally, I was sitting on top of the roof, and I looked around in confusion. Why would Alex lead me here?

"Hey, Jack," a voice came from behind me, and I snapped my head around to see Alex lying down beside the chimney on a towel, a smirk on his lips and the signs of the sunset glinting in the reflection of his eyes. My frightened expression softened slightly at the sight of him, and I gave a "hey" in reply, before stepping across his roof, my feet pacing lightly over the slates so that I didn't fall and break my neck or something. I lay the blanket down beside Alex and returned the smile he sent in my direction, carefully lying down on the fabric and staring forwards at the skyline.

"So you managed to follow my instructions," I heard him say, and I glanced sideways to see Alex smirking at the horizon.

I nodded. "Yeah. It was fun and all, dude, but why did you do it?"

Alex shrugged. "Dunno. Some adventure once in a while isn't a bad thing, is it?" I shook my head, even though I knew there was probably some meaning behind his weird trail set up thing, but I didn't want to be nosy and pester him too much, so I just stayed quiet.

The sun was nearly behind the hills of suburbia, causing the western sky to be a fiery orange colour as the sun blazed. I whistled. "Nice view, 'Lex, I didn't know you could see this from your house."

"Neither did I until kinda recently," he shrugged. "Actually, my dad told me this morning 'cause he was out tiling the roof last night and he saw the sunset from here, so I kinda thought to bring you up here to show you it, too."

"I'm truly honoured," I said, and Alex sniggered. "Really, though. It's awesome. I had no idea you could see this from here."

Alex hummed, nodding as we watched the sun roll down, and a few stars began to appear above our heads. I smiled into the silence, liking how we weren't forced into talking, and we could just sit in comfortable quietness whilst we could hear the background noises of cars and children playing in the distance. It was actually really nice.

The sun properly went down about ten minutes later, and I was too caught up in watching the sky be painted in golds and purples and reds as it set behind the hills that I didn't even notice Alex reach down and grab my hand, linking our fingers and shifting a little bit closer to me so that our legs were brushing against each other's. It was only once the sky was a deep purple and I could make out a few constellations above me that I realised that there was a warmth in the palm of my hand.