Screaming Color
fourteen
it happens in early march, when spring is beginning to creep into the edges of cole’s vision like a forgotten memory. the air grows warmer, the days longer. the wind stops threatening to shred the skin of cole’s cheeks every time she goes outside, and exam season looms nearer. that’s when it happens, the accidental kiss, the absentminded kiss, a soft brush of lips against lips that wakes cole up like a plunge in a frozen sea.
it’s a thursday – cole knows she will never forget that it happens on a thursday – and they’re in the dining hall as usual, cole and niall and april and zayn, and cole sits surrounded by niall’s books. he’s working on a paper on t.s. eliot, cole’s least favorite poet out of all her least favorite poets (a list that contains most poets), and the collection of library books that he’s amassed is overwhelming. cole stares at the spine of the new unauthorized biography of t.s. eliot as she uses her spoon to draw snail shells in her soup. niall’s post-it notes stick out from the pages haphazardly, decorated with his small, scrawling handwriting. cole has no interest in t.s. eliot, in his wasteland or his anything else. but she wants to read niall’s notes, run her fingers over his words and imagine the movements his hand made as he wrote them.
last night niall fell asleep while they were studying, his back against cole’s outstretched legs and his arms dangling off the edge of the bed. cole’d looked up from her reading around 10 pm to see him stretched out like that, his feet reaching toward her and his head on his pillow, his eyes tightly shut. she watched him for a few minutes, thinking, i wish these feelings weren’t all in my head. thinking of running her hand through his hair and feeling the brush of his eyelashes against her skin as he turns his face into her palm. thinking, i wonder what he’s dreaming of right now.
and then cole’d realized the ridiculousness of it, of dreaming dreams that might never come to fruition. she felt her cheeks growing warm and pulled her knees to her chest, wondering how to get off the bed when niall’s body was blocking her path to the floor. but then niall’d woken up, his toes brushing against cole’s thigh as he shifted.
“you going somewhere?” he asked, his voice thick with sleep.
“yeah,” cole said. “you’re sleeping.”
“nah.” niall’s eyes were already drifting shut again. “c’mere.” he patted the space behind him and there was nothing for cole to do but drop her book to the floor and crawl beside him.
cole fell asleep with niall’s warm arm tight around her and her head under his chin, and when they awoke in the morning, they didn’t talk about it. cole slipped off to her room to get ready for the day, and then she went to class. and all the while, behind her eyelids she saw niall’s blue eyes, and on her stomach just above the waistband of her jeans, she felt the lingering soft tickle of niall’s fingertips, moving slowly back and forth to lull her to sleep.
and now, at dinner, stirring the warmth out of her soup and imagining niall spelling words with his hands on the bare skin of her back, cole thinks that it’s good that she and niall won’t be spending tonight so close together that she can feel the heat of him casting spells on her skin. niall has a meeting for the lit mag tonight, like he has every second thursday at 8 since the fall. usually cole dreads thursday nights, dreads spending an evening alone with just her books about dead people and the wars they fought over banalities for company. but tonight she’s glad for it. tonight, she needs to breathe.
“you sure you don’t want to come?” niall asks a few minutes later as he begins gathering up his books. he always asks cole to come. she always says no, but he always asks her again the next week, as if she’ll answer differently this time.
“that’s okay,” she says. niall stands up and lifts his backpack onto the table. he reaches for the first book, and cole watches as they disappear one by one from the table into niall’s bag. soon enough, the new unauthorized biography of t.s. eliot is gone too. “i should study tonight.”
“you study every night,” niall says. cole only smiles. she’s afraid, though she doesn’t know how to put it into words, of what will happen if she and niall start doing everything together. if they start spending every moment with one another, how will it feel when they have to be apart?
and then it happens, just after cole gives up on her cold soup and lays her spoon down in defeat. as niall swings his backpack onto his shoulder, cole thinks ahead to a few minutes from now, when she’ll put on her scarf and her coat and go back to her empty room. then niall leans down, pecking cole lightly on the lips, so lightly that she will wonder later if she imagined it.
he pulls back, withdrawing his warm hand from cole’s cheek. “see ya later,” he says. and then he’s gone.
cole is frozen, stuck to her chair, stuck to the moment even as the seconds tick on. april and zayn, who were engrossed in their own conversation, now stare at her, wide-eyed, and the room seems to go dead quiet around them. cole can’t move, can’t speak. her cheek burns red hot where niall touched it. there aren’t any words in her head now. there’s only niall.
“what was that?” april asks, grinning. grinning huge and proud, like she’s been waiting for this moment, waiting to say, i told you so with a glimmer in her eye. but cole knows that no one’s been waiting for this moment longer than she has.
cole curls her nails into her thigh to try to shock herself back to sense. “nothing,” she manages to say. then she picks up her half-empty bowl of soup, lifts her bag onto her shoulder, grabs her coat, and rushes out of the room.
