153.)

I found a deli just down the street. It had okay reviews. But the whole time we were eating - of which I did very little - I didn't say much. I answered Blossom when she asked me questions. I tried to fake a smile every now and again. A few times she asked me if I was okay, and I said yes, because I didn't know what else to say. I didn't feel right. I didn't feel like me. But I wasn't in danger, so I guess I was okay.

"I'm offended that they don't have DC," which was, of course, Blossom's shorthand for her favored beverage. "Anyone who says that Diet Pepsi tastes the same is noseblind, I swear."

It was simple conversation over breakfast, and Blossom didn't usually make benign babbling smalltalk; it was clear she was nervous.

I nodded. I probably couldn't tell the difference between the two, if they were put in front of me. But whatever.

"You excited?" Blossom asked. "For our event?"

"Well, I don't know what it is... so I'm not sure how to feel yet."

"You don't like surprises much, do you?" Blossom pouted.

"Sometimes," I said, which was the same as saying nothing.

The conversation didn't get much better until the two of us were outside on the sidewalk and she was leading me back toward the hotel. I didn't know where we were going, and I was starting to wonder if trying to have a normal day was a bad idea.

One of the perks of the hotel that Blossom had chosen - perhaps the biggest perk, one might even say - was the fact that her destination was literally across the street. So as they crossed the second of the crosswalks back toward the hotel, Blossom boldly took Amy by the hand and pulled her to an adjacent crosswalk. The entire wall of the building at ground level was painted in oddly conspicuous stripes of colors and whites.

"What's this place?"

I was looking up at the sign. Color Factory: an interactive museum.

"You'll see," Blossom said, tugging me by the hand and leading me through the glass doors. The lobby had a wall of hundreds of colorful swatches. Blossom went to talk to the worker and flashed the tickets on her phone.

"Feel free to take any pictures you want," the attendant said, and passed Blossom a little card with a QR code on it. "And you can scan this at any of the booths and it'll send the pictures to your email address."

"Awesome!"

Blossom took the little card and, when she turned back around to me, she had two popsicles in her hands. She gave one to me and led me into the next room.

"Okay so," Blossom started, once we were alone again, "the whole point here is to take pictures. Selfies and stuff. And this card lets us use the cameras that are already set up."

"Okay..." We were just walking past a light up snowman and tiny white trees. There was a sign that said "Welcome to Winter Colorland". Blossom took a picture of the sign with her phone while I sucked on the popsicle.

I didn't know what to expect. It was an interesting idea, but I could never have anticipated the scale. When we walked into the next room, I almost dropped my popsicle. The walls were a green and pink plaid and there was a ski lift chair in the middle of a half dozen white Christmas trees. But the entire room - trees, chair, floor - were all dusted with bright confetti.

"Whoa..."

"This is like the most bizarre display, like the dichotomy and–"

Blossom shook her head to shake away her engineer thoughts, to allow some of her own sense of wonder to take the wheel for a bit. This was, after all, supposed to be a date that would engage them both as adults and Littles.

"I love this so hecking much. Maybe I should drop my degree and just make colorful art installations!"

"I don't know how much money there is in that," I added cynically. Blossom took a picture of the scene, then went over to the bench to take a seat. "What are you doing?" I asked.

"It's an interactive museum, Amy. Come sit here so I can get a picture of us."

I guess if they didn't want us to sit on stuff, they wouldn't have put a bench there. And the signs did say that we could interact with things. So I sighed and went to sit down by Blossom on the bench.

Now, Blossom was good at a lot of things. She was good at fashion, she was good at socializing, she was good with her grades and her studies, she was good at getting what she wanted. But above all of that, she was outstanding when it came to taking selfies. Where some people might click a picture and then have to take nineteen more, Blossom Brixley would take a single shot that might as well be posted in a museum.

Truly, if she were an artist, then the selfie was her canvas.

"Gosh you look so cute in this Amy, check it."

"Huh..." It was a really good picture. Blossom was good at photos. But I didn't look very happy in it. Was that really how I looked right now? I took another lick of my popsicle.

"Come here, I want to get a picture of you with the tree."

Blossom had finished her popsicle with unprecedented speed. Insert a lewd sucking joke here. She still had the empty popsicle stick in her hand, but she was handling the phone expertly.

I stood in front of the tree and looked awkwardly at Blossom.

"No, like... here." Blossom stepped forward and moved Amy a few steps back, and posed her a little. Something more natural. She stepped back to take the picture, then shook her head.

