My Exact Opposite | Jachary AU

35

When Zach opened his eyes, he had the sense that he was forgetting something. He stared up at the white ceiling, determined to-

Wait.

Since when had his ceiling been white?

Zach immediately sat up, wincing at the pain that shot through his back. Muttering a curse under his breath, he slowly pushed himself to a sitting position, gritting his teeth at the amount of effort it took. Zach took in his surroundings, surprised by how white everything was.

Then everything came crashing back down on him.

For a split second, he almost wished that he'd gotten amnesia; forgetting everything would've been much easier. He sighed, glancing around his hospital room. There was nothing interesting to see besides the tubes in his arm, so he looked outside the window. There was a small playground with a handful of kids running around, each of them in hospital gowns. Zach bit his lip as he watched the kids, knowing that none of them were here because they'd tried to kill themselves. He felt....almost angry with himself. The kids outside didn't have a say in if they wanted to keep living or not, and Zach was just throwing his life away. Over what? Some emotions?

"Get a grip," he mumbled to himself. He focused on his reflection, noticing the scar that now ran through his eyebrow. He frowned, his eyes turning a dark green. Shocked, he jumped a foot off the bed until he remembered his crazy condition. The corners of his mouth quirked up in a smile, he couldn't believe he'd forgotten about his eyes. Zach drifted off into his thoughts, and, oddly enough, he could recall the door and the voice behind it. Wasn't he supposed to not remember?

After a minute, he shrugged. It had all been a part of his dream anyway, there was no use worrying over something so small. Maybe it was something his subconscious invented so that he could wake up? Yes, that was probably it. After all, there wasn't any other explanation.

He went back to watching the kids outside, who'd just started to play a game of tag. Zach watched their game for a few minutes until he noticed the girl sitting in a wheelchair, reading a book. She was probably eight or nine years old, and - Zach squinted at the cover - was she reading a physics book? The girl looked up and caught him staring, her face morphing into surprise. Hesitantly, he raised his hand and waved. The girl smiled waving back at him before turning around and rolling away, leaving Zach confused. Had she been creeped out by him? He heard a soft click and looked up, not expecting to see the girl in the wheelchair.

"Hello," she said, fingers gripped tightly on the spine of her book. She seemed tense, almost as if she'd been forced to come into Zach's room

"Are you intimidated by me?" he asked. The girl looked taken aback by the sudden question.

"Uh, a tiny bit? Anyway, I'm Kylie."

"Zach." The girl looked a bit awkward, hovering in the doorway. "You can come closer, I won't bite."

Kylie smiled, then rolled her wheelchair next to Zach's bed. "Weren't your eyes just brown a second ago? Why are they yellow?"

For some reason, Zach didn't mind explaining his condition to her. "I'm guessing you know what the limbic system is, right? I mean, you're reading a book about physics and you're -what, nine years old?"

Kylie nodded. "I like physics the most, but yeah, I know about the brain and stuff."

"Well, the limbic system affects the pigment melanin in my eyes, so my eyes change color according to what emotion I'm feeling. The ironic thing is, I'm alexithymic."

"Alexithymic? So you can't identify emotions?"

He nodded. "So my eyes change color but I don't know what each color means."