blind - owen teague | ✔️

8. Canvas

That next day, he returned on the normal time. The juice box was gone, the normal. This was going to be normal, the routine check ups, the breakfast, lunch, dinner. Seeing Anisa three times a day, Owen coming in twice, once while I'm asleep.

He acted so apathetic, because he didn't know the profound effect he had on me. Maybe it was my own fault for succumbing and letting myself become so incredibly vulnerable. That's what it was. It was my own fault. I'm the only one to blame.

I could hear the soft suckling next to me, the hum of the juice up the cheap plastic straw. He'd said good afternoon earlier. I couldn't reply. My chest was this unavoidable weight that was pressing down hard on my heart.

"My mom said you could be in a depressive mood about your sight." He spoke, breaking the silence harshly. It was peaceful. Now my heart thumped worriedly.

Well, she's not wrong but she's not exactly right either.

"Maybe." My voice was a breath. There had been no effort in it. It hurt, in a way. What was I doing to myself. My heart felt dead.

"Maybe? Do you wonder what... This room looks like?"

I shake my head. I know what this room looks like, or what I perceive is most likely true about the admission. Most hospitals were this standard white, or off-white.

"Tell me something you wonder about, because you're so quiet. I don't know what's gotten into you."

That was a shock straight to my system. He wondered about me. He thought of me enough to try to figure out what was going on with me. That was a splash of cold water to my senses.

I stayed silent and I heard a faint, hollow snapping. A book had just shut and I heard slight scratching near me, as if it had been slid on a surface.

"I wonder about..." My voice was a bit strained and my hands instinctively moved to touch the velvet I'd been ignoring for the past two days. There it was, downy and soft.

"What color is it?" I asked, turning my face to the direction I heard his voice from. There was shuffling. He was on his feet, and suddenly a chill ran up my arm as his cold fingers touched the back of my hand.

They were placid, clammy from his temperature change from the warm outside to the frigid inside of this hospital. It was oh-so welcome. Human contact. I didn't realize I craved it so in this bleak, black oblivion.

Surrendering to him and handing over my complete trust, I didn't realize I was holding my breath as he lifted my hand so that it was suspended in air. My heart rate had spiked. Please don't look at the monitor, please don't look at the monitor...

Lowering my hand, my fingertips met the blanket that felt like fur, like fleece. That's the right term for it. Why hadn't he said anything? I asked what it looked like.

Stroking my fingers back and forth, we settled into a gentle rhythm. Back, forth. I released the breath when I heard his mellow voice again.

"It's the color of the night sky when the sun is beginning to rise. The dark lavender, the... Feeling you get when you realize things aren't so bad, that shed of light as your spirits begin to lift as the night finally cracks to dawn. The high you feel that you know it's pure, mellow happiness. Not the bright, sun like happiness. The contented one. That's the color of this blanket."

Holy shit.

I was feeling that right now, my heart hammering roughly on my ribcage as my breathing was almost stilled. I could still feel the brushing of my fingers on the blanket, but now I was more interested in the feel of his skin.

"Was it on your bed?"

"Yes. It's one of my favorite blankets."

Oh. That confirmed it.

"Why did you bring it to me?" A burning question.

"I figured it would be better for you than the standard thermal blankets. Make it feel less... Lonely, maybe. I thought it would make you feel like you were in a familiar place."

He was empathetic. I was gaining more and more pieces to the person that belonged to the voice in the black. He was an echo, but he was almost the only thing keeping me sane.

"Owen?"

"Yeah?"

"Can I ask you something?"

There was silence. I felt his fingers start to run across the back of my hand, my palm flat on the fleece.

"Can you be my eyes for now?" I asked, without waiting for a response to my previous question.

"Yeah... What do you want to see?"

"Your eyes."

"They're blue."

There it was. I figured out something without having to ask anything about him. Owen didn't see much of himself.

He had low self esteem. Probably a boy you'd find in the library. Someone less talkative, more observant.

He wouldn't describe himself nearly as beautiful as he would describe other things.

That was Owen. Another piece of this puzzle.

"Just blue?"

"Just blue."

"I don't believe that, but now I'm determined to make you describe yourself as beautiful as you'd describe this blanket."

I could hear the embarrassed amusement in his tone. "Are you up to the challenge?"

"I am."

"Of course you are."

"I always am."

"How about..." My hand was lifted from the blanket. "I let you... Feel instead?"

"Feel?" My heart sped up as my hand was moved forward, forward... Until I felt a cotton shirt. Instinctively, my thumb rubbed the fabric. It felt plain. No design at all.

This was intimate. I could feel his warm skin beneath, and my, did it feel heavenly. My heart nearly did a somersault, a double pole vault. He slid my hand over and I felt his own fluttering heartbeat beneath what felt like a bony, bird-like chest. He was thin.

Then, my fingertips connected with something more... Starchy, like flannel. A flannel and a shirt. Oh my.

"What color is your shirt?" I asked, breaking the silence. My heart was racing, accelerating, my pulse spiked. Please don't let this end.

"White."

"And the flannel?"

"Blue and grey."

My hand was slid up to meet his warm skin and I felt the ridge of his throat, the vibrations as he spoke his next sentence, and I prayed to god he didn't see my monitor's pulse.

"I'll start doing this for you. Showing you the world as I see it."

His hand now met mine, my palm in his and he slid the back of my hand along a sculpted cheek. I could have died, the was far too intimate for me. He was painting me a picture of him.

He was the canvas to my imagination.