When the summer sun was scorching over their heads, blazing the grounds in some one-sided vengeance against humanity, his kindness washed over her like midnight rain.
She was knocked to the bite the dust, scraped hands and knees threatening tears out of her five-year-old tolerance. She was supposed to be a brave girl, she was supposed to be a bold girl, but the sand was hot and sharp against her burning skin. It hurt but she was afraid to accept it.
The children around cackled at her expense as if tripping a fellow classmate was them witnessing peak hilarity.
"Can't get up now little rat, can you?" The boy, who tripped her, snickered behind her back.
She gulped a soft cry though as she was about to get up, she heard a muffled thump followed by resounding gasps. She jerked to look behind and saw her bully on the ground with a reddened cheek; tears welled his eyes and snot clogged his nose as he wailed in pain. Everyone clamoured around to give him a helping hand, uttering words of concern, but her eyes were focused on the hand in front of her.
A singular hand sporting rosy knuckles belonging to a boy with a gummy smile. Sweat plastered his hair against his forehead and dirt had made a permanent home on his cheeks, still, her breath hitched as the sun shone behind his head as if haloing him.
"Come on, let's play!" He exclaimed and beckoned his fingers, urging her to grab his hand.
She took it. It was the first time she had held someone's hand, someone who wasn't a teacher at the orphanage. Someone who wasn't leading her up to her parents' grave. Someone whose eyes burned like the summer sun but upon touching his hand, peace flooded her mind like winter rain.
"I am Dylan," he grinned before bending to dust the dirt off her dress and knees.
"I'm Ellie," she replied, nervous as he kneeled in front of her to examine her injury. She noticed the red t-shirt he was wearing and how well it suited him. The red went along with the darkness of his hair and the paleness of his skin.
"You're like the red ranger. Red looks good on you," Ellie giggled.
It was a comment in the passing upon a tryst of kindness and bravery. Ellie uttered the words quite instinctively, since she liked power rangers so much, baring any ulterior motives of friendship.
Though as he led her to the nurse's room he kept talking about power rangers and when he proposed friendship, holding out the bandaged hand which was hurt to avenge her — who was Ellie to deny?
"Look, Ellie! I made a red lego house!! Is it pretty, do you like it??" He looked at her with a gaze blazing with expectations and he held the lego castle in front of him.
"Eh-he, it's pretty, but...?" Ellie leaned to look behind him and spotted a bunch of crying kids in the corner of the room. "Did you really have to threaten them for the red blocks?" She mused. They were at the orphanage's playroom, a place they frequented over the past year to hangout with eachother.
Dylan wasn't from the orphanage but he would stop by, everyday after they became friends, to be with Ellie because without him she had no friends. His absence made the glares of her classmates sharper and the mean comments louder.
"Why not? You like red so it is all good," he replied, nonchalant.
No one dared to look at her when he was around. The glances would diminish along with the rest of her problems when she would be crouched on the floor with him, playing with toys or building lego sets.
He smiled at her with earnestness which would make his eyes crinkle.
Ellie liked the crinkle of his eyes. Not many people smiled at her with such genuineness considering her parents died while escaping to pay back the money they scammed out of poor commoners.
Ellie was made aware of the fact when she was twelve and during the 'what's your dream job' presentation she wished to be Dylan's parents who were honorable politicians. She was snickered at by her classmates and shut down by her teacher's harsh comment, "You better pay back your parents' debt first. They owe this world more than your existence is worth."
When she reiterated the incident to Dylan the crinkle left his eyes and the smile dropped his face. He frowned then proceeded to pat her head and said, "You're different from your parents. You're better. You're my good girl."
From the next day, a new teacher replaced the old one.
Ellie never questioned it because of a scar on Dylan's wrist. She henpecked his ears to gain a grain of information but to no avail. In the end, they ended up wrapping a bandage around it in the Nurse's room. She wondered why Dylan wouldn't even make an excuse about it, until he asked her out of the blue, at the doorstep of the orphanage, "Did you like that shade of red on me?"
The sky thundered behind his head, emphasising the dark of his hair and eyes. The winds howled as if carrying a warning message for her but she eluded them by saying, "You should rush home before the storm starts! Be safe!"
The storm lasted a week. Power outages and floods busied the adults and terrified the kids. Ellie was twelve and a mature enough person to not be afraid of the dark. The silence of her room was comforting and the tapping of raindrops against her window lulled her to sleep.
