by Loretta Lost
I stare into the mirror, and I can see myself from the waist up. I can also see Liam, and I’m surprised by how much taller and larger than me he is. He makes me feel tiny. Somehow, staring at us together is the most beautiful and perfect thing I’ve seen so far. I wish I could take a picture of what I see in this moment, and always keep it with me. I have never been a person who cared much about taking or being in photographs, so it sounded silly when other people obsessed over them; but now I understand. I understand the need to capture a beautiful sight and put it in your pocket.
“We look so good together,” I tell him softly. “The perfect couple.”
“Now you can finally see all the things I’ve seen all along,” he responds, resting his chin on the top of my head.
“Thank you,” I whisper to him as I reach up to place my hands on the arms he has wrapped around me. “If you hadn’t found me and dragged me back here, and forced me to do this... I never would have been brave enough to try.”
“You wanted to try all along,” he answers. “I just needed to help you realize that.”
“It’s worth it all just for this moment.” I bite down on my lip a little. “The last twenty-four hours have probably been one of the best days of my life.”
“Same here,” he responds, “but I’ll give you way better days if you let me.”
We continue to stand there for several moments, just staring at each other and savoring the moment. Then I remember the conversation that happened right before I was put under anesthesia. “What was Owen saying about a duck?”
“Oh,” Liam says with a smile. “Imprinting. There’s a critical period a few hours right after hatching when goslings imprint on the first thing they see and think it’s their mother...”
“I know. The Konrad Lorenz experiments. I studied psychology.”
“Owen thinks that because this is a vulnerable and critical time for you, it’s sort of like a rebirth. You should become extremely emotionally attached to the first things and people that you see.” He clears his throat. “So he thinks I’m using science to trick you into falling in love with me.”
“Are you?” I ask him.
“Maybe,” he says softly.
“I must admit that it’s working so far,” I inform him.
“Good,” he says in a low voice.
We are both distracted by a sound from the room, and we look toward the doorway.
“I came to check on you two to make sure that everything’s okay,” says Owen. I recognize his voice, but it’s odd to watch it coming out of this very large person. “Winter, he isn’t trying to get you to do freaky things in the hospital bathroom, is he? She just had surgery, man! Let her rest.”
“And this is Owen,” Liam says in introduction.
“Wow,” I murmur appreciatively as I let my eyes roam over his body. His hair is far lighter and curlier than Liam’s, and he seems a bit taller and more slender. There is a funny little apparatus on his face which must be a pair of glasses. I do not find him as attractive as the first man I happened to see, but he has his own certain charm. “Very cute. You’re right, Liam. You are average.”
“You think I’m cute?” Owen says happily, pointing at himself in surprise. “Thanks! Hey, Liam. Keep your woman on a leash, bro. She just hit on me.”
“You can’t go around hitting on every man you see,” Liam scolds me, tightening his arms around my waist. “You’re mine.”
“I may have committed to being your girlfriend too soon,” I say playfully. “If this is what men look like, I want a few more of them.”
Owen clucks his tongue in disappointment. “You should have let her stay blind, bro. Now you’ll never be able to keep her all to yourself.”
“I guess I’ll just have to lock her up in a tower again,” Liam says, “and make her grow her hair so that I can climb up and visit.”
I glance back at the mirror as he says this in order to better appreciate my lovely locks. I have been told that my hair is brown, chestnut, auburn, mahogany, and a variety of other words. I will have to determine for myself what each color means in the near future.
“I hate to ruin the moment, but we’re going to have to run a few tests on her eyes now,” Owen tells us. “You can let her rest for a bit longer if she needs to.”
“Just give us a few minutes,” Liam tells his friend. “I’ll text you.”
Owen moves to leave, but then he snaps his fingers and turns back to us. “Hey Winter,” he says excitedly. “Once your eyes heal up, you two have to come over to watch a movie with me and Caroline. I have the perfect one in mind. It’s French, with lesbians.”
“Why won’t you tell me where we’re going?” I ask Liam with a quizzical smile. We’re driving down the highway in the middle of the night, and I can’t see much other than the fuzzy lights on the dashboard and the pale circle of the moon. Liam says there are also plenty of stars out, but I can’t see any of them. It’s been a few days since the surgery and my eyesight has been steadily improving, but my vision is still pretty mediocre in dim lighting conditions.
“It’s a surprise,” he tells me. “Come on; you love my surprises! Stop asking questions.”
“Fine,” I grumble to myself as I begin to dig inside my purse, “but I’m going to get some studying done.”
Liam chuckles. “You and your studying.”
“I have a lot to learn,” I tell him, adjusting my glasses on my nose. I’ve been participating in lots of tests over the past few days, and I was given glasses to improve my sight. The doctors seem to be very particular in fiddling with me to achieve near perfect vision, but I don’t care anymore. I don’t care about their arbitrary measurements and numbers. My life has already changed for good. Even the pitch-black darkness of night is not quite so dark. Now, there is so much more to discover that would have otherwise escaped me forever. I want to soak up every bit of life that I’ve been missing.
