The Giver could no longer see them, but the memories were still with the colors so Asher was able to start seeing them after The Giver gave him a few of them.

“Why can’t the community see the colors?” The Giver didn’t want to waste time waiting for Asher to apologize or ask permission to speak, so he told him he didn’t have to do either.

“The Elders believe they take away equality, they take away the balance they have been forming over the years,” Asher sat thinking about that. The colors were very pretty actually, and some of them conveyed a lot of… calm. But not everyone would believe the same as him; his favorite color was blue.

“Yes, I think people shouldn’t look at them, after all, differing opinions can cause war,” the Giver smiled at that and Asher turned to him dubiously at his reaction. “What is it, sir?” he asked.

“It’s interesting to see how two such different people can be such good friends,” Asher stood up and stretched a little. “What are you talking about sir?” the Giver walked right up to Asher and put his hand on the boy’s shoulder.

“He believed the complete opposite of you, that people should see colors, he said colors were beautiful, especially red,” Asher dared to interrupt, turning to look at his black shoes. “I never said colors were ugly…”

The Giver smiled and told Asher to leave, it was late, they couldn’t risk them considering that delay as if the boy was breaking another rule or getting caught.

Asher got home and lay on his bed, processing what The Giver had taught him that day, The Giver wasn’t allowed to give him memories, so what they were doing was a secret and in a way, he had broken another rule.

Asher remembered the elder’s words, “how two people so different can be such good friends.” That was true, he never thought the same as Jonas, many times they had different ideas, or at least the times when you could have an opinion.

He missed him, and Jonas made him realize many things when he was wrong. Jonas did his best to correct him so he wouldn’t be punished, when he thought something was right, Jonas showed him it was wrong, or the other way around.

But until that moment he didn’t realize that they were just opinions, just that, an opinion, nothing could be entirely right or entirely wrong, you couldn’t do the right thing without doing something ‘wrong’.

But when Jonas was assigned as Receiver, he stopped correcting him, and there were times when he began to accept what he said because they were just opinions, ones that were forbidden to them.

But, besides that, after Jonas received memories, he was always helping him, he was always with him, or at least as long as he could. Asher was missing his childhood, being able to play with his friends, and being with his family a lot more.

A family that didn’t love him… Because they didn’t love, but at least they were still with him, Jonas was not.

There he realized that it was that strange feeling in his chest, that thing he felt was missing, it was Jonas, he was like a brother to him, he loved him, he was his best friend and he was what he was missing.

A month later Asher went to The Giver, and the Giver asked him something he had never imagined. “I need you to go to Elsewhere. I was planning for more time to pass, but soon you will be discovered, and it won’t be good.”

Asher had no idea what to say, he expected it, he expected her to ask him that, but not so fast, he knew it had been almost a year already, but he expected it to be longer, he knew he would ask him that, after all, he was there for that, but he didn’t know what to do.