Color Me Pretty

longing buried beneath the fragile bones in my chest. He picks up on the second ring.
    “Claire?”
    “I'm sorry,” is the first thing out of mouth. I need him to know that I didn't end the call and that I've been thinking about him all day.
    “For what?” he asks me, and I can already hear the smile in his voice.
    “For hanging up on you.” I pause and wet my dry lips. “Well, I didn't exactly hang up. Apparently, they have a time limit on phone calls. I met a girl in therapy and she let me have hers.”
    “Are you okay?” he asks, and in the background, I hear crickets chirping and leaves rustling.
    “Are you at the tree house?” Emmett chuckles softly.
    “How can you tell?”
    “I smell an escape,” I respond, wishing I was sitting there across from him, gazing out that glassless window at the afternoon sun, waiting with barely contained anticipation as he inches forward, fingers teasing my bare arms. I shiver. “I can't wait to go back there. That's the first thing I want to do when I get out. And then I want to lay in bed with you for days and not move – except to make love, of course.” If you're even able to climb that ladder. Think about that the next time you almost gag on your food. Don't you want to be somebody who matches Emmett? Whose body is just as strong and healthy as his?
    “I'll do whatever it takes, Claire,” he tells me, and I can hear the resolve in his voice; it rings strong and clear through the telephone wires, managing to carry along a bit of soul with the sound.
    “God, Emmett, you mean you're willing to have lots and lots of sex? That's awfully generous of you.” He laughs, and I laugh, and Goddamn, but it feels so good. We haven't even been apart for that long and I already miss him like crazy. I guess when you get to see someone's soul, really see it pure and clean and true, open and inviting you in, it's hard to separate yourself from it.
    “I still have that class card,” he tells me, almost sheepishly. “So when you get home,” Emmett doesn't skip a beat as he says this. Home. I can't say the same for my heart. It may have even skipped two beats. “We can take classes again. They don't even have to be cooking classes. We could do sculpture or painting or – ”
    “No,” I blurt, interrupting him before I can scare myself away. “I want to do the cooking class with you again.” I don't tell him that I don't want to eat the food, though. I just want to get to know it. Oftentimes, fear is based on our inability to understand something that's foreign, something that we perceive to be capable of hurting us. If I can get reacquainted with my worst enemy, learn its strengths and weaknesses, then maybe I won't be so scared anymore.
    Emmett knows this so he doesn't bother to say anything except, “I'm glad, Claire. Really, I am. I thought for awhile there that you were going to … die.” Emmett swallows, and I know that word hurts us both to hear, but it's necessary. I need to face the facts. I close my eyes and try to come up with a mantra. My old one – Skinny is beautiful. Skinny is pretty. Skinny is perfect. – isn't going to work for me anymore. If anything, I guess I've learned that sometimes, skinny is ugly. Sometimes it's scary. Sometimes it's deadly. So I keep my eyes squeezed shut and I listen to Emmett's gentle breathing. He stays quiet, too, and lets me think. After awhile, Emmett starts to talk again, and I listen, my mind whirling through the events of the past few days and trying to pull together something positive. “And in that short time where I really believed you were, I almost died, too. I thought, if I can't save her, then there's no hope for me because you're special, Claire, and the world would really be missing out on something if you weren't in it.”
    Live for them. Live for him. Live for me.
    I smile.
    It's corny, but I don't care. Nobody's going to know I'm thinking it except maybe Emmett. I repeat the mantra to myself several times before speaking again.
    “I think you're ridiculously romantic,” I admit. “But don't ever stop. It's actually kind of cute.”
    “You mean sexy and debonair, right?” he asks, and I chuckle, feeling a tingle inside that can't be stopped. It's a spark for life and it's burning, faintly perhaps, but it's there. Babies don't come into this world knowing how to live it, and so neither should I. I can't be too hard on myself. Right now, I'm remembering how to walk again, and that should be