It's as if the other students had no color but a pale gray-brown, the dull shade you get when you mix all the colors in a paint box together. Some were more colorful than others, but only with Johanna, it was sufficiently clear – a color that really appealed to me, that was the same as mine.

We were in the window niche behind the stairs, our usual spot where no one could hear us. Suddenly Johanna started talking about her mother, and the car accident she had the previous day.

“Nothing serious. But you know what's strange? Last week I got so mad at her, and suddenly it flew out. How sick and tired I was of her boozing, and having a mother like that. I hoped she’d kill herself. And then, just a few days later, this happened. Of course, it was only a minor collision, a fender-bender, and some bruises. But imagine it had been worse. What if she hadn't survived? How would I have felt then?”

“I have the same with my dad. And honestly, I usually don't give a damn. What about you?”

“No idea. The same, I guess. Which makes me feel bad. I think I wouldn't feel a thing. Or even be happy. I know, they're bad feelings. But she can be so damn mean.”

She gazed through the window with a grim look on her face. It was as if she was about to cry. For a moment, I wanted to hold her hand and whisper some comforting words, but then she started talking about the following class.

My father was already getting loaded on wine during dinner, warming up for the weekly drinking fest in the clubroom. He asked if I already knew what major I would choose the following year, in high school. I shrugged and said I had no idea. Then I walked out of the room without looking at him. I went to my room and lay down on my bed, staring at the ceiling, gazed at the headlights of the cars sliding over the walls of my room and imagined that the cars had no drivers, or that there were ghosts behind the wheel.

It was already after midnight and my dad was still not home. Just when I dozed off, the bell rang, and I heard the drunken voice of a man laughing and shouting: “He's shit drunk!”

My mother told him to get lost. The door was slammed. I heard violent noises from the kitchen. There was a hard blow and a cry. Step by step, with both hands on the handrail, I went down the stairs. I stopped in the middle. With my cheek against a staircase style, I looked at what was happening downstairs in the living room. My father was throwing chairs upside down, and my mother was standing in the doorway, shaking her head. Then she limply came upstairs and sat next to me. She had a bandage around her right ankle. And when I entered the kitchen the next morning, I noticed vague smears of wiped blood on the floor.

A few days later, my parents organized a dinner for one of my father's teammates and his wife. While my mother explained what gourmet was – a kind of fondue, but everyone had their own tank – my father was chatting up the woman, Vronie. I closed my eyes and dreamed away. In the flight of my fantasy, I saw an accident happening. A car turned upside down and caught fire. Two burning bodies stumbled and collapsed. When I looked up, Vronie was helplessly fidgeting with her skewer. The tank didn’t burn properly anymore. No one helped her. Then she poured the ethyl herself. Immediately, a white-yellow flame shot up. Vronie shook her head, screaming in fright, striking the flames that surrounded her skull. My mother took her to the bathroom. When they came back, half of Vronie's face was red, and her hair burned away.

I told Johanna everything. She listened in amazement and said she was thoroughly impressed. And almost certain that my thoughts had caused it.

“That's how it goes,” she said. “Wicked people just pile it up, the bad karma. They can escape it for years, but one day it's there, and then for them the bell tolls.”

Then Bjorn, a boy from my class who sometimes chatted with Johanna, followed me to the bike racks. He came up to me so threateningly that I wanted to run. He looked me straight in the eye and gave me a push.

“What are you trying to prove with Johanna? Always chatting and nothing but chatting. Limp dick.”

I turned around and straightened my collar, like a tube on which the words would bounce off, but it only made them reverberate more strongly. He crossed his arms with a fat grin and said, “I fingered her during Geography, under the desk.”

It was like a giant grabbed me and shook me up. I walked like in a swimming pool, slower and slower, more and more difficult. Then I got punched in the ear. For a few seconds, I was groggy. He pushed me over and I ended up on my back. On the ground, I felt like an inverted turtle. The tip of his shoe was poking my ribs. I heard him laugh but found the strength to get up. However, he kept harassing me and chasing me around. By a tree, I spotted a small boulder. I picked it up and threw it at him without thinking. It hit him right above the eyebrow, and he bent over with a scream. I saw him bleeding and quickly got the hell out of there.

I wandered around for hours until I was near Johanna's house. At first, what Bjorn had said made her laugh, but then she looked very seriously.

“Please don't believe that. It’s a filthy lie. He’s stalking me but he doesn't exist for me. You are my only true friend, the only one for me.”

It raised a lump in my throat. In vain I tried to suppress the swelling tears. She moved closer to me. We kissed and sat opposite each other on the bed. Then we bent forward until our heads touched. Our fingers were entangled and our faces smelled like tears. I felt her bones, her fingers, the sweat drops on her forehead, and our warm breath mingling, which we kept breathing in and out again together. Our hands were clasping more firmly together.

“This time we have to do it right,” she whispered. “Go deep, and even deeper than ever before, both of us. This time it has to be serious. Something very bad.”

“Worse than what I did?”

“Yes, worse than what you did. Much worse!”