Dear brown napkin I had to ask for like a child,

So like, I'm sitting here in what they call "group therapy" writing on this trash napkin because paper is supposedly distracting. We're literally making silly putty. I don't think they understand what distracting means. There's this one girl making yellow putty because she thinks it looks like mucus. I wasn't prepared for this adventure. There's another kid I met this morning. He's here too. I'm waiting to see what he does with his putty. He seems like the only down to earth person here so far, even though he is a bit of an oddball.

"Drew sweetie, we're going to play a fun game where we share our names, our ages, our favorite color, and why. Would you like to start?" Drew kept his eyes glued to his bowl of goop. "No thanks."

The group leader was a slightly older Italian woman wearing black slacks and a red scrub smock; the kind with extra large pockets. She removed her hands from her pockets and walked over to Drew, "it's ok buddy, I'll start and then you can go second and you can choose who goes third."

The woman walked back to the front of the room. "Hi my name is Samantha Higgins, I am a volunteer with Choice Life Children's Psychiatric Hospital. I am 43 years old. My favorite color is red because it makes everything look more expensive. I would like Drew to share next."

Drew looked up at Samantha and back down to his work. "My name is Drew Calvary. I'm 18 years old. And my favorite color is lavender because it is soft and inviting and it also smells good when it's in scent form. I would like Greyson to go next."

Greyson cleared his throat. "Oh uh, ok sure. I'm Greyson, obviously. I'm 19, but only for two more months. I would say I like gray the most, it's really easy on the eyes. Not too bright, not too depressing either. I'm a man of mystery. Anyways, blue haired girl, you can talk now." Greyson stared into his bowl of putty wondering why he was given a mouth to speak.

"Wow, you are really good at speaking. Also, I have gray eyes. I always thought it was ugly." Drew dropped a few purple drops into his bowl.

"Ha, yeah it gets me in trouble sometimes though. Never shows up when I need it, always shows up when I'd rather not talk. Also, yeah I noticed that, it's actually kind of cool." Drew poked around at his putty trying to blend it evenly without getting sticky.

"This stuff is disgusting, why are we even doing this?" Drew pushed his bowl away and rubbed his fingers on his paper scrub pants. "Thankfully they gave us built-in napkin pants."

Greyson smiled and grabbed Drew's bowl. "Afraid of a mess? I see how it is. I'll mix it. You're actually right, this color is very soft. You have a bold aesthetic, I like it."

"My dad said that it's not healthy for a boy my age to be obsessed with girl stuff. He said that I shouldn't buy lavender shampoo because it invites the wrong kind of attention. I don't really see why anyone would be mad at a lavender plant." Greyson looked down at the bowl, smiled, and looked back up.

"You look at things in an interesting way, don't you? Not gonna lie, it's a bit refreshing. Maybe it's a gray eye’s thing. Either way, don't let him tell you what to smell like, it's your own hair dude." His face immediately dropped upon realizing that Drew might assume he was flirting, which he wasn’t. Drew smiled and grabbed his fully blended bowl of lavender silly putty and gave it a squish completely unaware of the awkward energy between them.

"Oh wow, this is much better. It makes me want to take a shower so I can smell my shampoo." Greyson raised an eyebrow and stared blankly. "Oh, like not in a creepy way or anything! Just like aromatherapy, stress relief... I'm Just gonna stop talking."

Greyson scooted his chair to face Drew and handed him the blank side of the napkin. "Ok shower sniffer, draw me something in lavender that best represents you as a person. And I'll draw you something in Grey on the other side of the napkin, except mine will resemble a kindergarten art project."

Drew grabbed the napkin and nodded. "I'll see what I can do."

He proceeded to draw a large teardrop falling from an eye. lavenders flow freely through the wind reflecting off of its surface. On the opposite side of the paper, Greyson drew a football wearing a metal with a number 2 on it.

"Oh wow lil dude, that... is really good, but also really sad. You wanna tell me about it?" Greyson flipped the napkin around to get a better look at the impressive crayon work. He'd never seen anyone draw such a captivating image with a fat crayon.

"The eye is God's eye. The tear represents shame and guilt. And the lavender represents everything I want but can only view from a distance. Its reflection is trapped in the tear drop, but not actually reflected in the eye because it's a part of myself I want to go away, but instead it just eats at me like a parasite." Greyson looked Drew in the eyes with a deep sadness, driving Drew to look down into his lap.

"Oh man, I might not even know you, or what you go through everyday. But to feel like that all the time... I don't know how you deal with that." Drew looked up and let a smile wash over his face for a brief second. "Well, sometimes I don't deal well at all, that's why I'm here."

"Oh yeah, fair point. I almost forgot we're basically in the psych ward right now. You don't seem like the average psycho to me." Drew looked down at Greyson's football. "Having complex emotions doesn't make us psychos. There's something special about the way the human brain works. When someone lets us see the truth about who they are and where they've been, the way they behave usually makes much more sense."

Greyson moved his face into Drew's field of vision and threw him a grin. "I don't understand how such a fresh mind could hurt so deeply, it just feels so unfair."

"So, what's the football supposed to represent?"

Greyson scratched his head and chuckled nervously. "Well, um, I'm a big guy and I'm the man in my family, right after my dad. But even then, I'm only the center of attention when I do something wrong, which I seem to do a lot. So of course I decided to play football throughout highschool and my sophomore year I made varsity, but my teammates never really welcomed me. In order to please my dad I had to pretend to be happy and to be the big man all the time. And I am, I enjoy that. But unless I'm doing it his way, It's not enough. No matter what I do, I'll always be in second place."

Drew pushed the crayons and the paper away and rolled his putty around on the table. "You are a big man though. You radiate man energy. I don't know what I mean by that. I'm really not good with words, but you’re certainly a man." This made Greyson giggle.

"Why do you want your lavender to fade away?"

"I... that sounds elegant but I don't understand what you're asking."

"Why do you want to push away the side of yourself that gives you purpose? The lavender has to be metaphorical, I just can't tell what for." Drew put his putty back in his bowl. "Yeah, it has multiple meanings, none of which I can really talk about. It never seems to go over well."

Drew tapped the table twice and stood up.

"Ok dude, that's cool. I fully support that. Whatever it is, I'm a good listener, if you ever feel like sharing."