It feels as easy as breathing when he calls her that first time, falling back into an easy conversation. He can't remember the last time he's ever wanted to be on the phone with anyone longer than a few minutes, and only if absolutely necessary. When he has Nina on the phone, however, he wants to dive into the ripples of her words. He wants to hold his head under until he drowns in her, breathing her into his lungs.

Their first phone call lasts over an hour, every second filled with colors.

First, there's pink; a light blush peaching his cheeks and nose when she sighs his name. Like a purr, rolling off of her tongue. The strawberry milk he's drinking, a special treat to celebrate his new audition, cooling his mouth and buying him time to think of the perfect response with every gulp. She laughs and vows to drink his celebratory drink of choice with him out of wine glasses someday. Shades of champagne, cherry blossom, and magenta splashed across the surfaces of his apartment as the sun sinks low in the sky.

Deep oranges join the pink after a while, rose-colored lenses fading into tiger lily's and catching his apartment on fire as it grows later. Heat flares through his body as he paces through the small rooms of his apartment, laughing at her jokes and smiling as he opens a window and leans out to smoke. She joins him across town, crawling onto her fire escape and curling next to a large plant as they both light glowing vermillion embers.

The smoke is grey, disappearing into a smoggy sky as he tells her about the people he watches walk by. He can almost see her smile, genuine as it reaches her storm-cloud eyes. They're in stark contrast to his deep, dark eyes; balanced as they match one another's gaze and the silver mixes with dark honey. Existing in the grey with one another. Floating in the "what is this" newness of mutual interest. He asks about her surroundings, what she sees outside of her window, flicking the ashes of his smoke to the concrete streets below.

Green. A lot of green, dotted with grey as Calvary Cemetery rises up a block from where she sits. She tells him about the trees, leafy and swaying gently in the breeze as she paints a picture for him with her words. He misses green, surrounded by steel unless he walks a block or so over, planted trees made to look like they're cracking through the sidewalks springing up here and there. She offers to bring him some house plants, reassuring him that she'll keep them watered when he jokes about his black thumb.

"I kill everything I touch," he laughs.

"I hope not," she catches his attention. "I'm not ready to die."

Red, like lace on Valentine's Day worn to arouse, and it works. Adam's mind bleeds into thoughts of Nina's skin, smooth and creamy porcelain as his large hands slide up her beautiful legs. Fever flaring through him and the blood pounding in his veins, rushing in his ears and pooling in his groin. She feeds his daydream, teasing him with the sounds of her eating a strawberry, dragging the fruit across her crimson painted lips.

He wants to taste the juice off her pout.

Then comes purple; the sky filters into deep hues of plum as the sun they're both watching disappears into the horizon the longer they stay on the phone. Remembering the shade of sparkling lavender against his palm, Adam had almost lost the ability to call her as he jogged home that first night. Luckily, he's memorized her phone number easily, and she applauds his spatial memory. She tells him her favorite flower offhandedly, Iris's, and he makes a mental note to buy her the indigo buds, testing that same memory recall.

Blue, when she has to let him go as her roommate returns home. Shades of blue settling over him at how lonely and silent everything is when they disconnect, all alone again with too much time to overthink. Blue like his balls, seeking their own release, frustratingly tight just from the teasing lilt in her voice. Adam has to jack off, his towel a shade of turquoise when he's finished.

Every day has been like this since, for over a week. One or the other texts in the morning, the other responding just as soon as they wake up, and then as the sun starts to set, they paint pictures together for as long as they can. It feels like a dream, really; like a secret world that he needs to protect for as long as possible.

If heaven is real, and he'd argue against it being so, he has to think it might be just like this.

Adam knows she waits for him to ask her to meet again. He knows that he should, that he wants to, but he just doesn't. The swirling white tempest of immobilizing fear holds him back. He has to keep it safe, the snow pure and clean. If he presents this to the world, the world can destroy it. Then he thinks maybe who he needs to protect this from the most are the people that know him best, and know his weaknesses. He doesn't think that Hannah will do anything to tear down what he's building, having really worked on a friendship in the past year, but Jessa is a different story.

He sees her out, mermaid hair hanging around her waist as she puffs her own cigarette walking down the graffiti-tagged streets. He hasn't laid eyes on her in over a month when he sees her that first time. He expects it to hit him hard, but…it doesn't, not where it matters at least. He gets a sudden twitch in his lower abdomen, his body remembering Jessa in all the ways it wants to, but his heart doesn't echo the same sentiment.

