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Voices filled the Murphy house, they always did. It was never a quiet house. Years back, these voices were soft giggles and inaudible baby stammers. The crying at night and the happy laughs in the morning. Back then, it was a happy house.
Those voices weren’t comparable to the voices now. These screams weren’t because of unfed babies, or because of stolen toys.
These screams were filled with clenched fists, gritted teeth, with angry tears and the smell of pot, the smell of alcohol and occasionally the smell of blood.
Tonight was another one of these nights, the ones filled with hate, pity and most of all disappointment.
Cynthia and Larry were standing in Connor's room, looking down at their son, who was sitting on his bed, his hair hiding his face, so they couldn’t see that he had cried earlier.
“Why can’t you be a good kid, Connor?” Connor could hear the wavering voice of his mother. She was crying. She always cried, he realised that early on in his life. It was like it was her way of parenting. She didn’t tell them what they did wrong, she didn’t hug them as they fell apart, she didn’t say anything against Larry, she just cried. She just cried and expected things to get better through that. Which made absolutely no sense to Connor, someone who fought with his words and his fists, not with his tears.
His tears were Connor’s secret, he didn’t cry in front of people. He didn’t let himself become so vulnerable against them. He couldn’t. He had the feeling, that even if he tried to show them, how he felt, they’d just laugh or not understand. So everyone was convinced that he hadn’t cried in years, which was very far from the truth.
Connor cried often, he cried every time he was awake enough from his numbness to feel something. He locked himself away in his room and smoked, he got as high as a kite, to calm himself down, but today, he forgot that his parents were home, which lead them to this situation.
“Don’t you know that smoking that stuff isn’t good for you?” his mother asked, his father had screamed at him at first, but as Connor didn’t respond, but only sat on his bed, he stopped caring.
“It’s not like you give a shit about what’s good for me anyway,” Connor mumbled, loud enough for his parents to hear. His mother gasped audibly, pain in her voice.
“Don’t say that.” She seemed angry, that was a first. His father started speaking again.
“Connor Murphy, I don’t even know what to say to you anymore, you’re going to apologise to your mother, right this moment,” he snarled out. He seemed as if he was trying to be calm, trying to sound caring, but Connor knew better. His father had given up on him many years ago.
Connor kept quiet, not wanting to give his father the satisfaction of knowing that Connor actually did something he told him to do.
“Connor Murphy, I will not repeat myself.” The words were more aggravated this time. But Connor didn’t do it. He just jumped up from the bed. His breathing was heavy, his fists clenched and he felt light headed.
“Why the fuck do you suddenly pretend to care so fucking much about me? Not like you did before,” He yelled, tears started tugging on his eyes again and he bit down on his lip, so hard that he could taste blood. He took a deep breath, trying to calm himself down.
“CONNOR!” His father yelled it wasn’t like he could say anything against it. Connor was right, his father didn’t care about him anymore. Both Larry and Connor were totally aware of that fact.
His mother, on the other hand, she started crying harder, clutching his father’s arm and pulling herself closer. Larry engulfed her into a hug and shot Connor a glare. Connor looked away and grabbed his emergency backpack.
It was filled with clothes, money and some snacks. It was always ready, in case he needed to leave quickly.
“Let go of that backpack, Connor!” His father snarled out but didn’t make any move of pulling away from his mother. Connor ignored him, pulled one strap of the backpack over his shoulder and sprinted out of the room.
“CONNOR FUCKING MURPHY! YOU WILL STAY RIGHT HERE,” Larry yelled, but his son couldn’t care less, just pulled on his shoes and darted out of the front door. They wouldn’t follow him. They never did. Another reason why Connor never believed them, when they said that they cared. He had run away multiple times already. One time he was gone for almost two months. He had lived with his dealer, which still confused Connor to this day, but after Dennis had seen him, unshowered for almost a week, shaking from the cold air and the bags under his eyes from sleeping at train stations and parks, he had let Connor live with him. Dennis wasn’t much older than him, dropped out of college in his second semester and now made his money with getting High School kids like Connor their high.
