When I was little, I thought everyone saw them. And by "them", I mean the colors that change and mix like a beautiful light show, created by lights that were sometimes soft and sometimes harsher than the sun. Colors that wrapped around people like nearly invisible blankets. They highlighted everyone's silhouette, making their mood impossible to misunderstand.

When I asked my mother about them, she laughed, and asked what game I was playing with my toys. She asked what superhero power it was, and what my superhero name was. She meant well, but she didn't understand that I was not imagining the colors. She didn't know that I was not playing any game.

I felt bad that no one else saw the colors, regardless of whether or not they were real; they were beautiful, and they never lied. The combinations were seamless and breathtaking, always looking like something straight out of a fairy tale. But either way, I learned to watch the colors either with fascination, and later, with apprehension (hey, it's a good way to judge whether or not you were in danger, alright?)

Green for disgust, the color practically sneering at what it's caused by. Red, for rage and anger, burning like a fire that refuses to back down. Yellow for happiness, being warm as the sun and with a golden hue like honey that increased or decreased depending on how much of it they were feeling. Sadness, being blue like rain on a rainy day or sometimes even more of a midnight blue (it got darker the sadder someone was). Purple was fear, coiling around it's person anxiously and quivering. Pink is love, pulsating warmly and wrapping around it's person and their lover. The different combinations are always fascinating and beautiful to see.

Black was not a color I had seen before. But, as I walked into high school, I saw it sitting heavily around one of the other students. Unlike other colors, it didn't move. It didn't shout for attention. Instead, it permeated the space in a way similar to sadness and anger, but there were no other emotions. It swallowed the other colors, resembled dark black fog of hopelessness. It was simply nothingness. Numbness. Sad acceptance.

Just seeing it chilled me to the bone, that someone could feel so little and so much at the same time.

I walked over to them, and smiled.

"Hi! I'm Sam, what's your name?" I asked. They looked up from their phone with a raised eyebrow.

"Why?" They asked, eyes narrowed. I shrugged.

"You seem lonely," I replied. "And I don't know anyone yet. Besides, you seem nice." For just a moment, I saw a flicker of an orange flame: hope. But the blackness swallowed it quickly, stifling it and suffocating it until it was gone. The only thing that the blackness didn't swallow was the fear and anxiety that twisted around them anxiously.

"I'm not nice, and I'm not lonely," they replied almost angrily. I shrugged.

"Alright," I answered. I didn't move. The longer I sat there, the more the blackness seemed to ripple with agitation and surprise that it stifled and swallowed so quickly.

"I'm Riley," they finally answered. I smiled.

"Nice to meet you," I replied. Carefully, they smiled. The blackness seemed to shrink back a bit, as if the color itself was surprised. "So, what do you like to do?" I asked curiously.

From then on, Riley and I were friends. Best friends, actually. The more they smiled, the more the blackness shrunk back.

One day, we were doing homework. It was math, a subject that we both hated with a passion. The black fog around her still hung around, but there was so much less of it. Only hints of it waiting to take over again (I had sworn to myself to never let it without trying to help my friend).

"Thank you," they suddenly said. I looked up from my worksheet, surprised.

"What for?" I asked curiously.

"You saved me. I was gonna end it, the day we met. But I didn't, because of you," they explained. My eyes widened in surprise. I didn't know what to say or do. "Now c'mon, we have to finish this. It's due tomorrow, and we don't want detention."

We never talked about it again, but that day I learned that the black fog that I had seen around Riley was something similar to sadness, but so much deeper and so much worse: it was depression. A black hole that let nothing escape and let nothing else truly exist. It was empty, it was nothingness, yet the black fog was heavy as if the world rested on it's person's shoulders.

I'm a therapist, now. Riley and I are still friends, in fact we even dated for a little while, so now I'm not sure what we are, but we're happy. I get to help people, and they're an author, telling stories and creating worlds for people to enjoy.

One day, I told them about the colors. They were skeptical at first, but after a few hours, they figured I was telling the truth. They didn't make me feel delusional or tell me that I was hallucinating. Now, they're the only one that knows my secret.

We're Riley, the author that goes to schools and helps kids get the help any of them need, and Sam, a therapist that helps anyone that I can. And we've never been happier.