"What?" I asked.

"Something's wrong." Blossom paused for a moment, then her face lit up in realization. She went back over to Amy, bent down to scoop up a handful of confetti, and dumped it over Amy's head.

"Hey!" I swatted at the confetti in the air to keep it away from my popsicle.

"You fit in better with the scenery now," Blossom laughed.

"Oh my gosh, just take the picture!" This time, when Blossom showed me the picture, my smile was a little better.

"Come on, next room!"

There was another confetti room. It had the same kind of walls, with fairy lights strung along the ceiling. There were a few fake trees, but the ground was covered in confetti. Like, covered in it. It was the same bright pastels from the other room.

"What are you doing?" I asked, as Blossom got to her knees and started brushing all the confetti together.

"I'm making a pile," Blossom said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"You're really good at taking initiative," I sighed, finishing the last bite of my popsicle.

"I'm good at having fun," Blossom teased.

"True..." I found a garbage can to throw away my popsicle stick and came back to Blossom. The confetti pile was getting pretty big as she swept up a corner of the room with her hands.

"You gotta make your own fun, cupcake, that's what life is all about."

That was what Blossom's father had told her when she was a little girl and nobody else wanted to play with her. It was, in retrospect, not great advice to give a six year old. But as an adult, it worked a little better.

An adult, kneeling on the ground, making a huge pile of confetti in the center of a room in a public place.

A few other people came in behind us. They messed around in the room, and they ultimately left before Blossom was done. Eventually, I decided to help her, shuffling as much confetti into a giant pile as possible. In the end, it wasn't that impressive. But it was cool all the same.

"Okay, now jump in," Blossom said.

"Uh, what?"

"Jump in so I can get a picture!"

It reminded me a lot of jumping in leaves when I was a little kid. My mom would rake them up in the yard and I'd dive in at a full sprint. I felt like if I tried that now, I'd probably hurt myself. But I could fall on it, at least.

So that's what I did. I put my back to the pile and let myself trust fall into a mound of confetti.

As Amy fell into the confetti, Blossom took a series of pictures, capturing some in-motion falling, the fall itself, and the way that Amy sunk into the sadly-modest pile of confetti. It was beautiful, honestly. The entire thing was so wholesome, so genuine, such a memory to keep in her heart forever.

Maybe she'd get one of those pictures framed.

"You are SO stinking cute, I am baffled by how adorable you are, missy."

"Don't overdo it," I said. But I didn't get up. I sunk deeper into the pile of confetti and it curled around my hips like water tension against the rim of a glass. It felt so familiar. It felt like autumn. It felt like I used to.

Blossom jumped into the pile next, with a little more recklessness. She made snow angels in the confetti and I took some pictures of her. Then we moved into the next room, which had colorful streamers hanging from the ceiling.

The room after that had magnetic buttons on the walls. We were each allowed to take one and pin it on our clothes. I chose blue. Blossom debated for ten minutes.

The room after that was full of mirrors and sequin walls. For that room, we were given headphones that played dance music.

The next room had two doors. The sign said we should split up. I gave Blossom a weird look, but she shrugged and picked a door. I went through the other one.

In the next room, there were booths with a little stool and glass between them. Each had their own color. I saw Blossom on the other side, taking a seat at the yellow one. So I sat across from her, in light blue. There was a little worksheet, some coloring supplies, and a set of headphones. I put the headphones on and Blossom put hers on too.

"Hello?"

"Hey." I waved through the glass.

"So what are we supposed to do?"

"Well, the worksheet says..." I picked up the card and read through it. Observe the person sitting across from you. What colors make that person unique? "I think we just follow the rules here."

So Blossom and I started filling in the individual boxes with colored pencils. Colors related to her. Colors related to her clothes. Colors I thought might be her favorites. I had to ponder that one for a moment before opting for pink and red. Or maybe I just thought she looked good in pink and red.

Then there was a part where we had to draw each other, but without looking at the paper and without lifting up the pencil. I was fifteen seconds or so ahead of Blossom, so I got a good start. But when she started her card, she was staring right back at me. Her eyes on mine. Her slight smile. Even through the glass, it was making me blush.

Blossom didn't draw very often; she didn't consider herself to be very good at it. But she did have good control over a pencil and the fundamentals of her drafting for school things. Plus, her penchant for pretty colored notes. What she typically lacked was any kind of artistic inspiration; she could act on the world but she wasn't good at creation.

