Color Me Pretty

smiles, and at first, he looks relieved, but then I see a bit of sweat on his forehead. It scares me a little if I'm honest with myself because normally Emmett just … is, and he exists on a plane where no pain can reach him. This is showing me that yeah, he's still human, and hey, we all have periods in our lives where things aren't perfect, but we can get through it. We have to. Life isn't a single race where everything is won or lost; it's a series of trials where we gather together our various accomplishments until our last breath. It's then and only then that we get to look back and decide if we've earned a medal.
    Emmett Sinclair intends to take first place.
    Me, I'm still figuring things out.
    “I have no idea how I'm going to get my stuff back. If I have to, though, I'll sneak in and take it.” I shrug and Emmet smiles.
    “I don't know if that's necessary,” he tells me. He refuses to elaborate as we wind our way home. When I get there, when I open the purple door and step inside the living room, I find a mountain of blue fabric and a sewing machine.

I get acquainted with my new machine while Emmett cooks me dinner.
    It's like I never left.
    He cooks fish, even weighs out our portions, steams some veggies, brings me cups of tea when I ask. The sounds and smells from the kitchen terrify me at the same time they thrill me. That anger I felt before is gone, replaced with a sense of urgency, like if I can't fix my life now, when am I going to fix it? I sit there and I let Emmett play some weird hippie music on the stereo, and I smile. I smile so much that my face hurts.
    “You're fucking precious,” I tell him when he comes into the living room and rests his chin on my head. My nasty, balding head. I resist the urge to pull away. As if he senses this, Emmett touches his hands to either side of my skull and presses a kiss against the fuzzy, orange-red bits that are sprouting up across my scalp.
    “And you're fucking beautiful.”
    I try my best not to bark out a harsh laugh and instead, change the subject.
    “I've been trying to thread this needle for over an hour.” Emmett chuckles and moves over to kneel next to me, so that he can see what's going on in this wild mess I've made of his coffee table. Across from me, the fire crackles gently, promising that the rain outside will fade eventually, and one day it will be sunny again. For now, it says, you can use my warmth. I equate this analogy to me and Emmett.
    “A half an hour,” he says which is probably true. Time runs differently when you're frustrated. I watch with simple fascination as Emmett reaches over and takes the blue thread from me, winding it around the machine and through the needle with little effort. When he's finished, he looks over at me with a soft smile. “I took home ec in high school.”
    “Of course you did,” I tell him as he rises to his feet and returns to the kitchen to check on our food. I, on the other hand, do my best not to think about it or the anticipation will kill me. Sure, last night I ate a slice of chocolate cake, but so what? I'm not about to throw myself on the plate like a starving wolf. Baby steps. I have to keep taking baby steps. “But I,” I begin as I hold up the massive lump of fabric. I wonder if Emmett saw my drawing, knew to pick blue from those first, crazy sketches. I decide not to ask. A little mystery is always nice. “Did not. There's no way in hell I can get anything sewn in time for tomorrow night.”
    “Nah, not even if you were good at it.” When I turn around to glare at him, he winks at me. “I didn't know what to get, so I grabbed a few things. Check the closet.” When he sees my hesitation, he adds, “My closet.” He knows I'm not ready to go back into my bedroom, not yet. I don't want to see the empty mess my parents left, feel the old pain swirling around across the wood floors. Somehow, I've convinced myself that if I go anywhere I've been before, anywhere I experienced unstable emotions or deplorable melancholia, that I'll relapse. It's kind of stupid, but that's the way it is.
    I stand up and stretch, enjoying the fact that I'm now dressed solely in one of Emmett's flannel shirts and a pair of panties. I feel sexier this way. Even though the shirt is baggy, it doesn't feel frumpy. It's like I'm hiding behind this fabric not because I'm ashamed of my body, but rather so I can tease Emmett's. That thought makes me smile as I raise my arms above my head and the hem of the