She smiles at him, reaches for his wrist, and pulls him into her with ease as her arms wrap around his waist. "My dearest friend," she speaks against his chest. "I've missed you."

Brown and mucky, that's what Jessa feels like. Mud all over his shiny new boots. Not the brown that sets his eyes or turns his hair almost black until the sun hits it, but a dirty brown; shit smeared and splattered throughout a dog yard after the snow melts. She touches him, and his sparkle cracks and she seeps into him like tar and soil. Vinegar and oil.

It's common knowledge that floods and droughts are mutually exclusive, impossible to occur at the same time. Adam knows this is bullshit. He's the flood, overwhelming and dangerous. He tends to go with the flow and can become too much for anyone to handle almost instantaneously. Jessa is the drought; a desert of emotion that does what she can to suck every last drop of water out of him and dry him up. She destroys things. She sets fires and lets them burn. Together they should balance, but they don't.

Instead, they create mudslides.

They meet in the middle, colliding and shaking the very ground they walk on. He knows he and Jessa bond over their addictions, a mutual understanding only someone else that has woken up in a gutter can understand. It provides them a powerful foundation filled with fissures. They can't exist together without destroying everything in their path and in many ways they have.

Jessa lost Hannah, though the mousey girl keeps him around for some reason. He lost a year of his life and a lot of his furniture and personal belongings when they would fight. Adam isn't violent toward other people, just himself mostly, but he can't even count on one hand how many times he and Jessa threw things at one another. It's unhealthy, regardless of the animalistic nature of their coupling. One of them always ends up really hurting the other, and not just emotionally. It's volatile. They're volatile together. There's no other way about it.

"Hello," he tells her, patting her back in a way similar to how he might burp Sample, not wanting to return the intimate embrace.

Jessa simply arches a brow, laughing off the awkwardness and not taking offense to it. She knows him, knows how uncomfortable he can be. He can tell she doesn't like that he's lost a level of comfort with her, feathers bristling, but Jessa isn't one to give up easily. She asks him how he's been, how his grandma has been, what he thinks of all the rain they've gotten lately.

The kind of small talk he fucking hates, and Jessa knows it.

She maintains her touch on his wrist, casting a yellow glow to where her skin meets his. Regardless of the stain Jessa has left on his life, and he on hers if he's being honest, he can't deny that when they love, they love fiercely. Gold breaks through her filthy exterior, shining against him, her blonde waves catching the sunlight and shining against the muted backdrop of Brooklyn. He's somewhere between hate and lust, walking a tightrope as his mind dances around with the good and bad images of Jessa simultaneously.

Then she asks the magic question, "So are you seeing anyone?"

Dark like her hair, so black it shines blue in the right light. He becomes consumed with it when he's prompted to think of her. Some people fear the dark, inky black abyss, but Adam doesn't. He loses himself in the twilight, in the absence of light, because he knows it's nothing to be afraid of when it's her. Nina is sin, but she's love, too. Nina is dark, her aura sensual and musky, and she crashes around him and blots everything else out. Deep waters, unable to view the bottom of the pool, but he's ready to dive in.

Jessa is gold, Nina is silver, and he no longer wants gold, preferring silver infinitely.

"I, uh, yes?" Her brow furrows as he considers his answer. To admit it is to allow someone in. He hasn't really discussed the parameters of his and Nina's relationship with her, having only seen her once but talking to her every day for over a week now, but inside he knows what she is. Adam knows that Nina isn't just a conquest, a distraction from the dull world around him. "Yeah, yes. I'm seeing someone." He is, or he will be.

He makes a commitment to ask Nina on a date as soon as he talks to her again.

Maybe it's not his most confident statement of being, but he's thought it through as he's said it out loud and that's good enough for him. It's good enough for Jessa too, who's stepped back at this point, his wrist cool, gold fading to silver where her fingers rested as she questioned him. She wants to know who he's seeing, for how long, and if he thinks it's serious. Adam's fists clench at his sides at her intrusiveness, firing off her questions in rapid succession. Jessa has no right to any of the information she's requesting and he makes sure she knows it. This is exactly what he's afraid of when he thinks about Nina and exposing what they have to other people.

