A fictional interpretation of a song by Christina Perri.
This is my story.
At the beginning of the school year, all the teachers play some various form of the get-to-know you game. We’re instructed to say our full names, where we’re from, and what we want to be when we grow up. Sometimes, teachers throw in a random question that both says a lot about the person who answers and also makes the teacher feel like he or she is actually doing something different than everyone else. Questions like, if you were stranded on a desert island, what three things would you want with you? Or, my personal favorite, if you were an animal, what would you be?
I’d be a chameleon.
***
This is how it happened.
I morphed his life with mine. I became every shade of color he needed me to be to ensure his happiness.
I left my life in the dirt.
But the truth is, I’m not a chameleon. I’m only human. I have limits to the amount of changing colors I can handle. I know it was my choice, my choice to become his everything. But it didn’t feel like my choice to walk away.
If I stayed, I’d implode.
***
This is how it ended.
It hit me fast.
All of a sudden, the colors I had changed for him fell away and it was just me, in all my colors, standing in the middle of the room. And just like that I realized I didn’t want to be there anymore. I didn’t want to be this person, in this place, with this life.
A life that wasn’t mine.
So I left.
I walked out the door, and I didn’t look back.
There were enough people around that he didn’t notice. I doubted he would recognize me anyway. I was no longer his shade of rainbow. I was me.
Someone he would never know.