But Connor knew that he couldn’t go to Dennis again, they weren’t even friends and he didn’t want to bother him.
So Connor started walking, he didn’t even care enough to take his car. He wanted to get his anger out through walking.
For most of the walk, he thought he was walking aimlessly, but he was proven wrong as he suddenly found himself in Evan’s neighbourhood.
He sighed, he didn’t want to bother Evan, but the sky was getting darker and darker and it was probably going to rain soon, so he slowly made his way to Evan’s house and rung the doorbell.
He could hear Evan almost running towards the door and saw how anxious he looked as he opened the door, but all that anxiety fell as Evan saw Connor.
Instead of the awkward smile, that Evan had carried on his face as he opened the door, he now had a worried one painted across his face.
“Hey Ev,” Connor spoke quietly, smiling at the shorter boy softly. Evan let his eyes travel up and down Connor and saw the backpack on his back and smiled sadly at the taller.
“Come in,” he said, opening the door enough for Connor to walk in. Connor walked in and took in Evan’s living room. It had always been calming to him. There was something about the way that it smelt, the way that it was always a little messy. It was never perfect and Connor loved it for that.
He dropped his backpack at the door, slipped out of his shoes and made his way over to the couch. Evan on the other hand walked into the kitchen and filled two glasses with water, bringing both of them to the small coffee table in front of the couch.
Connor thanked him quickly and smiled at Evan sadly. After a few minutes of comfortable silence, Evan spoke up.
“So, what happened ?” Connor combed through his hair. Trying to get out the few tangles, while thinking about how to explain what happened to Evan.
“I got high,” he said carefully, not looking at Evan, but he saw him nod. Connor took his glass into his hand and trailed his finger over the top of it.
“Were they home?” Evan asked he was being careful. Last time, that Connor had come to his house late at night, he started sobbing and cried himself to sleep on the floor in front of the couch.Connor had been high, he didn’t really remember anything from it, so Evan never mentioned anything about how he held him close, or how Connor had kissed him. It must have been from the weed. That’s at least what Evan kept telling himself, Connor could never like him like that. There was just no way. So Evan cherished the memory, the one moment where everything had been perfect for him. He held it close like a secret. A secret that should have been shared by two people, but through a weird twist of fate, only one remembered.
Connor nodded, his eyes fixed on the floor in front of him. “Yeah,” he added, his voice low and strained. He could feel the stinging in his eyes that came before he would start crying. He looked over at the shorter boy, that carried a sympathetic smile on his face, his body was turned towards Connor, holding his glass with both hands, terrified to spill it, while sitting cross legged. He trusted this boy, he trusted him with his life, so he took a deep breath and started to let the words spill.
“I hate them so much, you know?” He brought his hand up to his mouth and started biting on his thumb nail. “It’s like they don’t even see me and if they do, they just see the negative things and never even try to help me.” He was aware that his voice was unsteady and that he was trembling. “I was never what they wanted, never good enough, never wanted to do the things that they wanted me to do. I knew that my dad wanted me to go into the Baseball team, but I hated it. I couldn’t stand being with those,” He made a pause, looking for words. He realised that his voice was harsh and watery. He was close to crying. He could feel it. “People. I was never what he pictured me to be. And He tried to hide it, I know he did. But,” he huffed out a laugh and shook his head. “He did such a shit job at it. He tried to push me into that cookie cutter shape so much, that I just started to rebel so much.”
Tears were escaping his eyes and he had almost forgotten about Evan until he heard a faint sound of glass hitting a table, shuffling. He felt how the couch next to him sunk in a little as the other moved over and put a warm, soothing hand on his shoulder.
Evan hadn’t said anything, but when the room was filled with only air and Connor’s silent crying, he decided to speak up.
“Parents always see their children as work in progress things. They make us distrust ourselves with their ideas of us.” His voice was soft, caring. Evan asked himself if Connor could hear the love that was in his voice. To him, it seemed so incredibly obvious that he was certain that Connor must have heard it. But Connor just looked at Evan with sad eyes.
