"I'm glad you changed your mind and stayed with us for dinner," Jordan's mom told me as she sat down on the couch with the box of pizza. "And I'm just as glad that we finally turned off that stupid smoke alarm."

"Yeah, after hitting it with a hammer a couple of times," I said as I got myself a pizza.

Jordan snickered. "After setting off the alarm so many times, that seems like the only way to turn it off."

"So tell me about yourself, Naomi," she asked me. "What made you become friends with Jordan here?"

"We sit next to each other in chemistry," I answered.

"Hopefully he isn't too much trouble."

"He is," I admitted, getting a look of disbelief from Jordan, "but you get used to it after a while."

"I got some soda in the fridge, you guys want some?" She asked us as she rose from the couch.

I got up. "Let me get it for you."

She immediately plopped back down on the couch. "Thanks, I didn't want to get up anyway. I just wish Jordan is as considerate as you."

"I am-"

"-not," she finished as she pulled his ear, making him whine. "The moment I even say the word "dishes" you run away like it's a bomb."

"That's the Jordan I know," I said before heading to the kitchen.

I opened the refrigerator in search for the soda. All I saw were a couple of Styrofoam boxes probably filled with food among jugs of juice and milk.

"Ann, where's the soda?" I asked her.

"Oh, I put the soda in the freezer," her voice called out to me. "I just bought them and wanted it to get colder."

I opened the freezer and found a box of sodas next to some microwave food. I grabbed three cans for us before closing the door.

"While you're there, do you think you can get me some hot sauce? They're up in the pantry. I always like my pizza with some hot sauce."

"Alright," I said, now wanting some hot sauce on my own pizza. I set the cans on the counter before opening up the big cabinet.

My eyes searched up and down the cabinet, looking for the hot sauce. Though it was neat, there was too much stuff in the cabinet, so I can't find it at first glance.

"Have you found it?"

"Um..."

"I'll take it as a no," she said. "Here, let me just-"

"No, it's alright," I assured her. "Can you just describe where it is?"

"It's on the second shelf. I think it's behind one of the cereal boxes, next to the chips."

I moved some boxes over and found not one, but different bottles of hot sauce. I guess she really likes her hot sauce.

"Which one?"

She paused for a second then said, "The medium one."

"What color top is it?" I asked her, looking at the medium bottles of different colored tops. "Is it green, red-"

"It's the green one."

"Got it," I said, grabbing the bottle, and then coming back to them with everything.

"Sorry for the surprise scavenger hunt," she said in embarrassment. "Usually I'm good with the directions, especially taking out the colors because of Jordan's color-"

Jordan cut off his mom by setting his soda down a bit too harshly.

She blinked. "What? What's wrong?" Then she looked like she got it. "She doesn't know? I thought she did. For Pete's sake Jordan, you went out painting with her. How can you expect me to know that you didn't tell her?"

Jordan sighed. "I didn't." He then got up. "I'm not hungry."

The both of us looked at his plate with his pizza barely had a bite. I got up, trying to stop Jordan from leaving.

"Don't-"

But he slammed the door on my face.

"Well, that's one way to ruin dinner," his mom muttered to herself.  She got up from the couch and stretched. "It's late anyway I guess. Let me take you home, Naomi."

In her Honda SUV, Jordan's mom began to drive me home with my address in her phone. She explained to me the big car because she hosts a carpool when going to work with her neighbors, though she didn't need to. I guess she was trying to fill in the awkward silence that Jordan made the moment he left to his room.

"I really did thought you knew," she told me quietly.

I shooked my head. "It's not your fault, and honestly..."

She glanced at me. "So you did know?"

"It was like he was dropping hints," I told her. "Like he wanted me to know, but at the same time he didn't. Plus it was a theory that Graeae is colorblind with his choice of colors. I wanted to ask but I knew I shouldn't."

"I'm thankful for your respect of our privacy," she said with a smile. "Jordan has always been a tough kid, and only recently he started opening up his colorblindness to his two other friends..."

"Declan and Bennett," I said.

She nodded. "Yeah, they'd come late covered in spray paint and I knew they must've known about it. I'm just happy he trusts them with it." She stopped then added quickly, "Not that I'm saying he doesn't trust you."

I chuckled awkwardly. "No, it's alright. If you don't mind me asking..."

"You're wondering what type it is, aren't you?" She finished. "Well let me tell it to you straight, colorblind doesn't really mean, color blind. You do not know how confused I first was when I found out."

"Most people think that colorblind means they see everything in black and white, like an old television show."

