Regretting You(106)

A voice from off set calls out to him. “Peter? Do you need a break?”

Peter leans forward, shaking his head. “No. No, I just want to get it over with.” He releases a puff of air, looking back at the camera. “I did what I had to do,” he says with a shrug.

The camera follows the teenage boy as he rips the shirt off the hanger. He yanks the dirty T-shirt he was wearing off and then angrily puts on the clean shirt he just removed from the closet.

“I had to wear it.” Old Peter is staring at the camera now with a stoic expression. “I couldn’t go shirtless. It was the fifties.” He repeats himself in a whisper. “I had to wear it.”

A question comes from off set. “What color was the shirt, Peter?”

Peter shakes his head. The memory is too difficult.

“Peter,” the off-camera voice urges. “What color was the shirt?”

Peter blows out a frustrated breath. “Orange. It was orange, okay?” He looks away from the camera, ashamed.

The screen fades to black.

The next scene opens on a new character, professional in dress. She has long blonde hair, and she’s wearing a crisp white shirt. She’s straightening out her shirt when she looks at the camera. “We ready?” she asks.

“Whenever you are,” the off-camera voice says.

She nods. “Okay, then. I’ll just start?” She’s looking at someone else for direction. Then she looks at the screen. “My name is Dr. Esther Bloombilingtington. I am a chromophobia expert.”

A voice off camera says, “Can you define that term?”

Dr. Bloombilingtington nods. “Chromophobia is a persistent and irrational fear of color.”

“What color, specifically?” the off-camera voice asks.

“Chromophobia presents itself differently in every patient,” she says. “Sometimes patients have a fear of blue, or green, or red, or pink, or yellow, or black, or brown, or purple. Even white. No color is off limits, really. Some patients may even find themselves fearing a number of colors, or, in more severe cases . . .” She looks deadpan into the camera. “All colors.”

The off-camera voice poses another question. “But you aren’t here to speak about any of those colors today, are you?”

Dr. Bloombilingtington shakes her head, looking back into the camera. “No. Today, I’m here for one reason. One color that has resulted in alarmingly consistent results.” She lifts her shoulders with an intake of breath. Her shoulders fall as she begins to speak again. “The results of this study are important, and I feel this needs to be shared with the world.”

“What needs to be shared?”

“Based on our findings, we have discovered that the color orange is not only the cause of most cases of chromophobia, but our research proves beyond the shadow of a doubt that orange is, by far, the absolute worst color of all colors.”

The off-camera voice asks, “And what proof do you have of this?”

Dr. Bloombilingtington looks very seriously into the camera. “Aside from several dozen likes on our Twitter research polls and quite a few views on our Instagram stories regarding this subject, we also have . . . the people. The people and their stories.” She leans forward, narrowing her eyes as slow, dramatic music begins to play. “Just listen to their stories.”

The camera cuts to black.

The next scene opens back up on the first character, Kaitlyn. She’s holding Kleenex now as she speaks. “As soon as my mother said those words to my father . . .” She lifts her eyes and looks at the camera. “He . . . he died.”

She brings the Kleenex to her eyes. “He just . . . he looked at her, shocked that she would even suggest orange as a color for the living room walls. As soon as she said it, he dropped all the little plastic color swatches on the floor, and he grasped at his heart and he just . . . he died.”

Kaitlyn has a look of bewilderment on her face. “The last word he ever heard spoken aloud . . . was orange.” A sob breaks from her chest. She shakes her head back and forth. “I’ll never be able to forgive my mother. Who suggests orange as a wall color? It’s the last thing he heard. The last thing!”

The camera goes black immediately after her outburst.

It opens on a flashback of young Peter, driving in an older blue truck. He’s wearing the orange shirt. His face is twisted and contorted with anger.

“I wanted to wear the blue shirt but had no choice,” older Peter narrates. “I knew Mary preferred blue. She’d even said it to me the day I asked her out. I told her I liked her yellow dress, and she twirled around for me and said, ‘Isn’t it pretty?’ I nodded, and then she said, ‘I like your shirt, Peter. Blue looks good on you.’”

The camera is focused on old Peter now, sitting in his green chair. His eyes are even more bloodshot than they were in the beginning. “When I showed up at the theater . . . she was standing out front. Alone. I parked the truck, turned it off, and I just watched her. She looked so pretty, standing there in her yellow dress.”

The flashback shows young Peter, sitting in his truck, wearing his orange shirt while he watches a pretty girl waiting, alone, wearing a yellow dress. He winces.

“I just couldn’t do it. I couldn’t let her see me like that.”

Young Peter cranks his truck and begins pulling out of the parking lot.