My Favourite Colour

My Favourite Colour 

I stand in the soft evening glow outside Elijah’s house and wait for them to answer the door. I check the time on my phone and smile as their face lights up the screen. I am only three minutes late, the earliest I’ve been all week. Elijah has that effect on me. Despite the warm colour of the sky, a cold breeze makes me shiver. I listen through the door and am relieved to hear footsteps approaching. When Elijah opens the door, the sound of muffled music seeps out. They take my hand and pull me down the hallway towards it.  

The song fills the room, pouring from the CD player in the corner at just the right volume. It's something I recognise but can’t remember the name of. Elijah is still holding my hand. They smile at me and start to spin me around in a sort of butchered ballroom twirl. They spin me round and round until I am too dizzy to stand. We laugh as I collapse onto the carpet, and they fall on top of me. I stop for a moment, letting the room come into focus, then crawl towards the CD player. Elijah follows me, grabbing at my feet. I writhe around at their ticklish touch and manage to wriggle out of their grasp just long enough to pick up the CD case. The outside cover is made up of fiery images arranged in geometric patterns. The album title reads “In Your Amber Eyes”. I look over at Elijah to see that they are grinning at me and reaching for my feet again. I give them a stern telling off and whack them on the head with the CD case. I tell Elijah it's awfully suspicious that they are playing good music for once. They roll their eyes and stand up, holding their hand out for me. I grab it, hoisting myself up and purposefully yanking them off balance in the process. They smirk and give me a shove back. We sit down on their faded couch, and Elijah clicks onto YouTube. 

They put on a Bob Ross video. He explains the names of his paints, and which ones he will use to show the sunrise. He dips his brush in the yellow ochre and the crimson red, blending them on the palette and daubing them onto the canvas. The colour is bright and beautiful, and the way Elijah is watching, as if mesmerised by it, I can tell they think the same. Unaware that my gaze has shifted to them, they sit like that until the painting is finished, and Bob Ross has said a soft goodbye to us. I poke Elijah in the ribs to get their attention and we make our way to the kitchen. 

I watch as Elijah picks an orange from the fruit bowl on the table. They inspect it carefully, turning it all the way around and squeezing it softly. I nod my approval. A good orange. They grin at me, toss it in the air a few times and place it gently on the chopping board. I open the cutlery drawer and find that Elijah keeps their big knives on the left side of the drawer, which is the wrong side of the drawer. I point this out as I hand the knife over, but they smirk and tell me that I’m the one that's got it mixed up. I watch closely as they dissect the fruit, slicing eight segments with a determined clumsiness. Juice runs down Elijah’s arm and they struggle to catch it with their tongue, trying to stop it from dripping on the floor. I steal a segment while the kitchen tap is involved in the situation, and I find half of a seed in my piece. Elijah has sliced right through it, and I can see what it looks like on the inside, revealing that orange seeds look the same all the way through. Elijah has discovered my thievery, and is watching me, eyebrows raised, and hands on their hips. I quickly shove the whole segment in my mouth, peel and all, holding my hands up in defence. The orange is sweet, like Elijah. The peel is bitter, like an orange peel. What orange, officer? I try to say, but my mouth is full, and the orange slice shoots out when I start laughing. There is orange juice coming out of my nose, and Elijah is on the floor, laughing, clutching at their sides. I wash my face with cold tap water, and my heart feels lighter than it has in years.  

From now on, if anyone asks for my favourite colour, I will always tell them orange.