Iris

...everything was off-kilter.

People say that their worlds fall into balance when something huge happens that changes their lives for the better. That's not true. It makes their lives crazy and unbalanced and confusing, but it becomes a natural sort of confusing. After a while, they find that their lives are actually more comfortable with the unnatural thing in them. And then when the unnatural thing leaves their lives, and they go back to being how they were, and they fall back into balance...suddenly things feel off-kilter and strange and weird. Normal becomes abnormal and vice versa. It's really a very confusing thing, but not to me. At least not when I came home from school one afternoon and my father told me that you were awake.

I dropped my bags right there on the living room floor. "Where?"

He motioned towards the kitchen. I don't think I've ever run so fast in my life.

I whirled around the corner and you were sitting there at the table. You were sitting up and your eyes were open and you were drinking some sort of medicinal drink that my grandmother probably made for you. You had a strip of gauze wrapped around your forehead to cover the wounds there and you had some going down both arms as well. You were clean, though, and your outfit was different. It wasn't the dirty slave clothes that I had found you with. The shirt was a little too big and it billowed around your arms. Short sleeves. It wasn't form-fitting, it was a larger shirt sort of meant for vacations and sleepwear and stuff like that. It gathered around your waist and piled up in a mountain of wrinkles. The shorts were the same way - big, and meant for sleepwear. You looked like you'd just woken up recently, so maybe it was appropriate.

I moved so I could see your face. Strangely enough, you didn't notice me. You would play with your clothes, running your fingers along them, and you'd make a kind of grimace. I could tell just from that that you didn't like them, but I knew it wasn't a big deal. You were probably happy for any clothes that you could get.

I went up to you. You didn't turn to see me.

"Hi," I said.

You looked up suddenly, and in the completely wrong direction. "Hello?" you asked. Your voice was the smooth lines in a glass vase or the permanent fissure in a windowpane. I wanted to tape it back together and pretend it never happened, but it was so goddamn brokenly beautiful.

I reached out and put my hand on your shoulder. I'm not sure why, even to this day. "My name...it's Iris. What's yours?"

"Kellin," you nearly whispered. Like you were afraid. Like it was a crime to answer me. I had expected as much, but it was still a blow. You cleared your throat and made a face at the pain. "It...it's Kellin, miss. I'm sorry."

"Don't be. Don't start the Red Light District crap with me, Kellin, I won't be able to take it. I'm not your master, I'll tell you that right now. You don't have a master. You're living with us and we're going to take care of you. I'll beg my dad, I swear. I won't let anyone throw you out in the street. You can take my room. I can sleep on the floor out in the living room, it's not a big deal."

I would have expected you to start crying, or do something like that. Gratitude, not pain. After all, I'd just told you that you weren't a slave anymore and that you were free to do as you pleased. Most people react emotionally to that. You turned away, staring at a random spot on the wall, your mouth pressed in a thin line. It was like you didn't know what to think, or didn't want to think anything at all. Like you were conflicted in even thinking if you wanted to think.

You were really broken.

This was a broken that went beyond years of abuse and name-calling and being traded around to different masters. This was a kind of broken that meant you had gone through that and instead of coming out stronger or coming out like a blubbering mess, you had simply not come out as anything. You were a void, something that was supposed to hold feelings but had since given up on any semblance of human emotion or reaction. You went through days doing exactly what you were told to and shut yourself off any other time.

You were nothing, and that was what hurt the most.

"He's blind," my father said from the doorway.

I reached over without thinking. Touched your face. Turned it towards me. Your milky white eyes blinked up in my general direction and you looked sad. Not sad for yourself. Sad for me. Because you knew what had to be going through my head right now. The utter despair. The way my heart felt like it had wilted into my stomach acids. The way that, as a highly emotional female, I was more or less programmed to feel.

"Will he ever be able to see again?" I asked, not sure I wanted to hear the answer.

I didn't have to. My father didn't give one.

You blinked, slowly this time, and I buried my head in your shoulder so my father wouldn't have to see me cry and so that you could feel my tears, to know this was the kind of thing you were supposed to be able to experience.