Blue (A short story)

This is for a contest. Sean works through his feeling with his best friend, Ann. (Draft)

He sat on the back steps gazing off somewhere distant. In his own world yet again.

“Sean?” Her voice snapped him out of his trance in an instant.

“Ann?” She was standing in the doorway, her long auburn hair softly waving through the air.

He was confused. Why was she here? After everything that had happened he thought she’d be done with him. He turned his back to her, putting his head in his knees.

“Why are you here?” Sean asked. She sighed softly and sat on the steps next to him.

“Why do you think I’m here?”

“To tell me what a screwup I am.”

Ann laughed a little. Not a happy laugh, an exasperated one. “You need to try getting out of that head of yours sometime. I’m here because you need me Sean.”

He picked up his head and looked at her, confused and frankly annoyed. “I need you? I don’t need you! I don’t need anyone!”

“That’s what you want people to believe… that’s what you want yourself to believe.”

Sean stood up quickly, his hands balled up in tight fists. He faced her with obvious anger plastered on his face.

“Sean… you need to listen to me-”

“No Ann, listen to me! I don’t want your help or pity! You don’t understand me at all… you just think you do. You can’t possibly get what it’s like to be me. Every day I have to worry about what people will do to me just because I exist…” Sean felt tears swelling up in his eyes as he turned away from her.

“You don’t get anything.”

Ann felt as if her stomach dropped all the way to her feet. She’d never seen him like this. “... You’re right Sean. I don’t understand how you feel, but I want to understand. The only way I can begin to try is if you let me in. Please, let me help Sean.”

Her eyes were pleading. A moment of silence passed between the two before Sean spoke up.

“C’mon, we should talk about this in our place…”

“Yea, let’s go!” She felt a small smile curl up on her face.

They walked side by side through the field behind the house. Every spot was filled with memories they shared. The barn off to their right, where they’d learned to milk cows and learned how gross it was to milk cows.

The crops field to their left, where they’d been caught playing too many times to count. The woods straight ahead, where hide and seek had been the prime game to play and the hardest game to play.

But most of the memories revolved around the thick birch tree right outside the forest full of black oak. Inside the mighty birch was a small treehouse with worn out signs that said things like ‘No parents alowed!’ and ‘Secret pasworrd needed fur entri’.

Although they had plenty of chances to switch out the signs and fix the terrible spelling, they decided not to. Too many memories around those signs too.

They climbed up the tiny ladder, it used to feel so huge. They had little curtains on the cut out windows, although they didn’t do much other than set the mood.

They used to have bean bags in the corners, but one day they were jumping on them too much and they, well they burst.

Each of them sat on different sides of the treehouse floor, Ann sitting crisscrossed on the right side and Sean sitting with his knees to his chest and his head resting on his knees on the left side.

The silence felt quieter than before, but still painfully loud.

“So…” Ann said, glancing at Sean. He remained quiet for a moment before sighing.

“I guess I should start from the beginning?”

“Please do.”

He took a deep breath and gathered his thoughts. “I think the rumors started two weeks ago…”

“Official rumors started then, but there was speculation before.” Ann blurted out, she quickly covered her mouth.

“Sorry…” She said sheepishly.

“Mhm, are you gonna let me tell my side or?”

“Go on!!”

“Alright, so the official rumors started two weeks ago. The ones saying I was…” Sean paused for a moment.

It seemed like he still wasn’t ready to use the word.

“Different?” Ann prompted, trying to help.

He shook his head, “I don’t like the implications of that word.”

“Special?” She said, smiling a little.

He rolled his eyes, but he was smiling too.

“That’s worse, how about … Blue?”

“Blue?”

He nodded, “It’s my favorite color, and it’s slightly related…”

“Alright, you’re Blue!”

Sean couldn’t help but smile. How could he have ever thought Ann wouldn’t be there for him?

“Yea, the rumors said I was Blue. Which isn’t a great thing to be called, at least here it isn’t…” He hugged his knees closer to himself. “That’s why I started skipping so much school, and pretending to be sick all the time.”

“I thought it was connected, how you practically disappeared right after the rumors broke out…”

“There’s one major problem with those rumors..”

“Other than them being stupid and unbased?”

He bit his lip, “They aren’t unbased…”

Ann took a moment to process this.

“... wait WHAT!”

She instantly went into detective mode.

“I’m gonna need an elaboration Sean!!”

She leaned forward, which in response he leaned back.

“Calm down first please!” Sean said frantically, he seemed to be freaking out about this more than she was. She leaned back and took a deep breath.

“Sorry, I'll do my best to not freak out.”

“The reason the rumors blew up was because I was found… kissing someone..”

Ann barely had her excitement when she heard this, but she kept it down to a squeal.

“Someone got a pic of me, but they couldn’t really see who I was kissing… thank goodness.”

“Are you in love with them?” She asked quickly.

Sean just looked at her for a moment, before placing his head in his knees.

“Yes…”

“Awwwwww Sean is in love!!” She said in a singsongy voice.

“Please shut up…”

Ann continued repeating the same line a couple times before asking the question that had been lingering in the air.


“So, who was it? Who did you kiss? Who are you in love with? You can’t just give me a major piece of life lore like that without telling me who!!”

He let out a huge sigh. “Just … promise not to freak out, okay?”

“Okayyyy!!”

“... it’s Casey.”

Sean had never seen Ann more shocked before, and he had known her all his life.

“Casey?”

“Casey.”

She took a moment to process this.

“Honestly, adorable pair. I support you guys 100%.” Ann said, sitting back with her head thrown back, extending her legs to stretch.

“You really think so?” He was picking at his nails, a nervous habit he never got around to dropping.

She looked at him and smiled, “Oh absolutely!”

Sean looked at her and smiled as well.

Her enthusiasm was contagious.

“Okay go ahead and ask the millions of questions you have, before I change my mind.”

Sean was letting her in, bit by bit in this conversation.

“Alright first question, when did you two like, get together?”

She had started laying down on the floor with her hands on her stomach.

“Late summer we started hanging out more often, but we weren’t really ‘together’ till late fall.”

“Cute cute cute! Alright question two, who asked who out?”

“... I asked Casey out…”

Ann turned her head towards him and made an exaggerated shocked face.

“Timid little Sean asked someone out? Next you’re gonna tell me the world is ending!”

“You get one more question just for that comment”

“Whaaaaat!? So mean… Alright, final question. When did you realize that you were… y’know … Blue?”