Waves of color crash slowly on the shore of my mind as I close my eyes, allowing the thin timbre to echo behind them.

Emotions.

I am surrounded by them every day.

Each and every human thought, feeling, and desire wrap around me like a colorful embrace, tendrils of love, grief, frustration, and fear materializing in a blinding rainbow. Splatters of purple curiosity, spikes of angry vermillion, and buttery dollops of comfort keep me company. Memories from my childhood  are fluffy clouds laced with the candy pink of youthful joy and misty white of nostalgia and time. Undeniably, ever present, and lying in constant wait are frigid blue stacks of solemnity and ashen gray apathy constituting the silent barrage of color from my peers.

Some days, I could paint the world with the palette of my heart.

But the canvas of my life is not yet complete.

Somewhere, under the constant stream of every color imaginable, there lays a darkness impermeable to even the brightest hues. It is as large as the sea itself, entangling me in a cold abyss and dragging me to murky depths.

Loneliness.

The black hole it leaves in my chest is almost too much to bear.

But I have carried the burden well, so much so that it is like an old friend. I readily lean into his arms and bury myself in icy shadows in my most hopeless moments.

Though a loyal friend, Loneliness is also a jealous one, snarling with animosity at any acquaintance I bring into our tight circle. You are mine, he whispers fiercely into my ear. And only mine. I will never leave you. Not like them.

And I believed him. Wholeheartedly.

Yet greater still was my yearning for a new friend.

There had been others before. Sophie was the first. In kindergarten, I was bedazzled by her sequined unicorn backpack and long, flowy dress as she twirled around at recess. She exuded a peppy pink wherever she went. She reminded me of a princess, with intricate pigtails falling down her back and daisy chains around her neck that she made on the playground.

One day, I asked her, “How did you make those?”

“Like this.” She guided my hands, twisting the stems into neat little rows.

It became a routine for us, sitting in silence beside each other and creating our own kind of bubble from the commotion of school with each project we started. Gradually, we worked our way from simple flower chains to more complex bracelets, necklaces, and crowns. But I struggled when we tried adding leaves and some of the other plants she brought from home.

“You’re doing it wrong.” she huffed as I fumbled with the ferns, leaves falling helplessly between my fingers.

“I’m trying hard, Sophie!” I responded.

“No,” she jabbed. She threw my crown in the dirt; it burst into an angry heap of petals and bits. “You mess up everything!”

That was the end of our brief friendship.

Then there was Zoe. Her presence was a subdued navy on the surface but an avid turquoise upon further inspection. A new student in the fourth grade from Massachusetts, she was a target of teasing for her thick Bostonian accent and perpetual stutter. Often sitting alone at lunch, she was thrilled when I joined her table.

“Wanna see what I drew?” She opened a sketchbook from her bag to reveal pages swimming with dolphins, fish, and a multitude of sea creatures.

The doodles were simple and somewhat crude, as though they were done in a rush. Frantic pencil marks and eraser blots marred the pages.

But a certain quality about them lifted something deep inside me. There was a vibrance and kinetic energy to the sketches I had never seen before.

Zoe looked at me, eagerly awaiting my reaction.

Color exploded behind my eyes.

It was the first time a person had given me the rainbow.

My days became filled with long walks around the blacktop, lending an ear to Zoe’s enthusiastic spiels on the cuteness of baby seals, the declining shark population, and her dream to become a marine biologist when she grew up. Although she did most of the talking between us, listening to her made me feel bigger than myself, as vast and limitless as the oceans she so fervently described. I felt both light as air and as powerful as a tidal wave, as if her passion could give me wings to leap from the mountains and soar forever, away from the isolation realized in  earlier years.

But I should have known better.

We were nearing the end of the seventh grade when Katie Baylor approached with her posse. Voice dripping with honey, she dangled the invitation of a sleepover in front of us. It’ll be fun! she chirped.

I saw the light waver in Zoe’s eyes, that all-too-familiar spark threatening to fizzle out. I could sense something sickly purple festering beneath Katie’s glistening gold veneer.

I should have said something. Looking back, I wanted to yell and drag Zoe by the arm, back to the sanguine safety of the blacktop and beluga whales and turtles and all good things.

But I didn’t.

Instead, I watched as Zoe made her nervous way across the cafeteria, Katie flashing a dazzling smile back to my empty table and resting an arm on Zoe’s shoulder as though they were old friends.

Taking all the bright colors away with her.

Zoe was never the same after the party. Where her vivacious wit and laugh once filled a room, I was met with gray silence. She was once again a subdued navy, face hidden behind her hair as she moved wordlessly through the halls, not meeting my eyes. In biology, she no longer sprung from her seat to share her latest drawings. When I took my lunch to the art room, I noticed a crumpled pile of dolphin drawings in the trash. 

Loneliness and I became acquainted yet again.

Slithering into his lap, I wept and ached for a glimpse of color. 

It was no use.

Loneliness crushed them all in his claws. He dashed a green to pieces; he sent all the orange away. He loathed gentle lavender, and refused to reveal scarlet.

I am what’s best for you, he insisted. 

“No!” I struggled, tears streaming down my pale cheeks, but he only gripped me tighter.

They were never meant for you anyway! Embrace me.

He caressed my heart, hands closing around my chest and face. 

And I was numb.

The world passed me by. The colors existed only in my memory. Whenever one seemed a little closer–my salvation!–Loneliness ripped it away.

His company was my only constant. He was my shield–in his arms, I felt nothing.

The bright summer sun did nothing to penetrate the dark. I was helpless in my captivity as lively voices emanated from outside. My insides twisted as a group of classmates skidded past the porch on their skateboards, laughing as they tried out new stunts. I sat in the backyard with sorrow next to me on the steps, purple jacaranda blossoms blowing by in the cool breeze.  

I was trapped.

Summer passed as uneventfully as it started. I glumly follow Mom to the department store for new clothes as the older teens gather, giggling and flitting about the racks. There’s an invisible weight on my shoulders as I pack my bag for the first day of school. 

As I search, row by row, for my seat in homeroom, I pass the all too familiar frigid blue stacks of solemnity and ashen gray apathy. I sit.

And then I see her.

She smiles and waves at me.

Silver.

It’s all around me, bright and blinding.

The color of  hope.