The Astonishing Color of After(105)

“Leigh?” I can hear the uncertainty in his voice.

“Yeah?” I tip my head up to meet his gaze. “Where exactly are we going?”

“Your bedroom? Is that okay?”

Relief pours through me.

Then a whole other species of panic creeps in. We’ve been in my bedroom loads of times before. But it’s one thing to end up there casually, and another thing for him to lead me there intentionally.

I hear myself say, “Oh. Okay. Sure.”





105





Upstairs it’s quiet. Dark. The lights are all off, and Dad’s already snoring. Axel treads lightly, knowing which creaky steps to avoid.

At the top, we turn left and he stops me outside my door.

“Close your eyes,” he whispers.

I give him a look. “Do I have to?”

“Shhh.”

I can feel the air from his whispery breath on my face. That’s how close we’re standing.

That wall of electricity—it’s back, charging up as strong as ever. I feel my weight shifting from foot to foot, and all I can think is: Don’t lean forward. Don’t fall into Axel. Don’t touch him.

“Just close your eyes,” he whispers.

I roll my eyes dramatically, to try to prevent him from seeing the nervousness in my face. It’s bad enough the way my pulse is fluttering. I’m sure he can hear it.

Behind my eyelids, there’s still light, little flickers trapped like butterflies. I hear Axel’s hand at the knob, pushing the door open. I hear the click of the light switch. He takes my hand, and I barely manage to stop myself from jumping at the touch.

Axel guides me into my bedroom. I’ve spent a huge fraction of my life in this room—so why does it feel like foreign territory? I hear the sound of the door shutting behind us, and all I can think is: We’re alone we’re alone we’re alone.

The last time we were alone together—

“Okay,” he says. “You can look now.”

It’s not my room at all. I mean, it is, but it looks completely different. While I’ve been away chasing after ghosts and memories, Axel has been busy painting my walls. The Creamsicle streaks from my poor attempt at whitewashing have been replaced by vibrant colors, bold strokes curving and sweeping around the room. Even the back of the door has been painted to blend seamlessly into the walls. Mango yellow and cobalt blue and jungle greens and luscious reds. It’s a study in movement. There are waves and crests… like in music, I realize.

It feels like the inverse of what he usually does—making music out of images. This time he’s captured a world of sound in two dimensions. It feels like one of Mom’s piano sonatas described in paint.

Some of the colors sweep into vague shapes that could be the silhouettes of things. The more I notice them, the clearer they are. I pick them out like a kid searching the clouds. There’s a tree, a cat. A plane. A pair of feet.

There is, at the top of the southwest corner, a red beast with wide wings, a dark beak, a long trailing tail. I freeze in place, because there’s no way he knew about the bird.

“So?” he says. There’s that dreaded word again.

“Oh my god, Axel,” my voice coming out brilliant violet.

“I’ll help you paint over it if you hate it,” he says quickly. “I just thought you could do with a change, get some colors around you—”

“No,” I say, maybe a little too forcefully.

He stops and looks at me.

“That’s not what I meant at all.” I struggle to find the words. “It’s… this is amazing. I can’t believe you did this for me.”

“There’s so much that I would do for you,” he says.

I turn to face him.

“More than you realize, I think,” he adds softly.

My blood is going into overdrive, pounding and rushing through my veins. I have the ironic thought that I might die of a heart attack before getting the chance to play out the rest of this conversation.

“Same here.” My words are so inadequate I can’t help but cringe. “What I mean is—you’re so important to me. And I’m so sorry I didn’t talk to you after she—”

I can’t even say it, but Axel nods me on.

“I shouldn’t have shut you out. I should have told you about—well, everything. Because you’re more than just a friend—” Cringe again, because that’s too much of an admission. Did I basically just confess all my feelings? Panic courses through my body in traffic-cone-orange waves. “I mean, you’re my best friend.” That’s not much better. My eyes squeeze shut. “I’m being super inarticulate right now.”

Axel laughs, and the sound washes over me like a warm bath. He beckons me over to the bed, and we sit side by side on the edge. I quickly estimate: seven inches of space between us. Seven inches that might as well be the Atlantic Ocean, for how far away he feels. Fine. It’s better this way. Inhale, exhale.

“Let me try saying what I have to say first,” he says. His voice is all soft, and it occurs to me that he might be nervous.

That thought changes everything. I watch how he struggles to figure out where to put his hands. How he keeps removing his glasses and fiddling with them. How he repeatedly runs fingers through his hair. His eyes meet mine, then flick away again, like it’s hard, for the first time after years of best-friendship, for him to maintain eye contact.