He let out a soft snort, wiping his eyes. He was vulnerable and instead of using this to hurt him, Evan comforted him. “You’re always the poet, huh?” he said quietly, a soft smile on his lips.
Evan smiled, shrugging. “I guess, I can’t help it.”
“I think they see us as colouring books, that they can fill in and as soon as they realise that we have control over the colours, they don’t know what to do,” Connor said, looking at the floor.
Evan nodded softly. “A lot of who I am, went missing because of me trying to make the pictures in other people's favourite colours instead of mine.”
Connor smiled, amazed how calm Evan was, he remembered how he was when they just became friends. He was a stuttering mess, but now. Now he could share the things he thought about the world with Connor easily.
The tears have slowed down, the cold of the night making its way into the living room through the open windows. It smelled like rain, even though he knew that it wasn’t raining yet.
“You think someday, someone will come along and look at the colours that you chose and fall in love with them? No matter how messy the lines?” Connor asked quietly, he felt Evan lean back onto the couch. He could feel his gaze on him but didn’t turn around.
“I think so, even though it seems like no one will ever think that my colours look good.” There was something in Evan’s voice that Connor couldn’t pinpoint. Something sad, something horribly, disturbingly sad. It broke Connor’s, heart.
He leant back and looked at Evan, their faces only about a twenty centimetres apart.
“I think your colours look beautiful,” he said quietly. A secret in his voice, a secret Evan wasn’t supposed to know. Connor had an almost sheepish smile on his face, something Evan wasn’t used to seeing.
He swallowed hard and did something he probably shouldn’t have done. He slowly intertwined his fingers with Connor’s. His other hand going upwards to cup Connor’s cheek.
Connor’s eyes jumped from looking at their hands to Evan’s face in second, they were wider than normal, his pupils wide, his heartbeat so loud that he had the feeling that Evan should be able to hear it, as the younger moved closer and pressed his lips onto Connor’s.
Silence. That’s the first reaction that Evan got. Connor didn’t know how to react, it felt like his heart was stuck in his throat. He could hear his heartbeat in his ears and felt it in his chest and before he could react, Evan pulled away. Almost leaping back onto the other side of the couch, hands stretched out in confusion, surprise and most of all regret.
“I’m so sorry, I- I- I shouldn’t have - It - it was an impulse - I’m sorry,” He felt himself hyperventilating. Connor just moved his own hand up to feel his lips. The skin that was just touched by the soft lips of a beautiful boy that he had liked for a long time.
“Do it again,” He breathed out and immediately stopped Evan’s rambling with that.
“What?” Evan asked, eyes wide. Connor moved closer to the shorter boy. Carefully looking up at him.
“Do it again?” he repeated, he wasn’t good with these things. He still remembered how he had kissed Evan last time he came to his house. Back then he was able to blame it on his high, even though he knew that it wasn’t from the weed at all.
He was in love with Evan, painfully in love. So he was terrified as the words slipped out of his lips, but that terror faded as the blonde took his hand into his again, moving up to cup his face and kiss him again. This time Connor was prepared. He was prepared for the soft lips touching his, but he wasn’t prepared for how hot his skin felt, wherever Evan touched it. He wasn’t prepared to feel loved.
But he kissed back and the kiss was awkward and far from perfect, but it was theirs. It was the one thing in this unforgiving world that was truly and unbelievably theirs.
As they pulled away, both of them were smiling. Sheepish, soft smiles, both of them blushing hard, as they bumped their foreheads together and looked into each other's eyes.
As soon as Connor looked into Evan’s eyes, he decided that this was his new favourite colour. Evan’s eyes, in soft lighting from the lamp in the corner of the room, almost sparkling after their kiss.
But Connor was bad with words, so instead of telling Evan, he just kissed him again. Desperate to take in every second.
Finally, he found the one thing in his life that he wanted to do, what he wanted to be.
He wanted to be the person that made Evan happy, he wanted to be the person that could paint a smile on Evan’s face after a hard day.
But there was one thing that Connor didn’t know.
He already was that person.