Eyes.

If you had asked me to, I would have been able to explain just about everything about him, from the colour of his eyes down to the number of hairs on his chest. I could describe, in depth, just how perfect that boy was.

10 years is a long time.

In reality, that’s how long it’s been since I last saw Ryan Ross. I remember it like it was yesterday, he had looked especially good that day. He had always been ridiculously stylish.

I’ve been made cynical and old in the past 10 years. But, you’d be cynical too if you were me. If the only thing you ever saw were concoctions of your own devices you’d probably go insane. Sometimes you get so consumed by this complex alternative reality that it’s very difficult to work out what’s real and what isn’t. Sometimes I wonder if I’ve been blind all my life and have merely invented Ryan, and all the memories we’ve shared never happened. For all I know, I could be hooked up on life support in some hospital in a coma and I won’t remember Ryan when I wake up. Who knows? I might never wake up. It’s completely feasible, isn’t it? We could all be figments of someone else’s imagination, and everything we do has been decided for us. Nothing we know is real. Like Plato’s cave… or the Matrix.

I don’t believe in God anymore. I remember when my parents made me religious. I used to follow them to church every Sunday. But I haven’t been to church since my accident. You see, if God existed none of the shit that’s happened would have happened, and no one would ever feel bad. We’d all walk around in some kind of mad dream of perfection and everyone would be perfectly happy and healthy. And we wouldn’t have to make decisions. We wouldn’t have to think about our problems.

The thing is… sometimes I think too much. All of this stuff fills my head til I’m sure I might explode. My mind races worst at night. All these thoughts and feelings seem to engulf me and I cannot make head nor tails of any of them. It’s like a big ball of trouble and worry all tangled up in my head and I’ve been giving the impossible task of unravelling them; every now and then you find a couple of knots here and there and you lose faith in everything.

It’s like walking up the stairs, the same stairs you’ve walked up since you were a little kid. You know the number of steps; you’ve made it up there a million times before.
But in one moment of uncertainty, you misjudge, your foot falls through the air, and you realise there are less steps than you first thought. It’s very similar to my situation.

At first you feel anger, denial, and then sadness. Pretty soon you’ll accept it. And then your life becomes a painful routine.

-

He was always staring. Even from so far away, I was able to follow his line of vision, whichever way it went. He was always so perceptive, he rarely spoke to anyone at all and if he did, it was only to answer a simple ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ question – those seemed to be his forte. As were incomprehensive grunts, it seemed.

Black smoke billowed lazily from his chapped lips as he took another drag on the cigarette that dangled between his fingers. He always had to have something in his hand; a lighter, a pen, a stick; he was rarely seen without something that kept his fingers busy.

He was the boy with the bedroom eyes; heavily lidded with long black eyelashes, a fusion of colours resting under his eyelids. On the rare occasion he might look my way, I’d make the foolish mistake to think they were brown, but on closer inspection, indigoes, violets, blues, greens and yellows could be found, swirling mysteriously about his irises, like the most fantastical of whirlpools. They say eyes are the window to the soul and I fully support that theory. I only notice eyes. I only remember eyes. Without eyes, I doubt I’d be able to place anyone. That really is how my mind works.

His skin was as white as fresh snow, much resembling today’s weather. Las Vegas had woken up after a blizzard and we seemed to be the only school open. Surprisingly, he’d managed to turn up for once, despite the dangerous conditions on roads, and was now placed in his usual position, reclining on the school steps by the heat vents while the rest of us shiver enviously, coats buttoned to the throat, hands wrapped rigidly by numerous pairs of gloves, friends pressed together for warmth. And yet he seems to taunt us.

He looks like art. His classic features, which wouldn’t be out of place in a Botticelli painting, often lead to people – mostly men – mistaking him for a woman. His lip movements, the way his tongue curls around words, the unnatural shine of his hair - even on dull days like today – seem to keep this façade of femininity intact. His walk gives it away. He walks like a total guy. It’s… sexy.

I seem to be the only one to take notice of him. Maybe my peers are too immature to care for such a thing, but I’m not. I think this feeling of infatuation goes way beyond a mere school boy crush.

-

The keys jangle in the lock. I know it’s Ryan because he always takes longer to work the lock than the nurse. He says it’s because he’s old, but I’d always joke and say it’s because he’s silly. I almost refuse to believe we’ve aged at all, in my head, he’s not a day over twenty-five. His voice hasn’t changed at all, but I know if I could see him, then I wouldn’t be able to recognise him. We could pass each other on the street and feel nothing. I doubt I’d even recognise myself.

I know his touch. His hands are still calloused and rough. Flesh and odd to touch. It’s madness.

“Baby?” he calls and a smile tugs at my lips. At least I believe it to be a smile. I can’t have forgotten something so simple?

“In here,” I replied, attempting to get up but thinking better of it when I hear Ryan enter the living room.

“How are you?” he asks, cheerily, rustling something as he speaks.

“Still blind,” I reply, tonelessly. I’ve said this so many times. It’s another part of the routine.

