Zoe knew it was Saturday before she opened her eyes. She could feel a light strawberry Laffy-taffy pink embrace her skin with a texture like sea foam. She inhaled the tangerine scented Saturday air through her nose and let a content sigh escape her mouth. Saturday mornings were nice, quiet, and peaceful. She opened her eyes and saw the pink around her, little wisps of it swirling around her forearm as she moved for the first time that day. She stood up and walked to the window on the opposite side of her room, thrusting open the curtains, crossing her arms on the windowsill, and resting her chin on her arms. The sky was a blueish-flint color, the sun just waking up as well. The pink enveloping her dissipated as it always did once Zoe was fully awake, but she didn't mind. The word Saturday was the same color, and she'd get to experience this tranquility again next week. There was no stupid brother to ruin her mood, no idiots catcalling her, no school to stress over, no distinguished parents, no expectations to live up to. She only had herself and the vastness of the cloud-speckled sky. The clouds today looked like pieces of fairy floss, lightly tinted that color you can never tell whether it's orange or pink because of the day's youth. It was beautiful.

Of course, a clunk from the bedroom down the hall had to ruin Zoe's perfect morning. She could feel the clingy stench of weed from her room. It was terrible. Most of the time Zoe loved her gift, but she'd give part of it up if it meant she never had to see the disgustingly dark shade of mustard yellow that surrounded the shell of what used to be her older brother. Her older brother, who used to give her piggyback rides and play princesses (he was always the princess) and protect her from the monsters at night and snuggle with her while they watched reruns of Batman on the T.V...No. She wouldn't think about that. Nostalgia was the color of the frost on the windows they would draw pictures in with their fingertips and it hovered around like pixie dust and it was too painful to look at. Whatever this thing was that had inhabited her household, it wasn't her brother.

Zoe heard it again. And again. Something banging against the wall in Connor's room. Terracotta clay colored circles exploded from her leftmost fifth of vision every time the sound was made. Terracotta colored pots looked nice in her garden. Idiots throwing things did not.

"Connor, stop making that vexatious noise!" she yelled, flipping him off, even though he couldn't see.

"Shut up, Zoe. Stop being pretentious," He called back.

"You're one to talk," she spat.

"Am I?" he challenged, raising his voice out of anger, not friendly sibling competition. Zoe could feel his anger burning in her lower back, a fog the color of a kabocha squash shell forming in the direction her internal compass knew was Connor's room.

"Yes, I—"

"Shut up Zoe! Just shut up! You always—"

"No! You don't get to walk over me like this, I will—"

"Don't make me come in there!" Connor threatened. Zoe could hardly see through their combined anger. She felt around her room for her doorknob and locked it.

"Don't you dare. I'm locking the door," Zoe retorted, panting.

"I'll beat down the door if I want to," Connor sputtered.

"Both of you, shut your mouths this instant!" A booming voice overcame both of theirs. Zoe up until now was faring okay, but at Larry's intrusion, Connor became absolutely livid. She was totally blind. It felt like she was suffocating on the thick green, and there was no one she could claw at or punch to make it all go away.

"SHUT THE FUCK UP, LARRY," Connor shrieked, his voice resonating through the hallways of their house. Zoe hated the size, especially now. It's not like she was still three, where the endless "secret passages" to explore were her favorite pastime. Connor was insane.

"Just because you're the CEO of some fucking stupid company and you get meticulous access to every little detail of your employee's puny little lives doesn't mean you have any right to butt into ours! You're a control freak, Larry. Leave Zoe the fuck alone. Leave me the fuck alone," Connor kept screaming, hitting his desk with his fist when he felt like it, mostly on the words fuck and Larry.

"Don't speak to your father that way," Larry commanded. Zoe could hear his raisin footsteps traveling down the hall, mapping their place in her mind.

"Don't talk to your father that way," Connor mocked him in a voice so ridiculous and high and brick red that Talking Angela would be jealous.

"YOU'RE NOT MY FUCKING FATHER," he screeched. Zoe winced as he slammed the door.

Larry was deciding something, Zoe could tell. Was he going to continue to bicker with Connor, or pretend like it never happened? By the way he sighed and the direction of his footsteps, Zoe knew he wouldn't be mentioning it again. He'd glare at Connor from the table and nag him about pointless things, but he wouldn't bring it up. That was one of his biggest flaws. He ignored anything he didn't want to deal with.

The sugar cookie colored sound of a soft knock made small flashes of color inside Zoe's mind's eye.

"Zoe, is it okay if I come in?" Cynthia's comforting, smoky voice asked.

"I can't see," she whimpered, her emotions and Connor's emotions still the only things in front of her, with Cynthia's and Larry's mixed in, "I need you to come in, but I need you to pick the lock."

"Alright, sweety. I'll be back in a second. Stay where you are so you don't hurt yourself," Cynthia said, retreating to find a bobby pin or a match or something to get into Zoe's room with. Cynthia knew that Zoe sometimes suffered from sensory overload, but that wasn't half of it.

Zoe wondered for a moment why it was always hers and Connor's emotions that hit her the strongest. She could see emotions on everybody. She saw them on random strangers on the city bus, on her classmates at school, and at family gatherings. She saw them everywhere, and yeah, it did get overwhelming sometimes. That was the main reason her parents bought her a car. Before then, she would just steal Connor's, and that never went over well. She could talk to a group of friends and be fine, but she tried to be in the school hallways as little as possible and never went to the dances her buddies insisted she go to. She didn't mind, though. All of the music and people would make her shut down, and her mom didn't approve of the food. So she never went. Still, it was only her and Connor's emotions that blinded her. She could only think of two instances at the moment where she had shut down and it hadn't been either his fault or the product of her own strong emotions.

"Zoe, I'm picking the lock now.