Cody used to think that the color orange was really ugly. Like prison jumpsuits- not that he'd ever had any experience with them, nor ever planned to. Like fall leaves that covered the basketball court and made it hard to play without slipping all over the place. Like cheap candy that gave you a sugar high so strong you couldn't sit still through math class and failed a test as a result. And then, in his senior year at his high school, he ran into a girl who changed all that.
Marnie Piper was different from any girl he'd ever met, especially any girl at his school, where they were all superficial and beautiful, like Barbie dolls. Perfectly polished exteriors, but hollow underneath. He hadn't even known she attended this school. She was smart and funny, and the perfect mixture of strange and self-confident, eccentric and perfectly assured. And it also didn't hurt that, while she was not a drop-dead, like the cheerleaders Cody was by now used to throwing themselves at him, she certainly was not ugly. Not in the least. Or that she smelled like candles, and pumpkins with spice, and brown sugar and fall leaves. But the strangest, and also most attractive thing about her, was her preoccupation with Halloween. Every day, she had a spider pin on her jacket, or a ghost necklace, or socks with skeletons- something like that. But more conspicuously, every day, she wore something orange.
It had become something of a game to Cody- what orange was Marnie wearing today? And it was all those times that he realized orange was not a harsh color. It was a nice, comforting color, deep and rich. He realized that he really liked the color orange. Especially when it was being worn by Marnie Piper.
Happy October the First!