Puddle Jumping(2)

I wanted to correct Colton so he’d be like everyone else.

He didn’t even look up from the paper, but flinched and quickly pulled his hand away from mine. “You’re mean,” he whispered and continued to make sweeping motions across the paper, coloring in wide strokes of every vibrant hue he could get his little fingers on. It was the first words he’d spoken to me, and they would reverberate through my brain for years to come.

Was I mean?

I don’t like people being mad at me, or not liking me, so I tried to make up for it.

“Wanna go outside?” I’d asked, afraid he’d tell my mom I’d hurt his feelings.

“It’s raining.” He’d said it so matter-of-fact, like he was the adult and I was some stupid little kid.

Colton was not going to get the best of me, you see. I was going to make $15 that day. And I was going to get this kid to give a good report to his mother.

“It’s not raining that bad.”

“My mom says I’m not allowed.”

“No one will notice. Come on. Let’s go outside.”

It was the first time I’d get him to do something he wasn’t too sure of. We’d gone out into the rain on that balmy summer day. He’d looked into the sky with wide, pale blue eyes that appeared much too mature for his age, and he’d simply muttered something about the chances of getting hit by lightning.

I didn’t really pay attention, though. He had a badass swing set with a sandbox in his back yard and I was too busy trying to get up the slide from the front, instead of taking the ladder, because I wanted to be one of those chicks on television who kicked ass. And my first step would be to get up a slide. In the rain.

It’s called ‘preparation’.

Colton had run over to me, his hands waving up and down at his sides frantically as I huffed and puffed my way up the slick metal. “You’ll get hurt!”

I’d rolled my eyes and shushed him. “I’m fine.”

That’s when the first lightning bolt hit the tree a few feet away from the slide I was struggling to get up.

Poor little Colton covered his ears and jumped about a foot into the air.

I had watched in awestruck wonder as he’d turned around ridiculously fast and sprinted across the backyard, screaming as his legs propelled him forward while he leaped over puddles of water two feet wide to get back to the house.

Leaving me on the metal slide.

Alone.

Where I did get hit by lightning.

Well, not me. The slide. The slide got hit by lightning and I was holding on to it so I sort of just spazzed out and my arm hair was standing on end by the time I shook hard enough to get my fingers to let go of the side of the slide. Then I fell back into the mud and blacked out.

When I woke up in the hospital, my mom informed me Colton had been freaking out and his mom finally got enough information out of him so that my mom could pull me across the lawn and into the house. Both of them were hysterical. And I was lucky to be alive.

He had essentially saved my life.

Then he showed up at the hospital with his mom, Sheila, looking at me like I was the most fascinating thing in the world because I wouldn’t die.

I did get this amazing scar from the experience, though. My doctor said it was called a Lichtenberg Figure, this crazy raised skin that was darker than the rest of my complexion. It looked like tree roots running from the top of my shoulder to the middle of my arm. I was enamored with it at the time.

Apparently Colton was, too.

Now it’s just a thing on my body. Part of who I am. Sometimes I forget it’s there.

Back to the story.

He stayed for a good thirty minutes, not speaking and not doing anything other than staring at me – at my new battle wound that I hoped portrayed I actually was a badass. Right before he left, he pulled a folded piece of paper out of his pocket and handed it over, offering me a small wave before walking out behind his mother.

That piece of paper held the most intricately colored artwork I’d ever seen in my life.

Instead of making me feel better, it made me feel bad.

Because just the day before, I had apparently told The Artist of our Generation to color inside the effing lines.

* * *

I met Colton under the guise that I was getting paid to sit for some kids from church. But every time I showed up to the house, it was just us two.

I had to wonder why I was getting paid to hang out with him in the first place. I mean, really?

You would think after I almost died I wouldn’t be asked to come over anymore. But you’d be wrong because apparently his mom didn’t learn a lesson once. I’m sure it was because she felt like her son was good enough that we wouldn’t get into trouble, but she didn’t take into account that I wasn’t.

Colton’s pretty much perfect. He’s quiet and aloof, always minds his manners and whatnot. As a child, he was continuously focused on coloring or drawing or even painting in the room his dad had cleaned out above the garage.

I didn’t want to paint or make boy-trains. I got tired of coloring.

I just wanted to play, ya know?

Needless to say, he probably stopped trusting me a whole lot the day I almost choked on a marble. And the time I accidentally got gum stuck in my hair and asked him to help me cut it out. Which resulted in a huge chunk of hair missing on the left side of my head.