Blue Inside Me

“Blue Inside Me” is one of the outstanding stories of the first biannual International Short Story Contest 2018 written by Oksana Grynyk, Ukraine.

Blue Inside Me

It is a story about a girl’s life, full of love and happiness. This girl is me, Rachel Mein. I was born in New York City, the USA. My mother was Amelia Mein, and my father was Alex Mein. They were famous film actors and worked in Hollywood. We lived in the Carnegie Hill.I had all things I needed: toys, dancing lessons, travelling all around the world, delicious food and, of course, fashionable clothes from the best designers, which I liked the most. My granny said I was a pretty, clever girl with long blond hair, a small nose, red lips and blue eyes, slim and not very tall – enough to make any parents proud. Though I saw them once in a blue moon, I didn’t notice it – I thought only about new looks for my dolls, granny and my friends – my hobby was latest clothing trends.

When I went to Stuyvesant High School I was 6 years old and from the first second in my new class, I became a leader, not a cruel and arrogant leader, but friendly, tolerant and helpful. I never felt blue and loved everyone from my classmates to our cleaners. I had a lot of friends but my best friend was Max Sideblue, an ordinary boy from a usual American family, his mother was a doctor, and his father was a teacher. Why he? Firstly, he had blond hair and blue eyes as me. Secondly, his last name was Sideblue (Haven’t you guessed that I like a blue colour and the words with blue shades are my favourite!) Thirdly, he was smart and his soul was open for everyone. Sometimes he even suffered from that. If people wanted to offend him, they could do it without any problem as he had had an injury in his childhood in a car accident saving his dog and he could not play such kinds of sport as rugby or baseball any more. He was brave but not very strong to defend all his friends from bullying. I called him “my boy in blue” because he was always fair and honest.

However, it was not enough. One day I saw him crying behind the school, because one senior boy kicked his friend. He was blue in the face, so I came to him and presented my first hand-made T-shirt for boys. Of course, it was blue with my favourite quotation ”Never give up!” Max was really inspired by these words, stopped feeling miserable and started doing karate. It was the beginning of a friendship for life. We shared all secrets and troubles, discoveries, happy and funny situations and he never gave up since that time.

When we became school-leavers, we dreamt about our future life, independent and successful, as we wanted to be designers and create trendy clothes. We were eager to leave school as quick as possible and begin our adult life and crazy adventures.

However, my real adventure started in the middle of the last year at school, when all school-leavers forgot that they wanted to please their parents and get high scores and started thinking only about the prom. All the girls were preparing for this special event. They bought new dresses, shoes, clutches and discussed elegant hairstyles. All those things were made to become the queen of our school at the prom. The boys were preparing too. Besides, they bought prom invitation cards for their girlfriends. All girls were waiting for the invitations as if they were brilliant. I was waiting too, but I wanted to get it from Max. After 11 years near Max I fell in love with him, and hoped to go to the prom only with my love. I wasn’t sure that Max really loved me, but I was wrong. He invented an out-of-the blue invitation for me. One day, I was in my room, when the doorbell rang. I went downstairs, opened the door and saw Max and some of his friends. They were wearing blue T-shirts (my favourite colour!). I asked what had happened. Max answered, “Nothing special”. Then he shouted, “Boys, turn around!” They turned and I saw four letters. Guess what? Of course, they were P-R-O-M. On Max’s T-shirt there was a question mark. It was the invitation to the prom evening! “Will you go with me to the prom?” he asked. I answered, “Yes!” (Now I know what it means to feel butterflies in your stomach.) I was the happiest girl in the world. Then we went shopping and bought an elegant navy-blue suit for Maxto go with mysky-blue dress, which I designed myself.

The day of the prom had a special atmosphere. We were leaving school to start a new adult life. All the preparations were finished, and at 7 p.m. the prom began. All the girls and boys were wearing very beautiful clothes. They were dancing, singing, eating delicious desserts and drinking juice, water and fizzy drinks. But where were we? We were not at the prom party; we were on the roof of Tramp World Tower. We were eating tiny cakes with marzipan cornflowers and speaking, speaking, speaking. Then Max kissed me, and it was so exciting because he did it for the first time. We spent the whole night on the roof looking at the dark-blue sky with sapphire stars. We were so blissful. You know, we didn’t become the queen and the king of the school, but we became the queen and the king for each other.

After the prom evening there were 5 years at university. We entered the same university and studied together. Then we got diplomas and opened our business. It was the fashion house “Blue inside Me”(Side blue + Mein). We got married and had a luxury wedding on the Maldives. One year later, I gave birth to a child. That was a girl and she was called Violet.

Now we are progressive designers. Our clothes are very stylish, expensive and, of course, with blue shades. Our daughter is growing. She is as pretty as her mum is and as kind and open-hearted as her dad. She loves her parents and her parents love her too. We live in New York, but spend our holidays in our cottage by the lake. We are a happy and friendly family with our own traditions and habits. We are happy because we deserved it. We try to do only good things for each other and other people too. We wanted to be happy, and we got what we wanted in BLUE –Business Love Understanding Education.