February 5th

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Depression is being colorblind and constantly told how colorful the world is.

-Atticus


February 5th:

Elias finds he watches a lot, getting lost in the most innocent of things. Should it be the white adobe walls of his English classroom, or the brushes of splattered paint on a white canvas. He is now gazing at the painting hung above the mantle. Swirls of blood-red and daisy yellow, forming together, with a few specks of cerulean.

He is hypnotized by it. The way up close, the brash lines of paint created turmoil. You can't tell what the picture ought to be, other than lines that crisscross each other, twisting in coils. He loves that it isn't until you stepped away from its proximity you realize those brash lines create the silhouette of a young boy running away.

Elias feels like this painting. Just a face. Chaos brewing inside the silence of his soul, etching corruption and branding his veins.

Sagging against the back of their leather couch, his body slopes a little as the cushion next to him dips down. The cloying smell of his mother's essential oil shampoo, and his father's sawdust, attacks his nose as he tilts his head to look at her.

His mother is a vision, with nearly black thick hair and eyes so brown you can lose yourself in them. She looks a lot like Elias, who likewise resembles an adonis.

She smiles, whitened teeth and all, offering up a cup of hot chocolate, which he instantly accepts. The tepid liquid sears his throat as he takes in needy gulps. His entire body feeling warm and replenished. Having just been outside in the cool winter's air, working with his father to dig out their truck from the mound of packing snow it was lost in.

"I wanted to talk to you, sweetheart, before your father goes and spills the news," she chuckles, taking Elias's chill hand in her own as if she is afraid he might run. The look in her eyes holds an unreadable emotion, although Elias interprets bad vibes.

He nods his head, slowly and deliberately, preparing himself.

"We're going to Nana's, for Valentine's day dinner. I know it might be hard, but honey, I think being around your cousins will be good for you. To interact with them" She pats his hand, running her fingers over the skin of his bruised knuckles, letting him digest this information.

She tries to smile, as if it will lighten the mood.

Ella James aches on the inside, her heart pinching in her chest. She is a vision to look at, although in the last few years emerged wrinkles where her eyebrows knit in together in apprehension. Deep purple bags forming beneath her eyes with sleepless nights. She covers a lot of her worry with makeup, but her heart still scars.

She will be caught staring out the window, just watching the world shift before her. She watches as summer is quick to fade as soon as it rises, the trees morphing into bright reds and yellows, soon being blanketed with the fresh powder of snow.

She worries for her son, wishing very much that he could just tell her what was plaguing him inside his head. She spends nights awake, breathing heavily as she weeps into her husband's embrace. Elias listens, his ear against the wall, listening to his mother's prayers, begging he would just go back to the happy boy whose mission in life was to out smile everyone.

Then one day, as if a switch had been flipped, his entire face had fallen hopeless. The suffocating air encompassing him, you could feel its tension pulling you into its darkness whenever you're nearby him. Watching, not being able to do anything, feeling as the grief eats him away.

Ella has spent all her money on doctors, therapists, anything that could possibly make her son well. She worries so much that she failed as a mother, to keep her son protected. That it was something she had done that put him into this sardonic pain.

Elias longs to tell her that it isn't her, but the words could never form on his lips. He tries to show her through his actions, allowing her to touch him without a flinch. But the way she nibbles at her lips when she thinks he isn't looking, he knows she has no clue.

The only people that know of that night are Elias and her.

Ella stares at Elias with a questioning frown. Her lips turning downward as her chocolate-drop eyes flicker over the structure of his face. He hates to see his mother hurt at his expense, so instead of screaming as he wished he could, he simply nodes his head as a silent yes. His whole figure rigid as his muscles had frozen up, his eyes boring into the painting he traced, willing himself not to cry. Unshed tears pressure against the back of his eyes.

His head throbs, the migraine forming at his temples, his steady heart rate picking up speed until it's pounding against his chest. He struggles to breathe, silently choking on air at the thought of even going to see his family, to walk inside his Nana's house. There will be no way he could endure it without freaking out at some point.