"Right," she said. "There's deuteranopia, protanopia, and tritanopia. Sorry for confusing you with the fancy scientific words, I'm pretty proud of myself that I even remembered them. But in reality, colorblind is like mixing up only certain colors like red-green colorblindness, and are just confused by the different colors. That's not the case with Jordan."

She was quiet for a while before saying, "It happened when he was little." She made a forced laugh. "You know kids, never really listening to you after you tell them so many times. 'Don't chase a ball into the street,' I always told him. Then the car came out of nowhere and..." She trailed off from there.

"I'm-"

"Don't be," she said. "You know Jordan now, he's doing just fine. But anyway, what he has is cerebral achromatopsia."

I didn't know much about colorblindness to know the term. "What is that?"

"That is the fancy way of saying total colorblindness, when you see everything in black and white," she explained. "Jordan has cerebral because it was caused by the accident. If it was congenital it was inherited. Usually people with achromatopsia have bad vision and are really sensitive to light, so sensitive they need special glasses for it."

"But Jordan doesn't have that," I said.

She shook her head. "No, he doesn't. With cerebral, not congenital achromatopsia it's only in the... I forgot the term, just in a specific place in the head that caused the brain trauma, a couple surgeries later for him and he was alright. Well, besides color out of his life."

The car suddenly stopped and I saw that I was right in front of my house.

"You must be wondering why I'm telling you all of this," his mom told me. "Naomi, you're a sweet girl, and though I just met you, it seems I know you as much as Jordan has by the way he talks about you and his other friends. He used to be a really quiet kid, so it makes me happy to know he's got friends he can trust. I don't want his way of seeing the world differently affect him entirely. I just want not only me, but him to know you're there for him. So please talk to him, I doubt he would talk to me anytime soon after ruining pizza for him." She let out a groan. "Go moms!"

"Though I wish he told me himself, and I understand if he didn't, thank you."

She ruffled my hair, the way Jordan always does. "No, thank you. Have a good night, Naomi."

"You too."

-

I lifted my hand up to the door, about to knock, when I stopped myself. I let out a sigh, trying to think of what to say when I opened the door. The thing I should be worrying about is how to make him open the door in the first place. The guys told me Jordan was locked up in his room the whole time, the both of them tried to see what was wrong, but he told them to go away. So I guess there's only one thing to do.

I knocked the door. "I have pizza."

The door opened, Jordan looked at me, down at my empty hands, then back at me. "No you don't." Then he closed the door.

Determined to try again, I knocked on the door again. "Let me in."

He opened the door just to tell me, "No," before closing it again.

But I was sure to stick my foot before it was about to close. The door paused then tried to close again. He kept on opening it and closing it as if he was trying to break my foot. A bit irritated now, I took my foot away to then kick the door open.

Jordan backed up in surprise. "Sheesh Hulk, don't break down my door."

"Well... stop sulking around just because I learned something knew about you!"

He opened his mouth to say something, but just sat down at his computer chair. He began to go back to typing whatever he was doing, glaring at the screen instead of glaring at me. "Whatever."

I crossed my arms, glaring at him, expecting him to do something, but he was just ignoring me. My eyes began to wander around his room. Besides a couple of finished Lego works and Star War posters, I saw a couple of papers posted on the walls of what looked like his sketches, works of Graeae.

"So do you always break into people's rooms and look around?" He asked me.

"No, but-"

"You are," he finished.

I stood awkwardly there, shifting from foot to foot.  Jordan let out a sigh then got a post it note and scribbled something on it before handing it to me. I took it and read the note.

"What is this?"

"It's the password for the website," he told me, turning the chair away from me. "That's why you're here, isn't it?"

I grabbed the back of the chair to turn him around. "No, it isn't, and nice password change."

I went through all of that time with him in the fair just for a password that said rocks_wallace134.

He rolled his eyes. "Whatever." I was expecting a funny comeback from him, but nothing. "The website is all yours, blah, blah, blah. I'd make you a contract to give you it officially, but I don't care about it that much anyway."

"Then why did I have to go to the fair with you if you didn't even want to keep the website?"

"Is it wrong to want to spend time with my friend?" Jordan snapped at me, making me flinch. He realized his harshness and looked away. "What are you planning to do with the website?"

I looked down at the password. "I don't know. I have a small idea with it, but... it'll take a while to work on it."

There was a long silence between the both of us.

"How long are you going to stand there?"

"As long as it takes until you can stop being like this," I told him.

"Stop being what?"

