Page 135 of The Sound of Him

If the days are an endless stretch of gray, then the nights - thegoodnights - are…

Not gray, they aren’t gray.

They aren’t yellow, either. They aren’t bright enough to be yellow. They’re warm, sometimes, but notthatkind of warm.

Aceis warm.Aceis sunshine. The brightest yellow of a clear-sky day. The deep oranges and reds of a sunrise. The deep pinks and purples of a sunset.

He doesn’t want me to draw what Ace feels like, though. He wants me to draw how the good nights feel. Ace is there, on the good nights, but it’s notjusthim. It’s my hiding spot and my bunny. A worry stone and a notebook. It’s song requests and goofy singing and the kind of music that soothes the soul. Snacks that feel right in my mouth. Smiles I can feel in my chest. Sunshine warmth without blinding light.

I look at the contents of the pencil box again, thinking of all of those good things, the feeling of those nights sinking into me as I do.

Nights are blue, it turns out.

I don’t realize it until my fingers find the colored pencil, stalling as the thumb and pointer finger cradle it. The blue is soft- not light, not like the sky or the ocean, just… soft. Deep, rich, saturated with the color, but not so much so that it’s caving into darkness.

Indigo blue, according to the words on the colored pencil.

I start to fill in the area around the moon from before. I cover the gray words up, just like how the night eats away at the gray inside me, not stopping until all there is, all I feel, is blue.

It fits so well, the feeling ofrightnesssinking deep into me the more the color blooms on the page. It’s sad, blue usually is, but it’s a quiet sadness. It’s muted. More of a melancholy than a devastation. Something you can just sit in without the fear of being swallowed up by it.

Soft.

Safe.

Nights are full of music.

Nights are blue.

Nights are soft and safe andAce.

Nights are the only thing keeping all that gray at bay.

“That’s a beautiful color,” Dr. Singh tells me when I show him.

I nod in agreement.Beautifulisn’t a good enough word, but my brain is starting to feel a little watery inside and I kind of can’t believe I was able to find the wordsmelancholyanddevastationwithout the feelings chart, so I decide thatbeautifulis good enough.

“Blue is sad for a lot of people, but it can also be peaceful.” He does the one finger, then the two, as he talks. “What is that blue for you, Matt?”

I put my hand out for the so-so sign.

“Both?” I nod. “Is it nice? The blue?”

I nod again, harder this time. I add the sign,Good, making it big to emphasize it. His careful smile gets fuller.

“That’s good, Matt. I’m very glad you’ve found that.” He smiles some more. “I wonder, would you be willing to tell me - or draw me - what it is about the nights that makes them feel blue?”

That watery feeling gets worse, but I look down at the paper and focus on the color until things calm. It’s such a nice color, this blue. So soft and safe.

Some nights are bluer than others, though. It’s not a surprise, what makes one night bluer than the other. I know it deep in my bones. Instinct, almost. Like those injured animals on the nature rescue shows Bryce sometimes watches. No one tells them they should drag themselves to a dark, safe cave while they heal, they justdoit.

It feels wrong to share this with him, though. Like the little piece of happiness will stop belonging to me the moment he knows.

I trust him, though. Or I’m starting to. He’s given me so many ways to communicate. He’s been so kind and patient. He hasn’t asked about the packet. I think if I admitted to him that I haven’t even been able to get myself to look at it again, he wouldn’t even be upset.

If I want to get even a little better, I have to open up to him.

It’s not like I have to tell him everything anyway, right?I can keep some pieces to myself.