It's always darkest before dawn. We just have to wait a little while longer. The sun always rises.

It’s different and bold. It stands out amongst a blank world of black, white, and gray. Orange is the early morning sun stretching across the sky and the color of a burning ember standing tall in the middle of a beach bonfire. It’s leaves in the fall, carrots in Nana’s vegetable soup on a cold winter day, tulips in the spring, and the ladybugs in the middle of the grassy park on a hot summer afternoon. Orange is life. It’s unexpected but beautiful.

I couldn't keep doing this to myself. One day, I was going to wake up and realize that, in my desperate escape from the pain in the present, I'd let the future pass me by.

I became utterly addicted to her and the escape from reality we provided each other. Throughout the years, she had boyfriends and I had girlfriends, but there wasn't a single night that I didn’t hear her voice.