"Not Jordan like," I said. "You're more moody than me in my time of the month, and that's saying something."

"I'm not!" Jordan denied as he took the bucket of vanilla ice cream off his desk and ate a spoonful of it.

"You're being all depressed, and you're making the guys depressed, you're making me depressed. You're supposed to be the opposite, the one making everyone happy, being happy."

"So it's my job to do that now?"

"Yes- No, it's always been that. You make everything fun and make fun of Declan, Declan tries not to kill you, Bennett can control you two-"

"And you?"

"I'm able to be myself."

Despite his depressed mood the whole time, I finally made him smile, small but it still counts. I looked at his desk and saw glasses at the side, not only one but two.

"Glasses?" I asked him.

"Hmm?" He looked at them. "Oh yeah, I have glasses. There's one for reading and the other for the computer."

"Can you?"

He hesitated then let out sigh. "Alright."

Jordan picked up one of the glasses then put it on. I tried not to do a double take. Jordan with small rectangular glasses looked...

"Smarter. You look smarter," I said slowly.

He rolled his eyes and took them off. "Oh ha ha ha, very funny."

"No, I'm serious."

"Well I only use it at home or here," Jordan told me and chuckled. "Declan would lose most of his jokes of me being stupid if I wore these glasses more, wouldn't want that now would we?"

"So you're just saying all people who wear glasses are smart?"

"Yeah."

I nodded. "I agree."

Jordan leaned back in his chair and sighed. "Fine, I guess I overreacted there a bit-" I raised an eyebrow "-shut up, that's all you can get from me. But after living with this for so many years, especially being made fun of it, you can get insecure about it."

"That isn't something you should be insecure about," I told him. "It's you, that's what makes you unique."

Bulls-eye, he smiled again. "That's what my mom keeps on reminding me."

"And whoever made fun of you for it, I'll deal with them," I said confidently as I cracked my knuckles before adding, "with Declan's help of course... mostly."

Jordan snorted. "That'll be something to see Declan beating himself up, actually a dream come true."

"Wait, he-"

"He's just joking around really," Jordan assured me as he picked up a Rubik's cube on his desk and messed with it a little. "He got this for me for my birthday."

I couldn't help but snort at that, typical Declan. I got the Rubik's cube from Jordan and after a couple of minutes, I set the solved cube on his desk.

"All the shades match," Jordan said as he stared at the cube.

"Shades?" I asked.

"My colorblindness is cerebral-"

"-achromatopsia," I finished. "Your mom explained it to me."

He nodded. "Well it's not really all black and white," he told me. "It's more of just different shades of grey, a whole rainbow of them. Grey is my favorite color because... it's the only color I see."

"Wait, wait, wait," I said, stopping him.

He blinked. "What?"

"Just let me get this straight."

"Alright..."

"You're telling me..."

"Yeah?"

"That you see..."

"Uh-huh."

"Fifty..."

He blinked. "Oh no."

"Shades..."

"Don't do it."

"Of..."

"Stop it Naomi."

"Grey?"

He sighed. "You said it. You actually said it."

"It had to be done," I said, patting his back.

"Since you know this much about me, let me tell you something else."

"Is it something bad?"

He shook his head. "No, I mean, it depends on how you look at it. With cerebral achromatopsia, you also get this thing called prosopagnosia, or face blindness."

"Face blindness?" I repeated in confusion.

"With the accident I bet my mom told you about-" I nodded that she did "-Well with the trauma, you also get face blindness, it makes it hard for me to recognize faces. Like when I meet someone new and later that day I see them again, but I think they're some stranger."

"When we first met at Starbucks, you were the one who spotted me though," I told him.

"There's a trick to it," he said. "Instead of focusing on the face, I'd focus on hair, clothes, or voice. In your case, your glasses," he tapped the rim of my glasses. "I want to tell you this so I can count on you. I depend on the others sometimes so I won't make a total idiot of myself."

"You shouldn't say it like that. It's not your fault."

"I know, but I am. I don't know about you, but it's hard to get out of awkward situations when someone knows you even though you can't recognize them. So I'm counting on you Naomi."

I nodded, getting. "But I was wondering something..."

"What is it?"

"Remember when we went to the mall one time, and-"

"Those shirts?" Jordan finished for me. "I asked you which is better: red or blue?"

I nodded.

"Well for one thing, the price tags showed the description of the shirt," Jordan said, making me want to face palm myself at the obviousness. "I find ways to hide the fact I'm colorblind whenever I get the chance I take it. Of course, it's always a struggle living with it. I mean, for one thing I can't drive."

