Chapter 2: Colors

I wake up to an incessant beeping and a rush of people outside my door. My lit up screen details that it's 17:23, which means I've missed afternoon classes, and it's dinner time. But that's alright, I can always say that my dad needed me for a job. Detention? Not today.

The beeping continues, directing me to the communicator which displays my father’s name.

"Hey son," he sings, fake-cheer seeping through the phone lines. I have to hold it away from my ear to avoid letting the cheer stain my skin. It's pink and brown and gold. Fake gold, fool’s gold. It's sticky and it gets all over my hair, my clothes. I can't wash it off without scrubbing and scrubbing until my skin is raw.

I tilt the phone, careful to keep the cheer inside. Don't let it tip.

". . .Son? Are you doing that thing again with your phone? I didn't buy you one so you could ignore me!" he yells to be heard over the distance. He never hears me from this far away. He doesn't hear me when we're right next to each other, either.

"Sorry," I mutter.

He sighs, and tries again, "Look, I know it's hard on you, being alone."

"I'm not alone," I mumble, still pushing the phone away. I put it down on the desk and slip on my gloves, rubbing at my arms. The volume is turned all the way up, but I can barely hear him. I can't put it on speaker either, it just makes his voice into a poisonous gas.

"That again? I thought we talked about this, Lucky."

"Shut up, shut up, shut up," I chant, shivering.

"Son, you know she isn't-"

"She is real!" I shout, "Just. . .not to you."

"I can't deal with this right now," he groans. He thinks I can't hear him. I can always hear him. A click follows, he hung up on me. Like always.

"Again with the guilt trips!" Fortune moans from under the bed, the monster. "When are you going to stand up to him?"

"I kind of did," I mumble, kicking the carpet with the toe of my boot, "I-I. . ."

"He can't treat you like that!" Fortune jumps up, pacing furiously. She can't stand injustice.

"Actually, he can," I sigh, "He's my father."

"Father is an exaggeration. I'd barely call him an adult," she hisses.

"Fortune. . ." I warn. The skin around her eyes and fingernails turns purple when she's found another cause to get angry for. The accompanying color changes depending on the cause, but today it’s a purple-gold.

"You're right," she takes a deep breath, calming herself down until the purple fades away and the gold drains into her eyes. Slowly, the gold changes back to bronze. She's prettiest with bronze eyes, they're the least scary.

"Hey," she swivels her head to look at me, "You need dinner. Just because I can't go with you doesn't mean you should starve."

"But. . ." I protest. I hate going anywhere without her. The concrete walls chip off and the tiled ceiling flakes onto the ground. Everything gets shaky, I can barely see.

"Oh, I'm sure you'll be fine," she waves me off, "It's only to get your food and bring it back here. It can't get to you that fast." Fortune has a theory about the crazy. I don't like to think about it.

"Alright," I agree reluctantly. If there's one good thing to come out of this, it'll be that there's going to be a new mural waiting for me. Whenever I'm gone, she paints. I come back to walls covered in blue and black and green.

My steps are quick and hurried, pushing past the masses of people who have nowhere to go. I just want to get to the cafeteria and get back before the ceiling starts to crack. A piece of drywall lands on my shoulder. It's starting. I don't have to get dinner, I can go back. Missing one, okay, two meals isn't going to be that bad.

"Lucky?" Silver's voice jars me out of my panic.

"Yes?" I whip around to face him and find that the ceiling is still in place. No cracks, no missing pieces. It was all in my head, like always.

"You okay? You look like crap," his eyes scan me over, once, twice.

"I think I’m supposed to say I'm fine," I respond. Sarcasm isn’t my strong suit, but it works this time.

"You're funny," he raises his eyebrows in surprise.

"Thanks," I smile, moving on toward the cafeteria. He walks beside me in comfortable silence until we get our food and arrive back at my room. Astonishingly, the building remains intact. He leaves me with a smirk and a wave, then sets off to his room, a couple halls over.

When I come back, the mural is a lake and the two people who could never leave it.

But it's not Fortune holding the paintbrush, it's my sister.