I hear Ryan snort humourlessly and sigh, “God, you’re such a downer.”

My face contorts in anger as new found aggression sparks up inside of me, “Then why stick around if I depress you so much?”

I expect him to hug me, kiss me, reassure me as he replies, “Because I love you.”

But he doesn’t.

Instead he mutters three little words. Not the good three words.

“I don’t know.”

And he leaves.

-

“You look familiar.”

My head jolts at the sound. I am filled with curiosity as my eyes meet a pair of black sunglasses.

“Huh?” I cock my head sideways in the hope that doing so will evoke some recognition.

“Do I know you? You look so very familiar,” he’s wearing a black leather jacket and a red checked shirt with stupidly tight trousers. I’ve never seen anyone dressed this way, yet the sounds from his lips set off alarm bells in my head.

“I don’t think so,” I sat, clutching my shiny new school satchel to mu chest protectively. My mom spent a lot of money on it, since I’m the first one in the family to go to university, and apparently that means you get expensive presents.

He sighs, mumbling, “I’m sure…” before running a head through his dark shining hair, “Sorry to disturb you…”

“Wait… your eyes…”

“Huh?” It was his turn to be confused.

“Show me your eyes – that’s how I remember virtually everyone…”

He paused, grinning, before raising his shoulders in a shrug as he lifted his glassed, squinting as the bright Sun hit his retina.

I stared silently, not ever daring to move, breathe, look away.

“You’re… Ryan,” I murmured. He chuckled softly.

“Right and you are…?”

“B-Brendon, Brendon Urie!” I stammered, still captivated by his eyes, “We went to the same high school!”

He nodded, “Well that sorts that one out. I knew I’d have to ask, or else I’d spend all year wandering around campus trying to place you. Well… bye then.”

I nodded, watching with regret as he stood and stepped away as I mumbled a low farewell in reply to his awkward one.

My heart hurt to see him leave.

-

I lay awake that night, waiting for Ryan to come home.
He didn’t.

Fear gripped me like a vice; perhaps he’d been involved in an accident. Or maybe he was still mad.
Maybe he’d gone for good now.

I couldn’t dwell on that. What could I do? I couldn’t go out and look for him like an angry parent upon finding their child had missed curfew. I couldn’t ‘look’ at all.

I blinked away tears, knowing I’d managed to get myself into a state. I’d hated crying ever since my accident. It seemed such a great inconvenience. Although it made me feel human, I couldn’t help resent it. I hated how it felt like ants running all over my face…

I sat up in bed and reached out to press the button on my special clock. An automated voice filled my head, “Twelve-thirty-five, pm.”

I’ve always hated that voice.
If Ryan were here, he’d tell me the time, no problem, and I’d never ever hate his voice…

A shuddering gasp escaped my body as realisation hit me: Ryan’s not coming home this time. I’m all alone.

I can’t do better than Ryan. No one wants a blind man as a life partner. No one will ever live me like Ryan. No one will want to look after me, apart from my Nurse, but she gets paid every month.

I’m all alone.

I’m gonna die here.

He was in my photography class.
It was the only class that taught all years mixed together.
What are the odds?

My heart beat twice as fast upon seeing those eyes again. They were so intense, sending shivers down my spine whenever they met mine. I wanted to inspect the up close, nose to nose, compare the freckles in our eyes, find out if they were, as I expected, aligned. But that would seem weird.

I almost died and went to heaven when we got paired up, him beaming at me and saying, “We’ve met before,” me, nodding shyly, murmuring boring pleasantries and other nonsense.

I could see every imperfection on his face, yet they only seemed to enhance his beauty. It astounded me. I want so much to be close to him. But he sees me as a young, naïve fool, though I am only one year younger than he is.

He even ruffled my hair at one point. I mean, who does that?

At the end of the lecture, after we’d been set our projects, Ryan cleared his throat and said, “We’ll need to spend a lot of time together, is that okay with you?”

I nodded vigorously.

“Good,” and he scribbled something down on a spare piece of paper, “That’s my dorm number, you can come and see me tomorrow night, if you like?”

I nodded, numb, “Yeah, sure.”

He beamed, “Cool.”

He left, and I let out the breathe I’d been subconsciously holding.

-

The project was ‘What we found beautiful?’ It was supposed to be easy, as many of the students in the class were new to the university, myself included, but the professor had explicitly stated that he wanted our responses to mean something.

I wasn’t sure how to feel, I’d never been good at conveying meaning. I hoped Ryan would have something, well… it seemed like he did.

He took me to this place, just a little bit off-campus. He said it was beautiful and I’d said he could prove it. He’d laughed and I’d swooned, wishing I could capture that sound with my little vintage Polaroid camera.

We’d sat on the highest hill for quite some time, not speaking, barely even touching as our knees were less that a centimetre apart. The tension excited me.

“I told you it was beautiful, didn’t I?” he whispered, afraid of speaking too loud, for fear of ruining the silence.

“The sky’s on fire,” I stated, nearly panicking, “It’s on fire.”

