If someone were to ask Joshua Nelson to describe exactly what ensued within his mind in those brief moments before he hits the ground, he’d be able to describe it to them perfectly. The way the floor and the sky seem to bend in towards one another, making him wonder if he was even stood on solid ground anymore. How the people around him just become blurry silhouettes of navy-umber-citrine and his vision tints with a swirling onyx-burgundy. Finally, that one last glimpse of the world before it all rolls up in front of his very eyes, like a sheet of paper, as he goes tumbling back and lands on the ground behind him, his attempts to reach out and grab anyone in front of him useless, fear renders his body unresponsive. Now, if someone were to ask him to sum it up, he would say the only word he never referred to as a colour – chaos. Chaos was the single thing that his synaesthesia didn’t even identify, almost as though his brain were too afraid of the thing to even fathom it.
Of course, that didn’t mean Josh was a stranger to chaos. Chaos was the one thing that consumed his whole life – his life at home, his life at school, his life going places with Tyler; everything. Perhaps that was why chaos never had a distinct colour. Maybe Josh was so used to this thing overwhelming him constantly that there was no defining when it was there and when it wasn’t, because chaos was always by his side. Chaos was a shadow, looming over him – making him anxious; paranoid. If he were honest, which he only really was around Tyler, Josh would probably say chaos is what drives him. Without chaos, he’d have nothing to hold onto; a constantly changing world guaranteed that. All Josh could say was that he was both pissed at and glad for chaos – it was the only thing that remained in a world where things were changing and disappearing, or appearing and re-appearing. That didn’t make chaos a good thing, though. In fact, chaos was far from a good thing for Josh. Exhibit A: his current situation – passed out, on the grass, with (unbeknownst to him) his best friend and his biggest crush by his side, fanning him in the hopes he’d wake up soon. Exhibit B: life at home – dad constantly drunk, mom not being able to give two shits and getting pushed around, and siblings that, frankly, were pretty much the devil incarnate, despite the fact that the family attempted to be religious. Luckily for Josh, he wasn’t able to think when he was unconscious. If he were, he’d probably never wake up.
(Un)fortunately, today was not that day. His eyelids slowly slid open, and he squinted, still adjusting to having just woken up (for the second time that day). Now, normally, Josh’s brain would be less in overdrive after an incident like that. However, when he looked up to find Jocelyn Thompson crouched over him, sobbing and holding mini fan in front of his face, things just instantly clicked back to chaos. When had she gotten there? How long had she been there? Did Tyler say anything?
The last one was probably a bit of a stretch, but having just passed out to find his biggest crush in front of him, Josh couldn’t help but get paranoid and anxious. That always happened around Josie. But, something else happened when Josh was near Josie, too – there was an aura of gold around her that spread to Josh, swimming through his chest, and he started to feel more at ease. Not to say that he didn’t feel at ease around Tyler, but Josh definitely felt less on edge around both him and Josie than with any other person at school. Hell, he didn’t even feel as safe around his siblings as he did around those two, but not like there’d be any surprise there. With everything going on at home, especially the growing risk of Josh getting more bruises than he could count someda--
Josh squinted his eyes, in an attempt to derail – or at least slow down – the train of thought that was currently running full pelt in his mind. It worked, but not much. Instead, he focused on Josie, letting her silver-dove-aqua-blush aura swim over him to join the apricot-gold, making a beautiful concoction of colours that caused a smile to tug at his lips, sensing a hint of mahogany that no doubt came from Tyler, before he realised that he’d just been sat there for the past ten minutes looking like an absolute and utter dork. He straightened his back instantly, stumbling over his words as they came out.
“J-Josie? W-w-what are you d-doing here?” he rasped, barely audible, as he glanced towards his friend with a look that read: ‘oh my god, what do I do?’.
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