Her eyes were grey, like storm clouds obscuring the noonday sun, unchanging even when she smiled and laughed. His glittered green with mischief, purple with happiness, blue with calm, gold with love.

They walked together oftener as the days went on, happening upon one another at appointed times when they were both free, and their conversations grew longer and deeper as they reached past each others surfaces and into their depths.

His eyes shone with ever-shifting colour. Hers never changed.

Yet when he asked her if she wore contacts, for the colour could not be natural, she laughed and shook her head. "They used to be blue, when I was younger. They darkened as I aged." She shrugged, watching his curiosity-pink irises fade back to happiness-purple as he smiled. "It doesn't matter, though, does it."

Her eyes continued to darken as the months passed, from noonday thunderstorm to evening hurricane. His stayed the same as ever, flickering from one shade to another with his every shift in mood.

And then one day their conversation turned to their families, a topic upon which they'd never lingered before. For the first time, he noticed a true shift. The hurricane-grey of her eyes deepening in an instant to midnight-black, before she smiled and changed the subject and her eyes returned to normal.

He almost convinced himself he'd imagined it.

"What were you like as a child?" he asked, forced calm tinting his uncertain concern-orange eyes with the faintest sheen of blue.

"Quiet, withdrawn. I never did get on well with others. You know me. I prefer numbers to people."

"Not all people, though," he teased, love-gold glinting from his eyes.

She blushed and turned away. "Some are more tolerable than others, I suppose."

"Have you considered moving out?" he blurted the question, concern-orange returned. "You're old enough. We could get an apartment together."

Her eyes darkened. "No thank you." Her tone suddenly cold.

Then it was his turn to blush, shame-pale filling his eyes. "N-no, not like that, I didn't mean-- I just, you seem. . ."

"Weak? Vulnerable? Like I need to be rescued?" The words came sharp, clipped, tinged somewhere between manic and desperate. "Who do you think you are? Who do you think I am? We're friends. Barely friends. Acquaintances. Why should you have any say in where I go, what I do? Do you think I want to give my life into your keeping, just because you've got more money and don't have to live with your parents? Does that make you better?"

"No, no, of course not, that's not what I meant--"

But there was no stopping her now. "I can make my own choices! I can make my own way! I don't need you, I don't need them, I don't need anyone!" Tears glinted against her midnight-black eyes. "And no one needs me."

She spun on her heels and stalked away, but he ran after her and grabbed her arm. "Don't leave like this, please. I didn't mean. . . you can't. . ."

But he didn't know what he was trying to say, couldn't find words to break through the panic growing in his throat, and when she slapped his hand away and screamed at him to leave her alone, he did not follow.

The next day, she didn't come. He waited, eyes shifting from concern-orange to fear-yellow as he paced and paced and paced. He finally left, other obligations forcing him to abandon his vigil.

Nor did she appear the next day, or the next.

He replayed their conversation over and over again in his mind, trying to think of any way he could have steered it differently. He cursed himself as a fool, wished he could go back, say something else. Anything else, not to drive her down that dark path.

He wished he'd looked for answers sooner, wished he'd been able to see the signs.

She hadn't been able to ask for help, hadn't been willing to accept what he clumsily offered.

But she'd needed it.

There was a particular shade of grey for depression, a particular black for despair. And he'd grown so used to seeing them as part of her, he'd never thought to wonder why.

And now it was too late.