“didn’t look like nothing to me,” she swears she hears april say as she runs away.
outside, the cole hits cole’s skin and sparks goosebumps on her cheeks. she stops, dropping her bag on the ground to shrug on her coat. her hands shake as she pulls them through the sleeves. she’s been waiting months for this, thinking about it constantly. she thinks about it every time she glances up from her the pages of her book to see niall staring at her, every time niall smiles at her. every night, just before she falls asleep, she wonders what niall’s lips would feel like against hers.
and now she knows. or she knew, for a second in the middle of the dining hall on a thursday evening in march. as she walks through campus to her room, cole shoves her hands in the pockets of her coat in search of warmth for her frozen fingers and wonders if she’ll ever know again.
it’s a thursday – cole knows she will never forget that it happens on a thursday – and they’re in the dining hall as usual, cole and niall and april and zayn, and cole sits surrounded by niall’s books. he’s working on a paper on t.s. eliot, cole’s least favorite poet out of all her least favorite poets (a list that contains most poets), and the collection of library books that he’s amassed is overwhelming. cole stares at the spine of the new unauthorized biography of t.s. eliot as she uses her spoon to draw snail shells in her soup. niall’s post-it notes stick out from the pages haphazardly, decorated with his small, scrawling handwriting. cole has no interest in t.s. eliot, in his wasteland or his anything else. but she wants to read niall’s notes, run her fingers over his words and imagine the movements his hand made as he wrote them.
last night niall fell asleep while they were studying, his back against cole’s outstretched legs and his arms dangling off the edge of the bed. cole’d looked up from her reading around 10 pm to see him stretched out like that, his feet reaching toward her and his head on his pillow, his eyes tightly shut. she watched him for a few minutes, thinking, i wish these feelings weren’t all in my head. thinking of running her hand through his hair and feeling the brush of his eyelashes against her skin as he turns his face into her palm. thinking, i wonder what he’s dreaming of right now.
and then cole’d realized the ridiculousness of it, of dreaming dreams that might never come to fruition. she felt her cheeks growing warm and pulled her knees to her chest, wondering how to get off the bed when niall’s body was blocking her path to the floor. but then niall’d woken up, his toes brushing against cole’s thigh as he shifted.
“you going somewhere?” he asked, his voice thick with sleep.
“yeah,” cole said. “you’re sleeping.”
“nah.” niall’s eyes were already drifting shut again. “c’mere.” he patted the space behind him and there was nothing for cole to do but drop her book to the floor and crawl beside him.
cole fell asleep with niall’s warm arm tight around her and her head under his chin, and when they awoke in the morning, they didn’t talk about it. cole slipped off to her room to get ready for the day, and then she went to class. and all the while, behind her eyelids she saw niall’s blue eyes, and on her stomach just above the waistband of her jeans, she felt the lingering soft tickle of niall’s fingertips, moving slowly back and forth to lull her to sleep.
and now, at dinner, stirring the warmth out of her soup and imagining niall spelling words with his hands on the bare skin of her back, cole thinks that it’s good that she and niall won’t be spending tonight so close together that she can feel the heat of him casting spells on her skin. niall has a meeting for the lit mag tonight, like he has every second thursday at 8 since the fall. usually cole dreads thursday nights, dreads spending an evening alone with just her books about dead people and the wars they fought over banalities for company. but tonight she’s glad for it. tonight, she needs to breathe.
“you sure you don’t want to come?” niall asks a few minutes later as he begins gathering up his books. he always asks cole to come. she always says no, but he always asks her again the next week, as if she’ll answer differently this time.
“that’s okay,” she says. niall stands up and lifts his backpack onto the table. he reaches for the first book, and cole watches as they disappear one by one from the table into niall’s bag. soon enough, the new unauthorized biography of t.s. eliot is gone too. “i should study tonight.”
“you study every night,” niall says. cole only smiles. she’s afraid, though she doesn’t know how to put it into words, of what will happen if she and niall start doing everything together. if they start spending every moment with one another, how will it feel when they have to be apart?
and then it happens, just after cole gives up on her cold soup and lays her spoon down in defeat. as niall swings his backpack onto his shoulder, cole thinks ahead to a few minutes from now, when she’ll put on her scarf and her coat and go back to her empty room. then niall leans down, pecking cole lightly on the lips, so lightly that she will wonder later if she imagined it.
he pulls back, withdrawing his warm hand from cole’s cheek. “see ya later,” he says. and then he’s gone.
cole is frozen, stuck to her chair, stuck to the moment even as the seconds tick on. april and zayn, who were engrossed in their own conversation, now stare at her, wide-eyed, and the room seems to go dead quiet around them. cole can’t move, can’t speak. her cheek burns red hot where niall touched it. there aren’t any words in her head now. there’s only niall.
“what was that?” april asks, grinning. grinning huge and proud, like she’s been waiting for this moment, waiting to say, i told you so with a glimmer in her eye. but cole knows that no one’s been waiting for this moment longer than she has.
cole curls her nails into her thigh to try to shock herself back to sense. “nothing,” she manages to say. then she picks up her half-empty bowl of soup, lifts her bag onto her shoulder, grabs her coat, and rushes out of the room.
“didn’t look like nothing to me,” she swears she hears april say as she runs away.
outside, the cole hits cole’s skin and sparks goosebumps on her cheeks. she stops, dropping her bag on the ground to shrug on her coat. her hands shake as she pulls them through the sleeves. she’s been waiting months for this, thinking about it constantly. she thinks about it every time she glances up from her the pages of her book to see niall staring at her, every time niall smiles at her. every night, just before she falls asleep, she wonders what niall’s lips would feel like against hers.
and now she knows. or she knew, for a second in the middle of the dining hall on a thursday evening in march. as she walks through campus to her room, cole shoves her hands in the pockets of her coat in search of warmth for her frozen fingers and wonders if she’ll ever know again.