So be it.

He leaves Jessa calling out for him on the sidewalk.

Adam fucks up his audition after running into his ex, his mind wrapped around the pressure he feels. It's like a vortex of confusion with the complexion of a dead fish; everything around him looks dull, the muted hues matte and flat. The air sticks to his lungs, causing his throat to feel tacky. He falls and stutters his way through his lines. Much unlike how he practiced, and he hasn't gotten called back to read again.

Dark red and burnt orange, anger and pain. Disgust with himself for letting Jessa get to him, for letting her get to him when he's promised himself that he wouldn't. Why does she get to him? He isn't connected to her anymore. He doesn't want Jessa, he wants Nina, so how did she manage to worm her way back inside and fuck up his entire day? Then it hits him like a ton of bricks; he doesn't give a shit about what Jessa can do to him; he's scared about what she can do to Nina.

If Jessa gets to his dark angel, oh the stories she could tell.

The beautiful rainbow Nina decorates his life with can all be destroyed, washed away, ripped apart if she finds out who he really is. Nina is darkness, but she's dotted with stars, galaxies in her eyes as they view the world in technicolor. She is watercolor splashed across a black canvas.

Adam is dark too, but he's strange; darker than black, a pitched tone void of light at times. He doesn't always act on his darkness, but when it takes over, he can forget that other people have emotions and lives, feelings that can be hurt. Jessa has seen him there, lost in the deep end, and he's afraid that if Nina knows he can exist there then she'll leave. If she can't float, can't swim in the dark, then Adam will sink to a watery grave by himself.

So, he clenches his jaw, tugs at his hair, stares at his phone as it dings from the counter, and tears through the carpet of his apartment as he paces back and forth. He shouldn't ask her out, can't let her see him again; not as his light burns out more and more when his mind dances with the darkness. He doesn't deserve her; he doesn't deserve her shades of life. It's unfair of him to drag her under with him. He'll hurt her; he knows he will. He'll burn her out, steal her light too. He'll blind her to the beauty that she sees in the world.

He ignores her texts all day and the next day, vowing to save her by keeping her away.

The third day he shoves his phone in the junk drawer on silent as she continues to try and talk to him. Torture. He's a glutton for it.

One more day of radio silence before he can't take it; before the dark becomes all-consuming and threatens to suffocate him. He tears the phone out of the drawer so fast he rips the knob off, pulling up her contact with shaky fingers.

She answers on the first ring, a bright flash of brilliant pigmentation permeating through the black and flecking it in a kaleidoscope of life and love with just the sound of her sweet voice saying his name. He expects her to be angry, to slash him open and bleed him dry. He wants her to yell at him for ghosting her. If she yells, maybe it will make him feel less guilty for thinking she deserves it. He has no idea how she has this power over him after just meeting two weeks before, but she does so to hell with logic.

He doesn't lie to her. He tells her the truth. Adam tells her all about Jessa, word vomiting all over her as his emotional side rises up and he becomes crazed. He tells her about Hannah, and how she and Jessa had been friends. Nina listens in complete silence, her calm seeping through the phone and into his core. Adam lays down at her feet, spilling across the floor and staining the ground in dark hues. He admits that he's terrified of her knowing the real him and that he even botched his audition at the fear of her leaving him. Then he's immediately apologizing for assuming they're together, but he wants to be.

She simply sighs, the smile in her voice evident.

"Darling," she tells him, "you need to forgive yourself. I'm here. I'll always be here."

Adam bursts open, fractures in his hard façade chipping away; the subdued nature of the world swathed once again in tempera as her words engulf him. She isn't mad. Concerned, yes, but not angry. He's so used to everyone always being mad at him, he doesn't think anything else has even been an option.

"Who you were and who you are don't have to be the same, if you don't want them to be," she sings, the color returning to his field of vision and the breath filling his lungs with sweet oxygen. "I want to know you now, Adam."

He's so programmed to believe he's wrong, will be wrong, can be wrong, but when she doesn't confirm he is, he has to start believing that maybe he isn't. It all but confirms his initial gut reaction to Nina, the pull that had him chasing her out of the bar that rainy night isn't all in vain. His gut is wrong a lot, gets him into trouble and shit, but not this time. Adam is sure that this time it's leading him where he needs to be.