Wringing his hands and pinching the skin of his wrists, he waits for his mother to exit the living room slowly, leaving him alone to drag towards his room. He waits until the door is closed and locked, falling against it in a heap on the floor, letting out his silent tears.

They brand his olive skin, trailing down his pained grimace. The searing, salty drops staining the material of his denim jeans. His whole body convulses as he writhes into a fetal position on the hardwood floor, his ear pressed against the coolness of it. His fingers, gripping onto the strands of his relatively black hair. Pulling at the roots to create some sort of disturbance.

His entire body is on fire like a flame had been lit beneath his skin, boiling in rage. He is burning up as his mind runs cold, numbness blanketing him like the fresh powder of snow on the trees. Just surviving through it as his vision blurs, choking on the bubble of air that forms in his throat. His heartbeat now stabs in his ribcage, the taut muscles of his stomach straining.

His body, curling in on himself, fighting the still cries that take over his frame. Clawing at the ground with bruised nails, his mouth open while no sounds escape. He proceeds to ache in so many places it overtakes all of his senses. Just laying in a shell on the floor, the sun hidden behind the clouds being replaced by the moon. The gray ash of the world around him turned navy dark with the approaching night time. Shadows dancing across his walls.

Even after the tears have seized, his mother's knuckles wrapping on his door to tell him dinner is ready for him, he's physically incapable of moving. His muscles are now sore with the aftermath of their tenseness, his head pounding whenever he tried to sit upright.

Rubbing his knuckles on the pulled skin between his eyes, right above his nose, trying to relieve the pain. His eyes sting, red-rimmed and bloodshot, too sticky to blink open. Eventually, he must fall asleep, tiredness consuming him, waking up in the middle of the night to the black surrounding him. His body aching from the hard floor beneath him.

It's a slow, struggling process, but eventually, Elias can stand up. Toppling forwards, he grips onto the end of his dark oak desk for support, jerking the jacket hung over his chair. He doesn't hesitate to unlock his large window overlooking the backyard, shoving the glass open enough so he can sneak through. Slipping through it, still in his clothing from before.

His exposed socks crunch against the packing snow. The ends of his jeans soaked as he grips onto the wooden post of the latter. Each step upwards is heavy, the spikes of wood splintering his finger. He ignores the now throbbing pain inside his head, toppling inside the box that is much too small for his tall and filled-out figure.

He inhales it in, the crisp smell of the outside hidden behind the entrance and windows that are covered with light blue cloth. The warm eddies of smoke that swirls in front of him, contrast to the chill air that fills his lungs. Elias hasn't used this treehouse in years, building it with his father when he was young.

It had taken them the entire summer, spending many late nights and early mornings finishing up the last touches of it. It even had a swing at one point, tied up by a flimsy rope that tattered through the years of use. It used to be his favorite thing.

Its wooden frame grates under his weight slightly. Finding the small box of matches stored in his mother's stolen jewelry box, he lights an old candle, half-burned. The smell of wildflowers now fills the room as well, leaning his back against the plank wall.

Letting muteness follow him, only his breathing in the small box. His chest heaves, filling the small quarters. He finds a few of his old graphic novels shoved the corner, and even his favorite action character he'd thought he lost. Letting the memories take over him, filling his mind with happiness to transcend the iniquity.

This used to be his happy place, spending hours a day up here. His mother would struggle to convince him to come down for lunch, thus bringing up turkey sandwiches to him. Nobody was allowed in here but Elias and his father sometimes, who had to repair small fractures.

His own little shield from the world. This treehouse has been a castle, a rocketship, and once even a school bus. Pictures he's drawn, random scribbles of crayons on printer paper that makes up nothing, are stapled to the walls with scotch tape. The plank floor beneath him is covered with one of his old blankets and beach towels. 

He sinks further into its embrace. Breathing in and out, letting his eyes fall shut, he allows the sleep to come to him, knowing he's protected. He'll endure it, for he's survived a lot worse.

---

Authors Note:

Thoughts?

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- Nia


Edited 3/28/22


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