The Blind Boy

19.

Rory flinches at the contact, but he doesn't recoil from her touch. In fact, despite the walls he's built up, the sudden longing in the air is palpable and thick. She pulls back slightly to see his expression -  to know for sure - but then he's sighing in contentment and leaning into her open-turned palms. Then she just knows.

She kisses him again. It's awkward. Hard, even. Ash doesn't know what she's doing, doesn't know where she should put her hands or how to move her mouth, and given all the girls he's probably kissed, she must be an embarrassment.

She should've asked if she could kiss him, but the cold realization comes too late. But by some miracle, he's not pushing her away. He's not disgusted by her. He's not stopping her. In fact, he's doing the exact opposite, somehow surpassing Ash's desperate kiss with something anguished and frenzied of his own. He practically whines against her lips, like he's begging for her, and her eyelashes flutter close. 

His hands are fumbling to find her hips, thumbs tracing circles over them, and then he's pulling her closer -

Until he's not.

He tears away from her, staring at her in a mixture of awe and terror. He looks like he wants to reach for her again, but he seems to think better of it, and his face hardens. Goes resolute. His arms freeze at their sides. Her chest clenches at the change in his expressions, knowing what's coming next.

"No," he says thickly. "I can't. We can't."

Rejection is so familiar to Ash. It's a constant companion to her, and by now this shouldn't hurt, but it's different coming from him. Monumentally so. The sting collides with years' worth of who would want yous? and chronic isolation, the only fleeting touch coming from foster-brother's and foster-father's (and even on occasion foster-mother's) that stick their hands down her pants. 

Only sexual offenders and abusers want her. Normal people don't. That must say something about her, right? I must be broken. The only constant variable here is me.  

"Ash?" Rory's voice cuts through the silence, pained and wary. 

She nods and turns away from him so he can't see how her eyes are filling with tears, unbearably embarrassed and ashamed  - until she realizes that it's a moot point. Distantly and numbly, she recognizes that it's unfair to put a decade's worth of trauma on Rory's response. It shouldn't hinge on that. He didn't do anything wrong. 

Ash wipes at her eyes as more tears spill over, forcing cheer into her tone. Forcing it to against all odds, remain perfectly steady. "I'm so sorry, Rory. You're right. I didn't mean to..." 

"No, don't be sorry," he protests in an awkward, stilted sort of tone that she's never heard on him. "It's just... you don't want to be with me. Believe me." 

She blinks, green eyes going wide at his admission. 

"I'm blind," he says, tone punctured and broken. He says the statement like it should be obvious to her, like she's stupid for not seeing it. 

"Yes, I know," she replies, trying not to be short with him. 

"So you should know. It's entirely me. Not you." He lets out a disbelieving sigh, running his hands through honey-colored hair. "Believe me, if this was a year ago..." 

He wants her. She should be elated by that, but self-doubt has already slithered its way in. "You wouldn't want me then," she says before she can think better of it. She'll kill any hope before he does. 

It's Rory's turn to look puzzled. 

"You can't see what I look like," she clarifies, trying to shatter the stern confusion on his face. "If you could see what I look like, you wouldn't have wanted me." 

His expression contorts entirely. He looks shocked, and then -- a little outraged. "Don't say that. How can you say that about yourself? You don't know that. What I want. How I feel about you. You don't." 

She shrugs, goes to chew on the inside of her cheek. Deliberates for a few long seconds over what she should say next. "I should go." 

The protest is immediate. "Stay." 

She huffs out an exasperated breath, shifts on her feet in blatant discomfort. "What do you want from me, Rory?" 

"I want a lot of things from you, Asher Miller. That kiss was one of them. But I want more. I want to see you. This? Being blind? Seeing you as a fucking shadow? That wouldn't be enough for me, and it would break my heart." A bitter laugh follows, piercing her heart. "Somehow even more than it already is." 

"Rory," she breathes. 

"Just so we're clear," he continues, like she hasn't spoken. He takes off his glasses, which had gotten jostled from the kiss, and gestures towards the scarring. His eyes fog over with tears, but none of them spill over. "This is a me issue entirely. I - I'm not in a good place right now. I wouldn't be good to you. Couldn't be. I won't ruin you. I won't shackle you to me. I refuse to drag you down with me." 

"Rory," she says, trying to be tender. Trying to be gentle. "Your vision. I don't know the semantics of it, but... won't it always be this way? You can't shut everyone out forever." 

To her surprise, his expression says rigid and resigned. "Yes," he agrees quietly. "But I can't live like this forever, either." 

Her lower lip wobbles. "When you say you're in a bad way..." 

He waves her concerns away like they're nothing. "I'm struggling, but you don't have to worry about me." A hesitant beat of silence. "I know you're struggling with something, too. I can hear it in your voice." 

"I'm not struggling," she says, but it sounds hollow and rehearsed. Like she's said it a million times over, and she supposes that she has. 

Rory's hands reach out and find hers, brushes her fingers against her bandages. "Let me help you. With whatever it is." 

She's indignant. Incensed. Who has been taking care of you? she wants to demand. They're not doing enough. Ash heaves a breath, trying to steady her tone. "Who helps you?" 

His hand falls back. His lip twitches, like he's fighting against either laughing or crying. "It's like you and a million other doctors have said - I can't be helped. It'll always be this way." A genuine smile works its way onto his face. "Being friends with you makes me happy. Helping you makes me happy. So if you want to help me... you'll let me help you." 

The reply is pre-programmed at this point. "I'm fine." 

He throws her an irritated look. "Other people might see through your bull, but I don't. You came over here with a reason, right? Aside from snogging me, I mean." 

She blushes to her hair roots, stammering and looking for the right words, but he's smiling again, mollified and giddy-looking, and her mortification is somehow worth it. 

"I have a mean foster parent," she finally admits. "But it's all fine." 

His smile drops. "...You mentioned that before. Are you okay?" He winces like the question is a stupid one, an obvious one, but it makes Ash's chest lift. 

And for the first time in practically two decades, she confides in someone about how she's actually been feeling.