The last class to go was English. It wasn’t very long, but Evan made note of a few good points.

For one, to his luck, Mrs. Morrison was still in class when he walked into sixth period. He had a mild fear that between first period when he got his work and now she would have left home sick. Evan made mention of the fear, and Mrs. Morrison laughed.

“Oh no, Evan. I wouldn’t leave, on your first day back! What bad luck that would bring!”

Evan smiled as well, bowing to her, and took a seat in the first row.

Students trickled in, one by one, sitting at their assigned seats like fitting books into a shelf.

Another good thing: a tall brunette and her girlfriend walked in. The tall guy smiled when he saw Evan, offering a high-five. The girl smiled, waving amicably as they both took their seats in the last row.

Somehow, Evan knew them. And they knew him. In this crowd of faces, he wasn’t forgotten.

Even though he was preoccupied most of the class with note taking from the chapters of the book he missed, Evan was smiling. He belonged here.

The bell rang, and Evan strode out of class, smiling.

He could not wait to go home. As exciting the first say was, he felt mildly uncomfortable. His obsessions seemed to be gone, mostly. But even then, the thought of them being gone exhausted him, since he almost had a blank space in his brain that he had to fill in.

He strode to the end of the hallway. Evan didn’t make it out of the building alone. A girl pounced on him, squeezing his torso.

Evan didn’t even have time to respond as all the sudden, she was kissing him passionately. He melted into her, trying to hide his mild bewilderment. Ama, in a sky-blue shirt and navy-blue skirt, pulled away, smiling.

Ama. He remembered her name. Evan couldn’t even speak from how stunned he was that his brain finally seemed to work.

Ama waved a hand in front of his face. “Silly! Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten me in two weeks!”

Evan smiled, shaking his head. He really didn’t know what to think. He felt dazed, remembering her appearance, in a blue dress, in his ‘fake world’. She really was a girl in his dreams.

The surprise must have shown on his face, because Ama frowned sympathetically. “You’re okay, right?”

Evan came back to reality, shaking his head. “Yes.”

The answer didn’t satisfy.

“You do realize I still love you right? Even though you… went under for a bit?”

Evan looked away. “I never doubted that.”

They had both stopped walking at this point.

“Are you sure?”

Ama, like Jade, had a few tears of her own to spill. She looked at him, her face suddenly crumpling, as if she just saw him for the first time.

“Ama-“

“If you ever get those feelings again, you come to me. Understand?”

This is what he needed to do, to rebuild his life here. But he didn’t expect it to hurt this much. To see Jade upset, or see Matt shocked, or Ama crying. It felt like his heart was being torn apart at the seams.

“Please don’t leave. Not like that, at least.”

The hallway looked so empty, so hollow, now that Ama was before him crying. He closed his eyes. Even then, he could see her, the earlier years when she was young, as clearly as day, as if he’d taken a mental picture of her face and pasted it in the depths of his brain forever. How could he have forgotten?

Evan breathed out, even though the breath was shaky. “I won’t. I promise.”

They both paused. Ama touched his face softly, smiling as brightly as the sun even with tears flooding her eyes. He’d forgotten how much he’d liked her. He took one of her thin hands and kissed it softly.

Then, they continued walking, the flow of the world continuing as if it was never interrupted.

---

Evan sat in the seventh row of the bus. Nobody ever took his seat in the real world.

He breathed, silently, looking out the window. He could see Ama fading in the distance as she walked down the street to the parking lot. The blue of her form and the blue of her car almost blended perfectly into the bright sky.

Evan wished he could be with her forever. He’d never let her go, never let her sail away from him if he could. But since forever was impossible, he settled for tomorrow. And either way, he still had a home to return to.

“Hey, colorblind.” Evan smiled.

Matt punched his shoulder lightly.

“I still can’t believe you’re breathing man.” He paused, sitting down.

Evan frowned. “Matt? Are you okay?”

Matt’s face darkened. He slowly turned to him, as if the motion physically hurt him.

“Don’t… do that again, alright Evan?”

Evan blinked, as if seeing Matt’s curly hair and multicolored self for the first time. The expression of concern on Matt’s lax face didn’t fit, as if trying to fit a triangle block into a circle hole. They didn’t belong together.

Evan smiled. “I promise. Plus, if I die, who will you and Jade annoy?”

The smile returned easily, and Matt ruffled his hair playfully. “Alright, puppy face, enough. And if you did, I’d have to sit alone, I’d never forgive you.”

The bus began to roll along the highway, and the low chatter of students hummed silently along with the engine of the vehicle. Matt pulled out his phone, giving an earbud to Evan. He happily put it in, and they settled, together, in a peaceful state listening to  Mother Mother on the way home.

Evan rested his head back on the seat with the hum of music flooding in his ears. He thought, for a little bit, that this felt like an odd beginning.

He had almost reached his end, two weeks ago.

He didn’t even know if he was supposed to have a happy end.

Happy endings don’t exist, only happy times. His father told him that once. But for once in his life, in the yellow and pink of spring flowers that passed by the window and the flurry of hands and faces washing past his memory, smiling at him, he hoped that maybe one day he’d find a good ending to his story.

Evan hadn’t a single worrying doubt in his mind, not anymore. His obsessions quietly slithered in the back of his mind, a dark place, but he now knew brighter things existed for him in this world.

His eyes wandered, to the brilliance of the bright blue sky, wildly awake with a new exuberance for life.

The end.