“I’m not stoned,” Caleb insists, then instantly betrays himself by collapsing into another fit of giggles. “Okay, maybe I’m a little stoned. But everything’s just so... intense. Like, why didn’t anyone tell me feelings have colors?”
“What color are your feelings right now?” Z asks, grinning like the Cheshire cat.
Caleb thinks very hard about this, face scrunched in concentration. Then he starts giggling again. “Dude. What the fuck kind of question is that?”
“A valid one!” Z protests.
“My feelings don’t have colors, they have—” Caleb waves his hands around. “Vibes. Bad vibes. Good vibes. Currently experiencing... floaty vibes.”
“Floaty vibes,” I repeat. “Very descriptive, Harvard.”
“What about you?” Marie asks me. “What color—I mean, what are your vibes?”
I think about it. About this moment, this night, these three ridiculous people. “Warm. Like that feeling when you come inside from the cold and your hands start to thaw. That weird, painful-but-good feeling.”
“Shit,” Z says. “That’s actually kind of deep, Harper.”
“Shut up.”
“No, seriously. That was poetic as fuck.”
That’s it. We completely lose it again, sprawling on the barn floor until we’re breathless, staring up at the massive, stupid sky while the fire snaps and pops.
The laughter fades. For a while, nobody talks.
“This is nice,” Caleb says finally, voice softer. “It’s been so long since I just... stopped.”
“Stopped what?” I ask.
“Trying.” He turns his head, those blue eyes catching mine. “Trying to be perfect every second. It’s so fucking exhausting.”
“So stop,” Z says.
“Can’t.” Even stoned, the weight in Caleb’s voice is heavy. “If I’m not perfect, what’s the point of me?”
The words land weird. Too honest. Like he didn’t mean to say them out loud.
“Jesus, man,” Z mutters. “That’s dark.”
“Sorry.”
“Don’t apologize for being honest when you’re high,” I tell him. “That’s literally the whole point of being high.”
Caleb laughs, but it sounds sad. “What if being perfect is the only thing keeping my mom alive?”
The barn goes quiet except for the fire crackling.
“Dude,” Z says carefully. “That’s... that’s not how cancer works.”
“Isn’t it, though?” Caleb’s eyes shine. “First time she got sick, I was a mess. Crying, panic attacks, making everything harder. She almost died. Then I got my shit together—straight As, no drama, no stress. And she went into remission. Five years. What if the second I stop trying, she?—”
He doesn’t finish.
Z is quiet for a long time. Takes a drag. “I spent like ten years thinking if I was quiet enough, invisible enough, my stepdad would stop beating my ass.”
The words drop like stones.
We all freeze.