He giggled, “Perhaps.”

Reds and oranges bled into strips of blues and greens across the horizon, the dying sun creating charcoal shadows across the fields of golden barley. I didn’t know a place like this existed. And here we were, observing it; staring down on God’s creation as if we were, in fact, God.

“It is beautiful… shall we take some pictures or something. This would be great for the project,” I suggested, but Ryan seemed to disagree.

“It is beautiful, but I had something else in mind.”

I stared in disbelief at him, “Do you want to pass the class?”

He nodded, smiling mysteriously, “Yes, but I’ve had a better idea.”

“Then we better get on with it!” I said, growing slightly tiresome of his weird games.

Ryan shook his head, “Trust me, Bren. I’ll do it; I won’t let you down…”

I tried to argue but he insisted on doing the project alone.

Even though I’d said I would trust him, I snapped a couple of pictures of the scene below us. As a back up plan…

-

We all filed into the lecture hall, most taking refuge at the back as the professor had a spitting problem. Ryan had told me he’d already submitted it so the professor could make a slideshow of all the projects to show to the class. Thinking about it now, I should probably have made him show me his entry before he gave it in. Now I’m just scared.

“How will I know when our one is on the board?” I murmur in his ear and he chuckles.

“I think you’ll know.”

“How?”

“You just will.”

I frowned as the lights in the room dimmed and an image appeared on the screen.

As the slideshow went on, Ryan said nothing. Lots of generic pictures of cats and cities and dumb stuff filled the screen. Barely any of them were beautiful or meaningful.

And then finally, a picture appeared of a boy, his hair was hiding his face as he stared out towards a beautiful sunset.

It was me.

“When did you take that?” I breathed.

“When the ‘sky was on fire’,” he replied, his cheeks flushing crimson.

“But why?” I pressed.

“Because you’re the most beautiful boy I’ve ever seen,” he grinned down at me, my cheeks turning a bright red as he stared at me. We shared our first ever kiss at the back of that hall. It was quick, lasting only a few seconds, but I swear I could see something I’d never seen before reflected in his eyes.

Love?

I could feel his presence in the morning, creeping in as if I wouldn’t notice his absense. He smelt of liquor and cheap perfume.

“You smell like a hooker,” I stated, not bothering to sit up in bed. I hadn’t managed a wink of sleep but he wasn’t to know.

He didn’t say anything.

“Did you expect to get away with it, Ryan? I may be blind but I’m not dumb,” I pointed out, angrily. I had no idea where on earth he might be in the room since my angry rant meant I’d missed him moving.

I felt those damn tears accumulate in my eyes, on the verge of spilling down my hot cheeks as I lifted myself forward into a cross-legged position.

“I’m sorry… I wasn’t thinking,” he said, “I was just… so mad at you.”

“So you go out all night, fucking girls and drinking til you can’t see straight? What’s wrong with you?” I fume, attempting to glare at him. But I know it won’t work. Sometimes I forget my current situation.

It’s almost as if the darkness is normality, until Ryan points it out again.

“What’s wrong with me?” he roars, a sound which hurts my ears, “What’s wrong with you?”

“You know - ”

“Don’t say that ‘you’re blind’, because face it, Brendon, you’ve got problems. You’re depressing, you’re annoying and you piss me off!”

“Well then why the fuck are you still here?” I growled, my voice merely a whisper, but there was a certain edge to the way it sounded.

“Because I fucking love you! Okay?” Ryan screamed, and I flinched at the sound.

There was a moment of silence, where all you could hear was heavy breathing. I felt something land on the bed; knowing it was Ryan I stayed very still. I did not drift away. I could feel his breath on my face.

“I love you, too,” I whispered, flinching as his hand touched my cheek unexpectedly, “I’m sorry I’m always so horrible to you… but you don’t understand what its like to be me. What its like not to know what anyone new looks like, to have to guess, to never see a sunset. It hurts, Ry, it hurts... I’m not supposed to be blind… The doctor said so…”

He hushed me, pulling me into his arms. The smell of alcohol was almost over powering yet I said nothing, because I could still smell, feel, hear, hell I could taste him. And it made me feel safe.

His hands ran softly through my hair, it soothed me, “I know, I don’t understand, Bren. But I want to. I’d trade places with you in a heartbeat, just to show you the light – ”

“You wouldn’t…”

“I would. I know it’s hard for you. But I love you. We’ll get through this,” he pressed his lips against mine and I instantly responded, moving my lips enthusiastically.

He pulled away after a few moments, and pulled me into his arms swiftly. I could hear his heartbeat loud in my ear. It’s stable thump-thump[‘i] vibrating against my over-sensitive ear. I tried to picture his face; kind, loving, gentle. Light skin; full, shaped mouth; perfect little button nose and… eyes?

I gasped.

“What?” Ryan asked, concern laced in his voice.

“Nothing…” I whispered, a wave of horror washing over me.

“No, really, what’s up?” he asked and I grimaced.

“I can’t remember what your eyes looked like…”