Seeker

The man flashes a smile at the cashier in the small lingerie boutique, her eyes white and empty, mumbling a quick thank you before taking the small pink bag in his hands and making his way out the door. It was his and his wife’s one year anniversary, and he had a special night planned for the two of them.
The man tucked his wallet in the pocket of his jeans, rummaging through until his hand met the smooth surface of his cell phone. He pulled it out, punching in his wife’s phone number and waiting as it rang.
“Hello?” her voice came on the line. The man smiled, making his was down the busy street. He was in a tiny town in Vancouver, just off the coast. The town was a tourist attraction, small boutiques and other interesting store, cafes and bars line the main street downtown. There’s a romantic boardwalk that’s perfect for couples celebrating anniversaries to go to.
The town was perfect.
“Hey, babe,” he smiled, looking at the small bag in his hand. “I got you something.”
The girl on the line cooed, asking what it was he had gotten her. But he stayed silent. He wouldn’t tell her until later that night.
“When does your plane come in?” he asked, looking at his watch reading 7:36pm.
“I’m just getting ready to board the plane, and it’s about a two hour ride.”
“So in just a few short hours I’ll be able to see your face again.”
The girl giggled, but was interrupted by a faint voice in the background calling out her flight number, saying the plane was boarding.
“I guess I have to go.”
The man’s smile faltered for a moment, but it came back when he realized that in just a few short hours he’d be able to hold the girl he loved in his arms.
“Have a safe flight. Call me as soon as you touch the ground.”
“I will.”
“I love you, Paige.”
“I love you too,” she said before the line was cut off. The man smiled, sticking his phone back into his pocket to join his wallet.
He made his way down the street, towards the bridge that ran over the small river running through the town. The bridge wasn’t that high up off the water, but the water wasn’t very deep. Only ten or eleven feet deep. Definitely not something you would want to fall off of.
He made his way over the bridge, looking out at the ocean in the distance, at the sun setting and the pink sky surrounding it. He was mesmerized for a moment at the beauty, and wished that his wife was there with him to share the moment with him.
So he pulled out his phone and took a quick picture, inserting it in a text message.
‘Wish you were here’ he typed in.
His wish was gone in a second. He was instantly glad his wife wasn’t with him, that she was getting on a plane in a whole other city. She was safe where she was.
Tires screeched behind him, horns started blaring. People screamed and cried, but the man simply smiled as he watched the sun over the water.
And then the car struck him.
One moment he’s standing on a bridge, sending a text message to his wife, and the next he was being crushed between a car and the concrete wall running along the side of the bridge.
Time seemed to have stopped. Everything moved so slowly.
He was aware of the excruciating pain in his chest, the pressure and the fire spreading to his stomach. He felt warm liquid on his face and tasted metal in his mouth. He couldn’t feel his legs and didn’t know if they were even still attached to the rest of his body. He was in so much pain, and he was confused.
Suddenly, all the pain was gone. He wasn’t stuck between a car a some concrete anymore. The screams and cries of the people around him disappeared, and he was only aware of the weightless feeling around him. He felt like he was floating. The pink sky was above him and the sunset was in the distance. Above the clouds he could see an airplane, flying high in the sky. He wondered for a moment if his wife was on that plane. He knew it wasn’t possible, he had just spoken to her. But he liked to think that she was there, looking down on him.
He realized then that he was dying. Under the clouds and the airplanes and the sky was the bridge he had just been standing on, getting smaller and smaller as he fell towards the water. He knew that he wasn’t floating, he was falling towards his death. And yet he couldn’t look away from the airplane.

I sit up quickly, my breathing jagged and uneven. My hair was stuck to my sweat covered face. I quickly realized my face wasn’t the only thing sweat-soaked. My whole body and the covers surrounding me were soaking wet from tears and sweat, my body was shaking.
I didn’t realize until I removed my hands from my ears that I was screaming at the top of my lungs, crying out for help; crying out for Paige, the soon-to-be-widow.
I turned my head to face the clock, 10:36pm glowing bright red. 10:36pm on September 9th, 2012. The time difference between my city in southern Ontario, Canada, and Vancouver, British Colombia is three hours. Meaning it’s 7:36pm on September 9th, 2012. The exact date and time that the man is hit by the car and thrown off the bridge. At this very moment, as I’m laying in bed, staring at my clock, a man in a whole different place on the planet it dying. A woman is losing her husband.
The number changes with a quiet tick. 7:37pm.
I take a breath, rolling over and closing my eyes.
I don’t sleep.