He vows to never fade again; to be whoever he can for Nina, to be full of colors.

That's how he finds himself standing in front of a picture of a busy street in Times Square, the crowds filling the grey with cosmetics and life. In the middle of the craze stands a couple, two women, in a loving embrace. He thinks it's beautiful; love exists even when everything around it is in a hurry and takes no notice. Next to it another photo stands; lovers at Coney Island, smiling against the grey sky as the gentleman holds a giant stuffed unicorn that he surely won for the girl tucked under his arm.

Love. It's all about love.

"I've been inspired," she tells him, sliding up next to him. Her arm slips around his and her head leans against his arm. He's surrounded by the sweet bergamot and jasmine of her perfume, notes of florals and citrus captivating him.

Adam smiles, eyes raking over the photograph that she had taken one more time before glancing down at the dark head of hair tucked against his olive jacket. It will be summer in a couple of months, and the days are warmer, but these nights still seem cool in comparison. At least it's stopped raining. "I like them," he reassures her. "They tell a story."

She'd invited him to her gallery show. Well, it isn't exactly hers as it's a collection of photographers from New York, bidding for a corner of an old warehouse to display their work. She'd been chosen, and she's been so excited. Adam was surprised when he had shown up and there were more well-dressed people than had been at Mimi-Roses exhibition almost two years ago. He doesn't expect it to be such a big deal, but it is, and he's beyond happy that Nina wants him here to help her cope.

"Mm, tell me about this one," she ushers him to another of her photos, there are five altogether. "What story does it tell?"

Adam lets his eyes rake over the picture; a young couple, standing on the Brooklyn Bridge and adding a love lock to its steel fencing. Behind them are others rushing by on cell phones, bicycles, skateboards, etc. The sky is blue, clouds pearly and grey sketched across with heavy rain. The East River reflects the sun against its waves, glowing against the murky water heavy with pollution. He lets himself look, absorbs the still frame, just one small moment in the lives of these two strangers.

"It's new," he starts. "They haven't been together long. Everything around them is rushed, everyone is too busy to notice this-this touching moment between lovers having just fallen." She hums, content as she snuggles further against his side, encouraging him to continue. "It's gonna rain. They know it, but they don't care. They'll dance in it if it starts to come down on them. All around them is dirty, polluted, but she thinks it's all beautiful anyway because love tints everything with shades of color she's never seen before. He doesn't care because he's with her, and…and she's more beautiful than the entire city lit up at night and she's all he can see. So, they slow down, and they declare their love; lock it to a dirty bridge over a dirty river surrounded by dirty people, because to them it's perfect."

"Then what?" She asks, and he realizes she's looking up at him with grey eyes glistening under harsh fluorescent lighting.

Adam's breath catches in his throat. He wants to kiss her. He wants to breathe her air, back and forth forever while they consume one another. He wants to be the couple in the picture, locking his love for this woman to the Brooklyn Bridge before returning to their Brooklyn apartment. He wants to make love to her, which strikes him immediately. Adam fucks. It takes a lot for him to love, especially at first. But she makes him want to. All love. All the time. Well, maybe fucking too but love first.

But it's too soon, so he takes a deep breath and smiles. "Then they go home. It's about to rain, you can see it in the clouds. They gotta, I mean, just because they would dance in it doesn't mean they want to catch a cold."

She laughs at him, her nose crinkling and a dimple forming on her right cheek as she agrees with him. He just smiles down at her, adoration seeping from his pores and wrapping her up as he becomes wrapped up in her too. Pictures, everywhere, and the most captivating thing in the room is one another as they connect over and over; a pulse beating between them in sync.

Adam is sure, with every fiber of his being, that everything and everyone before Nina was practice for him to have her. He's positive that he belongs to her in every way, and that time merely exists to remind him that she's only been in his life for two and a half weeks. Which isn't nearly long enough for him to feel the way he does, but it's happened and now he's looking forward to the next two and a half weeks, years, decades; whatever amount of time he can get with Nina as they decorate their lives together with art.

She's speckled with colors, and he's been subdued for too long. Dipping his brush into her essence, he imagines they can create masterpieces together. He dreams of them dancing along the cool streets of New York, dying everything they touch. It's graceful, the way they move, and he gets the feeling they've known one another their entire lives instead of the weeks it's been so.