"That shouldn't stop you though. There's tons of people who are colorblind and still drive."

He scratched his head. "I know, but for those people it's easier with the other types of colorblind, they know that the light changes for each one means stop, slow down, or go. But I don't want to take the risk."

"Yet that's not stopping you from doing all of this," I said, motioning to all of his drawings. "Color is a pretty big part in art, but you still draw."

Jordan picked up a pen on his desk and twirled it. "Yeah, pretty stupid, huh?"

"No, it's amazing. Most people would never think of doing this, yet you can shove your art in their faces and prove them wrong."

"I just don't want my little lost of color to stop me from doing anything I want," he told me.

"Nothing should stop anyone to do what they want."

He grinned. "You're right about that."

I took out a piece of paper from my pocket and unfolded it.

"What are you doing?" Jordan asked me.

I hesitated. "I just... I just want to try something."

He raised an eyebrow. "You're not going to pull something on me, are-"

I smacked his arm. "Jordan!"

He laughed. "I was just kidding."

I sat down on his bed and looked down at the paper. Jordan got out of his chair and sat backwards on it, leaning against the back of the chair.

"Okay, close your eyes."

Jordan did as he was told and closed his eyes. But then he opened up a bright green eye, just to see me glaring at him.

"Close your eyes," I told him sternly this time.

"Okay, okay," he said, closing his eye. "Eyes closed."

I smiled and took a deep breath. "I want to describe you colors."

He opened up his eyes and looked at me with a frown, his eyebrows furrowed together. "Look Naomi, if this is some kind of a joke..."

"It's not a joke!" I snapped. "I'm serious!"

He sighed. "You can't describe colors to a colorblind person." He told me. His voice sounded defeated, as if he did this many times, as if he has given up on it entirely.

"Jordan, just work with me," I pleaded.

He hesitated but then let out a sigh. "Fine." Once again, he closed his eyes.

"The main colors in the rainbow are red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple."

"Actually it's indigo, then violet."

I glared at him even though he knows that I'm not, but I can see him wearing a smile.

"You want to do this, smart aleck?"

He held up his hands up in defense. "Hey, hey, I'm the colorblind guy here. I only know the colors, but I don't know what they look like."

"Indigo and violet are just like purple, only just in different shades. We're just considering it as purple, alright?"

"Alright," he said, seeming to enjoy this already.

"The six colors can be separated into two groups, warm colors and cool ones. Red, orange, and yellow are warm colors while green, blue, and purple are cool. You can think of the colors as emotions, red is like love, anger, hate-"

"-and Declan?" Jordan offered.

I laughed. "Yeah, orange and yellow are the same, happy, cheerful and energetic, like you."

"What about Bennett?"

"I'd think blue," I said after thinking about it. "He's calm and relaxed, blue is also sadness, but I think it's alright. Green on the other hands means life with nature, and also calm."

"So you're purple then?" He said, since it's the last color.

"Purple is red and blue together," I began.

"So you're feisty as red-"

"-but pretty sad in the inside too," I finished.

I continued with this, using ways to describe colors without really using colors from the articles I've been going through the whole night. I don't know why I did this, why I'm doing any of this, but I just want to make Jordan feel better, to know that I understand. Yet, I knew it wasn't working.

"Then there's..." I faltered and crumpled the paper in my hands. "This is pointless, isn't it? I shouldn't have done this. I thought I was, I don't know, I don't even know what I was thinking. I was up all night last night just reading articles, blogs and even Wikipedia pages- Do you know how complicated reading Wikipedia is?" I asked him, scratching my head in frustration. "I knew you were mad, and this would've made you angry at me, or, or you would be happy that I tried."

"I am happy."

"And I thought that- Wait you are?"

"Naomi, you don't know how many times I tried to understand colors the best I could," Jordan said. "I've read the articles, I've read the blogs, and yes, I know how complicated reading Wikipedia is." His hand tapped the spacebar of his keyboard and it showed various of tabs of familiar titles of websites I went through. "I did this all last night, I don't know why, I just thought I could try again and it would work." He shooked his head. "It didn't."

"So this really is useless."

"It is," Jordan admitted. "But it's the thought that counts. Sure, it didn't help... at all. I mean really, it was straight up bad. Even I couldn't-"

"Your point is..." I asked.

"When the guys found out I was colorblind, they didn't mind it. Heck, they didn't even care. And I'm kinda happy that they didn't make a big deal about it. They did what others didn't. They accepted me despite this weird part of me."