* * *

“Eyes are the window to the soul!” Mrs. Mayfield bellows out, practically dancing around the art room, a pencil in her hand. “Through your eyes, I may read if you’re in pain or if you’re being honest with me. I can read if you are pleased or angry, whether you’re joyful or in despair. Your eyes,” she pauses, grabbing a mirror off her desk and holding it in front of her face. “They reflect whatever is in your heart… in your soul. They are the true window to a human being. They are the eyes to your heart.”
Sitting in my seat at the back of the room, across from the boy --who I have yet to learn a first name from-- I get a bad feeling that runs throughout my body, sending a shiver down my spine. I don’t like where Mrs. Mayfield is going with this.
“I love drawing eyes,” she begins again, “I always have. Ever since I could pick up a pencil in my fingers, I loved being able to draw eyes, even though I wasn’t as good back then.”
She laughs loudly, the class joining in in a pathetic laugh.
“Throughout the next few days we’ll be focusing on drawing the human face and its features. The eyes, the nose, the mouth, the curves, the tones and the shade, the wrinkles and blemishes, the bones and the edges.”
I keep my head down, tapping my pencil on the cover of my new sketchbook. I love this teacher, I truly do, but right now she was being remarkably irritating.
“We’re starting with eyes, because…” she paused, shaking her head. “Because my husband loved eyes.”
She didn’t say that, even though I knew that’s what she was thinking. “…because I enjoy eyes, and I think that they are the focal point on a person’s face. Now, open to a fresh page in your sketchbooks and begin drawing. I’ll be walking around, if you need anything, feel free to…”
Eyes.
You have got to be kidding me.
I don’t even know what eyes look like. Yes, I’ve seen mine, and yes, I’ve seen drawings, but I haven’t seen real eyes.
Magazines were passed out, faces plastered on the front pages. I pushed them away. Whether the person’s eyes were with me or not, whether they were standing right in front of me or they were miles away, if I could see their eyes, even in an image, I could see their final moments of life.
So I sit there in my seat, staring at a black white paper while everyone around be begins to draw.
I could leave. The thought crosses my mind a couple times, and I actually consider it. But Danny would be angry with me, and I don’t have an excuse to leave. Mrs. Mayfield would hold me here until she saw my work anyways.
“Kassidy, you’re page is still blank,” she walks by, touching my shoulder. I flinch, shaking my head.
“Yeah,” I swallow. “I’m not very good with drawing eyes.”
I’ve never been the greatest lair, but I’m good enough to get the point across.
“Oh, that’s fine. Just try! Today is all about improving!”
She gave my shoulder an encouraging squeeze before walking away to help other students.
I looked back to my page, blank and white, like the eyes in my dreams. Like the eyes of the people as their life fades away from them. When they grasp onto anything they can get a hold of, begging for mercy, for another chance. It’s not their time, they scream. They still have to much to live for.
I squeeze my eyes shut, running my hands through my hair and pulling at the roots, trying to make the people’s screams go away.
I hear a quiet laugh, hardly audible. And it came from across the table, from the boy in front of me.
He was laughing at me.
It shouldn’t have bothered me so much. People laugh at me all the time, people poke fun at me and shove me around, trying to get under my skin. Usually they don’t. I shrug it all off because they have no idea why I’m like this. They’re ignorant and clueless, so I wouldn’t let it get to me.
But something about this boy, something about him laughing at me was driving me crazy. Chills suddenly flew through my body, down my spine, and I felt as though my body was tingling. Not a painful tingle, hardly enough to notice. But it was there, just under my skin, poking to get out.
I pulled at my hair harder, tugging at the roots, trying to drag myself away from this feeling, away from the laughter.
And then it all stopped. The screams in my head, the whitness of the eyes, the laughter from across the table, the tingling just under my skin. Everything. It was gone.
I breath, removing my hands from my hair and resting them in my lap.
And then for the first time I sneak a look at the boy sitting across from me. His black hair fell down over his face, hiding his eyes from me, but I can see his smile, smug and arrogant on his white, pale skin. I looked down, past his black t-shirt, to the paper in his sketchbook, at the eye. Beautiful was the first word that crossed my mind. Simply beautiful.
Beauty that I’ll never see.

* * *

“I didn’t see you yesterday,” Matt says, taking a seat across from me at the picnik table outside. This is where I hide at lunch, out at the back of the school, under the shade of the tall pine trees. This is generally where the quiet loners hang out, where they read or listen to music or just do what I do: eat and try not to kill myself before the day ends.
I sit here every day, hiding, and it seems as though it wasn’t the greatest hiding spot. But then again, Matt never gives up.
“Yeah,” I mumble, gathering up my garbage beside me. “I was hiding.”
“From who?” he says cheerily, taking a bite from his apple. “Surely you couldn’t have been hiding from me.”
I smirk, shaking my head, sneaking a look up at him. As predicted, he had his sunglasses on. He was hardly ever caught without them.
“Of course I was hiding from you,” I pick up my bag and throw it over my shoulder, leaving the picnic table. “Just like I am now.”
I hear him sigh from behind me, but I ignore him and make my way back towards the school.
I’m close to the doors when I hear someone call my name. I know instantly who it is, and that I’m not stopping for them. I keep walking.
But Alexis doesn’t take no for an answer. She runs up behind me, grabbing me by my hand and tugging my back. I stare at the ground.
“Why were you sitting with Matt?” she asks, jealousy hinting in her voice.
“I, uh, wasn’t sitting with him. He came and sat down, I didn’t-”
She grabbed hold of my black, baggy t-shit, tugging me so that my face was inches from hers. I shut my eyes tightly, not letting a slit of light in. I knew the moment I opened them, her eyes would be in front of mine.
“Open your eyes, bitch.”
I refused to. I’d seen her die before, multiple times. In reality and in my dreams, she’s died, over and over again. Cancer that runs through her body, spreading like wildfire. At such a young age, Alexis finds herself in a hospital bed, trying to hold onto life as long as she can. But she can’t. It eats at her body, makes her weak and pale. Her family crowds around, giving her the useless support she needs to survive. She dies.
I didn’t want to see it again.
She shakes me violently, threatening me if I don’t look her in the eye. But I won’t open them. I’m perfectly content with them closed.
She lets out a frustrated growl and suddenly she isn’t holding my shirt anymore. Now I’m on sidewalk, my elbows scraped and bleeding, and Alexis laughing from above me. She walks off, but not before yelling out, “You’re such a freak, Kassidy.”