Title: Colorblind

Category: Isabel POV. K/I. Companion piece.

Rating: PG-13

Disclaimer: The show should be ours b/c we’d know how to treat the characters, but it is not. The song is “Colorblind” by the Counting Crows and is off the Cruel Intentions sdtrk.

Spoiler: Tale of Two Parties/SIMAA.

Summary: Isabel thinks about Kyle and Jesse.

Author’s Note: I know Counting Crows is suppose to be Max, but this song was just so Isabel.

I am colorblind

Coffee black and egg white

Pull me out from inside

Why are we so blind?

Why do we refuse to see?

Why did the softening of his expression, the special twinkling of his oh-so-familiar eyes go unnoticed until it was too late?

Why is it always too late?

Why am I always too late?

I am ready

I am ready

I am ready

I think I may have made a mistake.

I think my mother was right.

I think I’m in love with a man who is not my husband.

I am taffy stuck and tongue-tied

Stutter shook and uptight

Pull me out from inside

It’s not that I don’t love Jesse.

He’s very special to me.

He swept me off my feet and gave me what I needed at the time.

After Alex died, after my world flew apart and my heart was ripped out of my chest, I needed to be someone else.

Someone new.

Someone not alien.

Someone normal.

Someone who was not me or I was going to break apart under the weight of my grief into a million jagged little pieces.

This is what Jesse did for me. He let me be Isabel Evans not the perfect daughter or supportive sister or model citizen or wounded alien Ice Princess or grieving girlfriend, but just Isabel, no strings attached.

How could he know that that girl he met during that shadowed summer wasn’t me?

I am ready

I am fine

I’ve never been the easiest person to know.

I’ve always been the perfectly polished and accomplished young woman with a smile so bright it might break her face.

Only a select few have every truly seen me.

Alex saw me, that’s what I loved and feared most about him.

That was why I kept him at arms length for so long. I was afraid to be with someone who could see past my bull shit exterior and touch the inside of me with just a look. I never could fool Alex. He was infinitely patient with me because he knew I loved him even if I was scared. Now, I wish he hadn’t been quite so tolerant of my trepidation. But now, it’s far too late for regrets like that.

Jesse can’t see me.

He is blind. He’s blinded by this romantic picture he has of me and our relationship like a scene from an old black and white movie. But, I’m not some perfect heroine illuminated like the Madonna with a halo of light in each stunning frame. I’m just a woman. I’m a woman with secrets that kill and a life riddled with lie after lie.

A whirlwind romance, indeed. I’m in a marriage where my husband, my lover doesn’t know me any better than the girl across the hall. How could I have let this happen?

I am covered in skin

No one gets to come in

Pull me out from inside

Kyle sees me just as I am beginning to see him.

He gets the real smiles, the ones that don’t hurt so much.

He perceives me in all my messy technicolored glory.

He gets the truth.

I am folded

And unfolded

And unfolding

What is the truth?

The truth is something I am finally ready to see.

The truth is that I can’t hide from myself any longer behind the veil of Mrs. Jesse Ramirez.

The truth is that I no longer want to smile so hard it hurts, lie to someone I supposedly love, and weep softly behind closed doors.

I want someone I can be full and real with, someone who doesn’t make me wish I were someone else, someone who I can let myself fall into and who will understand me.

I want Kyle.

I am colorblind

Coffee black and egg white

Pull me out from inside

I know this’ll hurt Jesse and shock everyone, but I’m tired of living up to my image.

I waited with Alex until it was too late because I was worried about what everyone would think of me, Ice Princess Evans, with Alex Whitman the computer geek and I don’t ever want to do that again.

I won’t wait.

Life is too short, too uncertain and Kyle is too precious to me.

I know what I want and fuck everyone else because I’m going to go get it.

I am ready

I am fine