Blind Eyes

Chapter Six

As I turn the corner onto the main street, I see him, and my heart stops. He is not sitting on the bench as he normally does, but standing against the wall across from the bench, his long arms crossed. I cannot tell what his mood is, because his eyes, like his face, don't give anything away as he watches me.

I couldn't even put how I feel towards him at this moment into words. I do not know if it is fear, or hate, or disgust, or some kind of sick admiration. I can't tell how I feel, and I do not want to look at him, talk to him, so I avert my eyes and try to walk past him quickly. He lets me walk past him, but then I feel his hand pressing into my injured shoulder, hard, purposeful, as he turns me around to face him. I flinch at the contact of his hand, from pain and from revulsion.

"Come on Lara," Will says, shaking his head. "Ignoring me is not going to do you any good."

He looks at me thoughtfully, and his faces changes from apathetic to something that I didn't quite expect. Again, it's hard to place, but looks slightly guilty, apologetic, distressed. He doesn't look cruel or evil, but I know he wants something, and I know from the way his hand still digs into my throbbing shoulder that he will not let me forget that I am powerless.

I do not say anything to him. I do not move, and I continue to look at the ground. What feels so strange is that as I stand here, not talking, people walk past Will and I without a second glance. From their point of view, it might just look like we are two friends saying good morning to each other, two friends sharing a silent moment, two strangers meeting each other for the first time. I wish they could know how I feel.

Will sighs and his hand slides off my shoulder. "Look, I know that you have to go to work." He stops talking as if he is trying to find his words. "But after you're done I need you to come and meet me at our spot. There's something I need to show you. It's important." He sounds almost pleading as he says this.

I look up at him wordlessly then turn back around and continue on my way to work.

"It's important Lara," he calls after me while I walk away.

I will not be meeting him. Whatever he wants to show me, whether it is truly important or another kind of sick game, I do not want to see. I am never going anywhere alone with him again. Not by choice.

As I walk to the garden shop, I look at the crows spotted around town. Perched atop lampposts or hopping around the ground. I see them watching me with their beady eyes. I walk past one on a doorstep, its head cocked towards me. The crows, they make me feel so trapped; Will is always watching me. I want so badly to run up to it and kick it and stomp on it until it is a bloody pile of feathers and bone. But, of course, if I tried, the crow would simply fly away and watch me from above. I am helpless.

I stop by the bakery and buy a sandwich for breakfast because I am starving. I eat it quickly and am finished by the time I step into the garden shop. Anne says hello to me with a friendly smile, and it feels so normal that it almost makes me wonder if everything that I have seen last night was really real. As I tie my green apron on and grab the watering can, I try to imagine that this is just a day like any other.

I spend the morning watering plants and planting seeds and helping inquiring customers. At noon, I go out to get lunch and start working again. It is about halfway through the afternoon when I hear the bell ring. I expect to see another customer, but it is not; it is my father, looking distraught.

Anne greets him and but he doesn't even acknowledge her as he walks over to me. He runs his hand through his messed up hair and sighs, shaking his head.

"I stayed home all day waiting for your mother," he says. "It was fine in the morning, but I got a pretty worried around lunch when she still didn't show up. I just don't think there's anyway she would be out on town for the whole day. Anyways, I left some minutes ago and went to her usual spots around town, and asked people if they had seen her, and it seems like she's just disappeared. I don't know if I'm being a little too frantic, but I'm really concerned now. Have you seen her?"