Warrior Blue

by Kelsey Kingsley

"Oh, Blake. You ... You are so beautiful. You're so talented and gifted and your words are ..." She shook her head, planting her hand against her chest again and again. "Your words are your heart, and it's broken, but it's not ugly. You're not ugly."

“How have I not seen you before?” Snickering, she shook her head. “You probably wouldn’t have noticed me if you had.” I didn’t say it, but that was bullshit. To not notice her would’ve been to ignore the sun. It was impossible.

Whether it was Fate, God, or simply serendipity, it was right. Nothing but right. Audrey and me. Us. We.

“Part of taking care of someone, is making sure you take care of yourself, and that includes your own happiness. And I know this, because when I’m happy, Freddy is happy,” she explained quietly. “So, if you were happy, Jake would be happy, too.”

“You should tell Audrey your colors. She put them on you.”

“Because there are certain things in our lives—certain people—that are just supposed to be there. We don’t choose them, or what they’ll mean to us; they’re just a part of who we are.”

“And what is it you think I am to you?” I asked instead, surprised to find my voice so hushed, I could barely hear it myself. And without hesitation, she answered, “You’re the man I’m meant to love.”

“For the first time in my life, I made the decision to feel hurt and angry with someone else and not alone. You make me so fucking vulnerable, Audrey, and I hate it so much. I fucking hate that I don’t have a choice in any of this shit, and that nothing makes sense anymore. But I love you, and I guess that’s all that really needs to make sense.”

Audrey had glimpsed the darkness in my chest and lit a match. She’d started a fire and given me the reason to believe I could, in fact, have a soul. Something bound only to flesh in this life, something with the capability to move from this world into another. It felt crazy, but wasn’t everything?

“You fight hard and love even harder, and that’s what I want. I want you.”

In the beginning, we are born in our purest form. We then become ourselves during the stage between caterpillar to butterfly, so colorful and full of beautiful possibility, and we believe, with the blindest of hope, that we’ll be perfect forever. That time is endless. That there is a multitude of chances, of opportunities. Until one day, the reality of mortality settles in deep and dark, and we suddenly become aware of how limited we are. It is all so black and white. There is no grey. We live and we die, and there’s nothing more to it than that.