The Blind Boy [✔]

22.

Ash stays true to her word, so she starts to go over to Rory's house after school instead of Helen's. Not that Helen will ever notice, not with Helen's... ah, unfavorable habits.

She had been selfish before – she knows that now. Because Rory doesn't prefer solitude, he's lonely, and Ash knows exactly what that is like.

For Ash, having no friends and family is different. It's something she's never really had – and yes, while it has given her this permanent empty kind of feeling in the middle of her chest, (an unfortunate side-effect) she's used to it. Grown comfortable with it, even.

Rory is not like her. Had not been born in her circumstances, had not been built to be like her.

Ash can't imagine what it had been like to have everything and then have it stripped away, little by little. First sight. Then companionship. Then your dreams. Your future. Your friends. Your life. She suspects that's infinitely more painful. Better to not have something at all than to have that happen, she thinks.

Rory's world has gotten smaller and smaller, and she hates that everyone has given him such a wide berth now. Before she understood him, knew him, it had been easy to reason away. He's surly, difficult to get to know, intimidating – who would want to approach him? Now she understands that he uses that like a shield, like armor, to mask the pain that lingers so closely underneath.

Can't they all see he's suffering? Struggling? It makes her fume sometimes, the way his friends and family have abandoned him. Rory's mother is around, but she looks anxious, and is constantly picking at her nails. It's clear that she doesn't know what to make of Ash, but she's polite enough. As for his father, she hasn't seen him once. A cranky work-a-holic, Rory had called him, but based on the pictures that litter their living room, she knows that they used to be close.

Pictures of them in baseball uniforms, on a boat – recent ones that make her chest tighten. Where is he now?

At least Cara is nice, kind, and open with him. She offers to drive them places, make them food, and Rory does seem more at ease in her presence. Whenever his mother is around, he stiffens, and his mother scrapes at her nails until they bleed.

It's an icy home, a stark contrast to where Ash is living. Helen's house is explosive, fiery, but always changing. His is frozen, one that no one seems to have the courage to break.

He'll get sick of me being here all the time eventually, had been her original though, but it's been a few weeks, and he seems almost giddy to have her there.

At the beginning of the school year, Rory would sour whenever he knew she was there. Shift uncomfortably, turn away. Now his face practically lights up whenever he hears her or knows that she's near.

It makes being friends hard – just friends – but it's worth it.

Because whatever void that she fills for Rory Denvers, he does the same for her. Maybe a different kind of emptiness, but one that gets filled all the same.

When she's with him, she's happy. Ash didn't even know that was an emotion one could feel – in small bursts maybe, but never constantly. And yet, here she sits, with a large smile on her face that never seems to go away in his presence.

"Your name is unique," she comments offhandedly. They're both trying to study, to get their grades up, but it's difficult, and neither of them are suited to be tutors – especially not to each other.

"It's short for Gregory," he says, tone turning petulant. " And I hate my full name."

She giggles at the way he said it, like a curse, like the name is some kind of personal offense. "Why?"