A Certain Shade of Blue
By Christina Rohrman
The sun is making its appearance at the horizon, a strip of fuzzy pale blue sandwiched between hints of yellow and gray. It’s a certain shade of blue that exists only at sunrise, and only for a moment. A color for beginnings, and opportunity.
It used to be my favorite color.
The shadowy man and I have been here all night, on a bench across from her house. A single knock at the door as the sun was setting and there he was, stinking of something sulfuric, with black eyes that seemed to pierce my soul.
“I can ease your pain, Elena,” he said, his voice smooth, his dark eyes glossy with sympathy. “I can bring your son back.”
I had no reason to believe him, but I did. I do. I can have you back, Dylan, just as you were. Vibrant and constantly smiling that gap-toothed grin, your whole life ahead of you.
The man’s eyes are hard to look at and his presence unsettles me, but he’s been patient, sitting by my side through the muggy midsummer night while I mull things over.
Everyone, including your father, has been driven away by the darkness that’s grown within me since the day you died. A dark fire formed by my hatred for her, her well-off parents, and their expensive lawyers. Stoked by her nerve to remain in town. By those who told me it would get easier with time.
I don’t want easier—I want you. I’ve begged and pleaded and railed at the sky in all its colors. Time hasn’t done anything for me, my pain, or my darkness. I’d trade my life for yours a thousand times over. This should be an easy choice.
But here’s the kicker: the life I must trade to get you back isn’t mine. It’s hers.
And those last dregs of decency within me overpowered the darkness, and with bile climbing my throat, I stood there on the porch and told him, “I want to see her first.”
Nine years ago, she was a self-absorbed twit who blew through a stop sign and took you away from me, with an earsplitting screech of tires.
Now, she has a husband and twin boys with honey-colored hair. Sweet little things who rode their matching blue bicycles in the street in slow, lazy circles as the sun slowly set and their mother watched over them.
“They can’t see us,” the shadowy man assured me, and I nodded.
“Stay close,” she told her boys as she patrolled the long porch. “Look out for cars.” She stayed outside the whole time they were, smiling with a vague sadness.
She loves them. She takes care of them. That sadness isn’t just because of you, Dylan.
It’s for you.
It’s the reason I’ve sat, motionless, on this bench long after she and her boys retired inside. Long after the lights in the house went out.
I must decide, before the sun fully rises and casts the shadowy man out of my life forever, if I can do what she did. If I can send a shockwave through this family, turn their world upside-down without warning.
The shadowy man eyes the horizon and sighs. “We’re running out of time.”
I watch the strip of yellow-blue-gray widen and blend. His offer is everything I’ve wanted. But I know better. She isn’t the same person she was then. Neither am I, but I can’t take away their happiness to fill that void within me.
My silence causes his black eyes to flash. “This is a one-time offer, Elena.”
“I understand,” I whisper. Then I do the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I rise from the bench and leave the shadowy man behind.
I leave you behind. Hopefully, I’ll leave that darkness behind, too.
I stare into the sky as I walk away, at those hints of yellow seeping into pale blue, and I think of your bedroom, untouched for years, a shrine. This shade of blue might be the perfect color for a fresh start.
THE END