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Theo's mother had once read him a poem about how the sky could be anything but green, but it looks green to him that night. Aurora borealis floating forest pondweed science book deep green all over, like he’s wearing tinted glasses.
The stars are green. The stars are green. Ozian city lights, from a poster in a bedroom.
They’re like someone's eyes. He can’t remember who's, because his mother’s eyes weren’t green and there’s no one else except Boris, and Boris’ eyes aren’t green. He hates the absolute surety with which he knows that.
It would be nice if they were green; it would help him, because then he would know that he didn't know, and he wouldn't have to think about why he knows. Knows without looking. It would be so good to be wrong, so he chooses a star: not directly above him, one he almost can’t see, and closes his eyes and thinks make them be green make them be green make them be green please make them be green, and the first breath of winter tears into him. It’s so beautiful, like a message in a bottle. He wishes one more time, only for one thing which is the most important thing in the world, because if it doesn’t come true, he has nothing. Green eyes. Fuck you God, I know I'm an idiot, and green eyes. As silently as he can, he turns his head.
Cymbal crash, there they are, decidedly not green. Shrapnel and iron and dust and dark, stormy skies, everything that destroys, nothing that fucking grows. The end, never the beginning, ashes to ashes, dust to dust, from dust thou art and to dust returneth. Bookmarked pages: we are children of the dust… but one falls in love and one is a god.
Boris’ eyes have been closed the whole time, but that doesn’t matter, or it does matter more than anything, because Theo knows anyway.
Boris’ hand burns Theo before it touches him, raising a white-hot brand in the shape of a secret never to be told that sends Theo’s heartbeat fucking insane, and the touch itself is like the antidote. Cold water. Boris is cold. His hand is icy in Theo’s; New York winters and bathroom tiles, pale skin and black umbrellas in the sun. New York winters with the coming of the snow. Swimming pools at night. Rain. Swimming pools at night, glowing green. Theo turns his head back to the sky.
It isn’t green, and he knows that, but it would be funny if it was, because - Andy had mentioned once - that was what was meant to happen before tornadoes. Why the fuck they’d been talking about tornadoes, Theo didn’t remember, but it would be funny if the sky had been green, because when Theo finds out his father has died, the first stab of feeling that begins the fucking lobotomy is that of relief, that neither of his parents will ever know he has just held hands with a boy for an hour straight, and he knows more about his eyes than he ever will about any girl’s.
When his mother died, the relief had come later, numb. One night in bed at the Barbours’, that spotless house, a shower of dust had made him sit up and try to cough out every particle of at least she doesn’t know at least she doesn’t know at least she doesn’t know any of it. Theo had to breath it in. At least she doesn’t know the real reason he wanted to do all that shit with Tom Cable, to stare at the back of his neck and learn to look away quickly; at least she’d never know why the execution was meant for him.
He put that secret in a dead man’s ring, and now another secret is in that star, splitting his soul. Like in Harry Potter.
As he speeds away from the desert forever, he looks at the night sky, that stopped being green as soon as Boris’ lips touched his, and can’t see the stars anymore.
The years pass, and more secrets come, one for every star in the sky, every day that goes by, every piece he sells, and two for every girl he sleeps with. But only ever a split second of liking what he sees, never like with Boris. He eventually remembers that it was Pippa’s eyes he thought were green. They’re not, but he thought they were, somehow; he doesn’t want to think about how. Somehow, he sees his secret in Pippa’s eyes. She had captured it there the first day he saw her and he locked it in and in the green star that was her with a tiny fairytale key to a safe with a painting in it. His is an addiction that is never truly satisfied.
The sky can be anything but green. It isn’t until years later that he finds the rest of the poem; nothing particularly magical, he just googles it one day; it feels important, now Boris is back. And I’ll love you till the sky is viridian celadon emerald lime flamingoes are purple and their question marks don’t answer yes and the alphabet stops at x.
His eyes are lighter now; Theo memorised them as soon as he saw them.
It’s daylight - the only star is the sun, that struggles to force its way through thick grey cloud. The sky isn’t green, it’s shrapnel and iron and dust, warm and wide. Exhaling, it opens up and pours out every secret. It washes away the ashes.