"I'm sorry."

That was all after giving this man two years of hell. I was miserable. Words are not my friends, they aren't tools I can use to reach someone. With me they lack power. I'm just too busy getting tangled up in them.

He looked startled, the apology was unexpected though I'd been working up to it for weeks.

"Don't worry about me, get yourself better."

Failure. "I need to reach you." I thought. "I need to tell you I've never been so sorry for my actions in all of my life, so deeply ashamed of what I was and what I'd done. I need to give you something warm and true, jewel tones of beautiful sapphires for my strength which I've found again, the rubies of my passions and my loves, the emeralds of life that I promise I will return to. I need to wrap these colors in dark teals and place them in your hand, devoid of the yellows, the sickness that has curled my soul for so long now."

"Connect." I told myself, "It's important this time."

I nodded at his response, retreating into my now famous silence and simply walked off into the next room. Words trip me but I dance well with a pallet so it didn't take long. He stood waiting, ever patient when I returned with my brush. Opening his hand I painted a single line of rich teal down his palm. He smiled. Though he didn't know the nuances of the particular shade he understood my apology was more than the surface of the words given. I was now speaking in the only language I knew.

"It's okay, I see you in there." was all he said.

It was my turn to smile. I'd connected. The world suddenly turned the color of soft rain. It felt very, very nice.

Karyl Ayne

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