Watching Amy, though, through the window, in her colored space… that was a muse better than any other. And besides, it gave Blossom the opportunity to stare at her and take in her pretty features without it being weird.

I couldn't keep eye contact for very long. I had to glance to the side, or to the ceiling. I was doing my best to follow the rules and not look at my drawing. I rushed a little, and when I was finished, the piece of art I made of Blossom was like comparing a child's scribble to a Renoir. I was a little embarrassed.

The bottom of the card also said to pick a compliment card to complement my work. Well, the card was blue. I checked the blue card. "You deserve a blue ribbon." Nah...

I liked the green one, but green didn't feel right when it came to Blossom. Pink's quote was good, but my favorite was actually the yellow one. So I passed it through the hole in the glass for her to take, like the card instructed.

In turn, Blossom passed through the color she'd picked without any hesitation at all: the card was the kind of green that only fake grass and cake frosting can be, and the words written upon it read:

"You make me a better person."

Which was, admittedly, a bit of a selfish compliment. But the existence of the card was just too perfect to not accept. Blossom took the yellow card from Amy and looked at it with a silly grin.

"You're a top banana."

Blossom and I both got up. We went into the next room and exchanged cards. Her picture of me was a lot better than mine of her, but the more interesting part was the color swatches on the left.

"You think pink is one of my favorites?" I asked.

"It is. You won't admit it, but little girls love pink. It's just a fact."

I rolled my eyes, but she was probably right.

The next room was actually a follow-up to the room before it. Find the colors that you used - for us, yellow and light blue - and get two candies that matched your color. Then we were supposed to go over to these plate setups and put the candy on the plates, to show how the colors complement each other. It was actually pretty cute. Blossom took pictures. Then we ate the candy.

The rooms continued to be numerous and indescribable. One of my favorites was the flow-chart room, where you followed a flow chart over the walls and the floor. Blossom liked the dance floor room. In one room, we both laid down on a giant color wheel opposite each other, so our heads met in the middle. Blossom took a really good picture that time.

But one of the last rooms was a slide that led into a huge pool of light blue balls. Like a giant ball pit. After dozens of pictures of a race from one side to the other - which I lost - both of us were sinking into the balls together. Only our heads were visible.

"I could live here," I said wistfully.

"You definitely seem like the kind of girl who'd list 'the ball pit at the Color Factory' as your residential address. Plus it would give you excellent street cred in your author circles, I bet."

"Probably."

We were both quiet for a minute before I added:

"Thanks for taking me here. This was a really fun excuse to come to New York."

"Right? I was hoping you'd like it; it's in this intersection of like 'not really an adult thing' and 'totally marketed towards adults' and the world needs more stuff like this. We should go on a longer trip one day and find more places like this~"

"Yeah. I think I'd like that."

Eventually, we had to get out of the ball pit. A part of me felt incomplete, walking away from it. Like leaving a part of me behind. But I guess that's life sometimes: leaving parts of you behind for other people to find.

We were back at the start of the museum before long. There was a gift shop, and I wanted a souvenir. I skimmed the art books and the shirts for a while, until I found a hat. Like, one of those bucket hats, with a little face graphic on the front. I picked out a yellow one and snuck up behind Blossom, and set it on top of her head. I had to stand on my tip toes.

"What's this?"

"A hat. For you."

Blossom took one look in the mirror. "This is the literal death of fashion."

"Awww, I think you look cute," I laughed. "It's kind of baby, you know? Like an elementary schooler in an anime."

Blossom laughed and shrugged her shoulders.

"Okay I'll buy it. But I'm only wearing it in public while we're within New York state lines."

"Yeah, that seems reasonable."

"And you have to get one," Blossom urged. "Get the blue one, because those were our colors in the room with the booths."

"Mm... fine." I didn't want to spend twenty-five dollars on a hat I'd never wear, but it meant Blossom and I had matching clothes. Plus, they were kind of baby.

I paid for the hats while Blossom wasn't looking. She whined about it on our way out, but I stopped at the front door.

"Hey, do you think we could go back to that ski lift thing?" I asked quietly. "I want to retake that picture."

"Oh, yeah, probably!" Blossom left Amy's side and hurried up to talk to the attendant. After a bit of convincing that it would "only take a minute!", she grabbed Amy's hand and pulled her back into the exhibit.

Blossom and I took a seat on the ski lift bench again. She got her phone ready. This time, I reached down and scooped up a handful of confetti and threw it in the air. As it rained down, we smiled for the camera, and Blossom took a picture.

It was a really good picture.