"But I did," I said, thinking that he didn't want me to make a big deal of it like the guys did.

"So did my mom," Jordan said. "Most of my childhood was her doing everything she can to make me feel better, going through the same articles, the same blogs, and the same Wikipedia pages which she had no clue what most of it said. I know that because she ended up confusing herself more when she tried to explain it to me. The hours she spent looking through the internet, watching her come home with stacks of books, and going through seminars on how to make my life as awesome as it today. Like I said, it's the thought that counts." He smiled at me. "So thank you Naomi."

I looked down at the paper, not knowing what to say.

"Now keep on going," he said, leaning against the back of the chair again, looking earnest and ready to learn like a kid in his first day of school. "I think we were in the different shades of yellow right?"

"But-"

Jordan closed his eyes. "C'mon, yellow isn't going to explain itself."

I continued explaining colors the best I can through the notes I've taken all last night. But it was different now with Jordan. Time to time, he would add his own stuff like things he learned from websites I didn't find or remind me of things I didn't take notes on. It was like we were sharing our findings of how to describe colors without using colors.

I left the room, happy that Jordan was back to his old self. I went to check on Declan who had already redressed his bandages himself and still sleeping. I'm glad I finally annoyed him enough to have him redress his own bandages just so he wouldn't hear my nagging. I didn't know where Bennett went. He probably went to get some food or cooking something up since it's almost lunch. I looked down from the railing to the first floor and didn't hear much less smell any cooking from the kitchen, so he must be out. Until then, I'll just go to my room and hang out there until Bennett calls us down for lunch.

Like Jordan had told me, Bennett offered me some money so I can decorate my room. But I didn't take the money, and instead I used my own money I've been saving up, as well as using stuff from my own room. I had extra covers for my bed, bringing a lamp next to my desk, putting up posters on the wall, curtains for the window, and a rug to cover up a big space on the wooden floor. Though I told him I won't take any money from him, it still didn't stop him from buying a bookshelf for me. Not taking it back, I just accepted it and filled it with my own books from home. I just wish he wouldn't spend money on me, on any of us like that with Declan's tickets and Jordan's art permit. But that's Bennett I guess, and he can use his money however he wants.

I grabbed the doorknob, deciding whether I should read a book or take a nap when I heard something coming from my room. I paused, instantly thinking if I left my window open to have an animal come in, or worst a burglar. Thinking, well hoping really, it was the first thing, I turned the knob and opened the door.

To only find Bennett in the middle of my room.

I stood there in shock, not knowing what to making of this. He just stood there casually, his hands in his pockets. He looked surprised at first, but composed himself and relaxed when he saw it was me.

"It's not what it looks like."

A cliffhanger for you there cause what's a chapter without a cliffhanger? I hope you enjoy the two other pictures I posted for you guys. A bit of a side note for this chapter's picture, I know the paper looks crappy, I drew that a while back and... I have no idea what happened to the paper. But yeah, blamo, a picture. Also, I changed Jordan's username because the others have awesome usernames, and I'm sad his is "eh". So I changed it from AirJordan2 to JorDunDunDun2. And I have an awesome person who's going to actually translate my book to French. It's barely at the first chapter, but I just want to share it to you guys. Her name's Alexamaudebeaudin, and she's just... awesome, brilliant, and other synonyms of that. If you're a French speaker or have friends who prefer to read in French, go ahead and show them that version of the book. 

Now a bit seriousness for you guys, I'm holding a survey. I've been wondering this for a long time, but I want to know, who ships who. At the bottom I'll be listing all of the ships in this book. For each reader (please no fooling me, I trust you guys) just comment the ship name there. If you want to explain why you choose that ship, there will be a dash mark like so "-" at the bottom so you can explain to me why you ship them. Also, you're free to vote for as many ships as you want, but only ONCE. By next week, I'll tell you guys the ratings and who has the most ships. Its all curiosity for me and I thought, why not ask the readers themselves. Have fun you guys!

Naomi (Naomi is with no one. Not in the lonely way, but in the fair and independent woman way)

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Muskomi (Naomi is with any or all of the guys, somehow...)

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Bennomi (Bennett + Naomi)

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Jordomi (Jordan + Naomi)

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Decomi (Declan + Naomi)

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Parkomi (To those who still believe)

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Rayomi (I know you guys exist)

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Domino (Domi + Nomi, I have to admit, an awesome nickname)

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Whoa, whoa, whoa. Don't think I'll forget this last ship...

Jeclan (Jordan + Declan)

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RubixCube89201