“Her favorite color...” His shaky voice paused as he adjusted the crinkled paper in his sweaty palms and began again. “Her favorite color was blue.” He paused again, obviously trying to hold back tears. “'Not sky or navy or the color of denim' she used to tell me. But rather the color of the ocean right before a storm when the hues of the sea mix with the foreboding anger of the approaching storm and the wind whips salt crystals against your face. 'It's the color of danger' she once said as we paddled out towards the horizon one day right before a big storm. 'Look how the blue blue waves dance for us' she said as the wind picked up and pushed us further from the shore. Her fingers played in the water and painted pictures of images I could only hope to understand. 'I wonder what it would feel like to succumb to such a blue' she murmured before diving out of the rowboat and into the angry sea. I tried to get her back in the boat, but she swam and swam and swam in her blue blue water. I watched in horror as the waves crashed against her and completely enveloped her in their salty danger. What she loved the most would be her killer. I called her name over and over. I eventually jumped out of the boat and into the rough waves in hopes of saving her. I found her arm for a second, but her blue blue water yanked it away from me as if she now belonged to her sea. I searched for hours, but found nothing. The waves eventually spat me out on the shoreline where I laid, exhausted and heartbroken in the grainy sand. The storm had passed, though I began to hear noises behind me. I looked up and there she was. More ethereal than any angel, her electric green eyes glowed with an undefinable intensity. Too gratefully drained to be angry, I asked where she had been. Without missing a beat, she smiled and whispered 'home'”. The boy finished reading, refolded the paper, and took his seat. He looked vaguely familiar to me, though I was unable to pinpoint where I’d seen him before. He was like someone in a dream, someone I had known for years but had never met a day in my life. I thought about the boy and the rumors that swelled around the neighborhood. Everyone knew that he had gone certifiably insane after his girlfriend drowned herself right in front of him. He often walked the streets claiming to see hallucinations of her. Some people wouldn’t be surprised if he was the one who actually killed her. Let’s face it, the kid was f***ed up. Our eyes locked for only a moment, but a moment was all it took for H*ll to break loose. All of a sudden it felt like the weight of the world was crushing my chest. I started to suffocate. With each gasp came more weight and more panic. Unable to sit still any longer, I ran out of the church and into the nearby courtyard. The pressure on my chest was growing heavier and heavier. I prayed for it to be over, for my lungs to give in and my death to be quick. Relief never came. Instead, by muscles grew minds of their own, moving and twisting and swaying as if I were submerged in water. Slowly, at first, but then faster and faster, my body spinning and somersaulting until the gravity of the invisible tumultuous waves lifted me off the ground and sprayed my hair in wild tendrils around my face. And all at once, it was over. I collapsed on the ground and laid motionless as I gasped fresh air into my lungs. When I stood up, I caught my reflection in a nearby darkened window. My clothes and hair were soaked to the bone, and my green eyes seemed wild and frightening. And from the silver bracelet around my slender wrist hung a single sliver of delicate seaweed.