"Shh, it's that crazy's girl... isn't she?"
"Yes yes. She's crazy as well. You know Peter from the neighborhood?"
"The one with the big house?"
"Yeah, he used to play with us. She stole his Pokemon toy when she was a kid. He caught her playing with it behind the swings and she bit his hand and ran away. The next day he tripped her in front of everyone so she called that crazy guy and had him beat Peter up. He never came to the playground again. Tsk."
"Wah... that's evil."
"Yeah, she's like that."
"Let's lock the door."
"Yeah, she deserves it."
Ellie spent four out of the seven days locked inside a dark room on the fourth floor, wailing for help and banging against the bolted wood for attention. On the eighth day, she was found passed out inside — apparently having survived on rainwater.
Ellie had been a slender child ever since she was brought in but when Dylan saw her on the white hospital bed that enveloped her small frame, he decided that she would not be staying in the orphanage anymore.
Ellie had never fathomed the thought of a family before but the Wisterias were the closest she could get to it. They let her sit on the same table as them, let her eat the same food as them and let her have a room beside their son. Though they never verbally acknowledged her presence, they paid her school fee and got her new uniform and books each year.
Ellie was thoroughly obliged and indebted but there was a gnawing feeling in her gut that made her hide underneath the bed every night. Because each night, someone would walk into her room and search the bed for her.
The first night, Ellie had been asleep when the sharpness of a knifepoint pierced her skin barrier and broke blood. She flinched her eyes open and witnessed the ever familiar gummy smile and crinkled eyes within whom she had once found warmth.
"D-dylan— w-what are you doing?!" She spluttered her words, eyes alternating between his face and the knife in his hand.
"I wanted to match," Dylan held out his hand and rolled up his shirt sleeve to reveal a large cut on his hand, "So we'll both look good in red!"
"N-no, t-this is wrong! Why are you doing this? Why did you do this?!"
"Are you afraid of me...? Please don't be. It's what I get for being so close to you. But don't worry, I know you have nowhere to go. You are nothing without me."
His eyes seemed teary.
'You are nothing without me.'
The words resonated through her head for years to come. As the scars on her body increased, the lonliness of the world settled in her mind. She had known Dylan since she was five, he was the rain for her blazing days, the solace of her tormented life. He was her hope, the haloed angel she had witnessed back when she was a kid.
And angels do nothing wrong...right?
So, why did her heart leap into fear everytime she met eyes with him? Why did her body stiffen when he touched her thighs on the dining table? Why did her skin crawl when he whispered dirty secrets in her ear.
It irked her soul but her mind couldn't place a problem in it.
Where would she go if she left the Wisterias? What would she do after offending a political family? Where can she even hide? Would he find her...?
Rain soaked, one night, as she was returning to Wisteria mansion, a drunkard arguing with a tree caught her eye. He debated with it, caressed it, slurred his words of affection for it before hitting it with his fists.
The droplets ingrained the incident in her memory and the next time Dylan came over with a knife in his hand, she offered him whiskey and wine. The summer of her eighteenth was spent hiding in a mansion while trying to evade a drunk friend who was running at her with a knife.
"C'mere! I'll make you look so pretty in red! We'll match and be lovers! Don't you wanna be pretty for me? Don't you love me?"
His shouts were deafened by the rain pouring beyond the imperial windows she ran past.
"How long will you run Ellie, is this a game we're playing? I just wanna hold you and make you red for me. You know I am always red for you!"
His words haunted her as an echo as she ran up the spiral staircase and flung open the terrace door. A cold gust of wind burned against her adrenaline powered scorching body.
"Why are you so obsessed with making me red?! What is wrong with you?!" Ellie shouted as she backed into the rain while he neared the terrace door.
"I just...I used to hate the red on me," he cried as he raised his hands and took off his t-shirt to reveal a scarred body, "But then, then, you, the prettiest girl I know, you said that red looks good on me...so, I just did it. And because you liked it so much...I wanted to share!"
"But it hurts me, Dylan, you know that. I don't like this red! It's bad and hurtful!" She shouted.
"But I like it and I want to see you in it." He ran towards her, she backed up for a few steps before crouching down and rolling to the other side.
As Dylan ran he slipped and tripped, quite like Ellie when she was five, but instead of falling on burning ground his body crashed down many-a-floor, meeting the water he represented. Embracing the red.
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