"You wanna get out of here?" She asks, her hand sliding down his forearm until her palm comes to rest against his own, fingers entwining with his much larger ones.

"Isn't this your thing?" He questions, "can you leave?"

"I can leave," she tells him as her thumb grazes the knuckle of his pointer finger. "They've all been sold."

She says it so casually he thinks he's misheard her. He looks down at her again before back at the picture, then back at her again. "They've, what?"

"Yeah," she tries to hide her cheeky smile against the sleeve of his coat. "It's um, it's not a huge deal. I've never sold all of my photos before, but-eek!"

She's squealing as he swoops and lifts her from around her hips, spinning her around until she falls forward over his shoulder and into a fireman's hold.

"Adam!" She's laughing, "put me down!"

"That's amazing!" He gushes, "hey! She sold her photos!" He calls out loud enough for the people around them to glance over and smile politely.

They garner a few odd looks as he spins her again and congratulates her, loudly, and continues to spin her but he doesn't care. This is a big deal for her, regardless of what she's said. She'd been talking about this galleria the entire time he's known her and now, now she's sold every last picture she's prepared and that is huge.

"I'm so proud of you," he offers as he slides her back to the ground, making sure she's steady before he stands back upright. She's blushing, and he wants to kiss the peach tones right off her face. His eyes dart down to her berry-stained lips before they meet her silver orbs again.

She must have been thinking the same thing.

She pulls him into her, pressing onto the balls of her feet as he bends at his waist. They meet in the middle, crashing together and meeting every inch of one another down to their knees. It's like the first time all over again, only better. Stars burst behind his eyes when her lips move against his, tightening her hold on him. There's no rush, no one around them scurrying to get off the subway or onto the train. No more fear he'll never see her again because, after today, he never wants to go a day without her aura melding with his. They sway a bit, their balance is questionable. His big hands come up to cup her cheeks, leaning forward more to deepen their kiss, her back arching gracefully as she dips back effortlessly and beautifully.

Then Adam remembers they're in public, so he painfully lets out a stream of hot breath through his nose and steps back. Her eyelids are heavy with lust when she looks up at him with thick black lashes.

"Thank you," she whispers, yanking his collar and kissing him again.

"Thank you," he mumbles back against her mouth.

"For what?" She asks him, clearly amused as she pulls back enough to look up at him.

"For being you," he tells her simply, kissing the tip of her nose. "And for inviting me here. This was important to you."

"You're important to me," she answers, and if it were possible to melt into her skin then he would do it right here in front of everyone.

He's grown aware that they're still amassing attention from those left to muddle around the gallery, so he reaches for her hand again. "You wanted to get out of here?"

She nods, letting him pull her toward the front of the warehouse. "I'm starving. I've been so nervous all-day I haven't eaten a thing. I'm surviving off of coffee and a mint I stole from my bank earlier."

"You poor thing," he teases, frowning at her and earning him a roll of her eyes.

Adam pulls her out onto the sidewalk, an idea already forming in his mind of where he wants to take her. Then he realizes that he's met her here, and he hasn't brought her flowers like he intends to on their first date (he remembers she loves iris's).

He stops so abruptly she runs into him, looking up at him curiously. "Adam?"

"This isn't our first date," he tells her, licking his lips and bending forward a bit to get eye level with her. Her brow furrows, confused, so he continues. "I-I had a plan, for our first date. This isn't it."

"What is this then, creep?" She echoes the name they joked about the first night they met.

He smiles, dark eyes sparkling with the yellow-orange glow of the streetlamps above them. "This is-uh, this is us spending time together. Celebrating your success. Tomorrow though, tomorrow is our first real date. If you want that. Do you?"

"Are you asking me out, Adam Sackler?"

"Yeah, yes. If you're up for it."

"I'm always up for it if 'it' is spending time with you-"

"Not spending time with," he reminds her, even though it's technically the same thing. He just wants to be clear with her, because she deserves perfection. "That's what we're doing now. Tomorrow we go on a date."

She stands there beaming her megawatt smile up at him, agreeing with a nod of her head. Adam's heart beats fast and hard against his ribs, looking at this girl that has become the most important person to him. She's hit him fast and hard, uprooting all of the miserable plans he's had in store for himself. He can never thank her enough for merely existing, so he simply kisses her quickly before pulling her back along the path they've been walking, leaving a trail of colors in their wake.