I finally encounter what I’m searching for in my purse, and I pull out a handful of little strips of paper. I dig a bit deeper to find my phone, and I use it as a flashlight to examine the rectangular boxes of color printed on the paper, along with small descriptive lettering—they are paint chips. Earlier in the week, Liam needed to swing by the hardware store to buy some new lights to brighten up his apartment for me. I accompanied him, and by chance, I discovered the magical world of paint chips. Thousands of gorgeous colors with adorable names to describe each one. Some of the names are straightforward, like Honey Mustard, Lipstick Red, or Soothing Sapphire. But some are a bit more abstract and cause my imagination to wander. Midnight Blue, Artic Pool, Emerald Valley, Last of the Lilacs, or Sunflower Petal.
Only hours after my operation, I found myself struggling to read written letters for the first time, instead of braille. Of course, the first book I picked up was Liam’s signed copy of Blind Rage. I was embarrassed to see how dreadful and sloppy my inscription was compared to the neat and evenly printed words throughout the book. At first, I grew very frustrated with trying to read the tiny script. I tried to read until my eyes were literally bleeding and sore. While I knew the general shape of each letter, my eyes were unused to needing to put them together into words and comprehending them quickly.
Liam finally hooked me up with a computer program intended to teach children the alphabet. I was embarrassed at first, but it quickly began to help me. I was then able to pull up a document file containing my story, and make the text larger until I could easily read my own writing. I spent an entire day learning to read my own books with my eyes, and it was eventually just as wonderful as I’d always imagined.
Now, I am struggling to read the tiny lettering on paint chips to memorize the colors. I never dreamed that there were so many infinite shades. No wonder I was always confused when people spoke about colors.
“Pure Periwinkle,” I murmur, as I flip through a few paint chips. “Purple Passion. Amethyst Reflection. Oxford Blue. Faded Denim. Pearl Drop. Ming Dynasty White!” I sigh a little in satisfa
ction. Even if I couldn’t see each particular hue, the names would give me a great deal of pleasure; but the fact that I can see them causes my entire body to hum with excitement.
I never knew that seeing a beautiful color was tantamount to hearing a lover’s whisper.
“Wow,” I say as I hold the paint chips closer to my face. “There are so many descriptions that I’ve never even heard before.”
Liam looks over at me and smiles. “Winter, you’re going to overload your brain with too much information. You can’t memorize the names for every shade of every color known to man. Besides, a lot of those are just made up.”
“I don’t care!” I say, waving the paint chips at him eagerly. “Don’t you understand? I never knew. I had no idea. I’ve heard of red, blue, yellow, black and white. I just didn’t realize there was so much more. Liam!” I gasp a little in horrified realization. “I wrote my books with complete ignorance of how to actually describe anything. How can anyone like my writing?”
“You described emotions well,” he tells me, “and that’s all that matters. That’s why people really read books.” He leans forward to grab one of the paint chips from my hand, and reads it a little mockingly while driving. “Purple Passion? You can call that color a dozen other things. Probably way better things. I can’t think of any, but I’m sure there are some. What about these... Royal Indigo? Lavender Suede? Mysterious Mauve? Hey, those are actually pretty good. Very Violet. Happy Hyacinth. Okay, I see what you mean. These are kind of addictive.”
“I told you,” I say with a triumphant nod.
“Most people don’t need all of this detail,” he says as he places the paint chip back in my lap and returns to driving. “Who cares if the purple of your character’s dress is dark or pale? What really matters is what’s going on in the story.”
“But doesn’t it change the feel of the story if her dress is eggplant purple instead of Tyrian purple, or even magenta or fuchsia? A few days ago, I would have picked a random word based on how it sounded.”
“It’s not the color that makes the story,” Liam tells me. “It’s the story that makes the color. For example, do you know the history behind the creamy-yellow color Isabelline?”
I shake my head and turn to gaze at his profile as he speaks.
“In the fifteenth or sixteenth century, some Spanish woman named Isabella—a duchess or a queen or something—said that her husband was so amazing in battle that she expected a quick victory, and she wouldn’t wash her underwear until he came home from war. The siege ended up lasting several years, and, well, you can only imagine the color of her dirty underwear after that.”
I have to put my hand over my mouth as giggles bubble up uncontrollably. “Seriously?”
He smiles in response. “I’m not making this up. I’m not any good at making things up! Anyway, I am positive that your stories will grow to be much more detailed and visual from this point forward, but I won’t let you talk crap about the stuff you’ve already written. The vision you had inside your mind was always stronger than the superficial vision everyone else has. I think you’ll remember that soon, once you stop getting overwhelmed by the mountains of rainbows falling on your head.”
“Mountains of rainbows,” I repeat thoughtfully as I return to examining my paint chips. “I like that.”
“If I can ever afford an actual house with more than one room,” Liam tells me. “I promise I’ll let you choose the paint colors for the walls. Especially for our bedroom.”
“I have the perfect one: Crimson Sin,” I say with a mischievous smirk. Then I pause and look at him. “Wait, did you say our bedroom?”
“Aren’t you going to share my bedroom?” he asks, as if it’s the most natural thing in the world.
I laugh nervously, turning away to hide the fact that my cheeks are blushing the color of Scarlet Inferno. “Maybe,” I say softly.
He continues to drive for a few minutes, and I continue to examine the various shades on the strips. I especially like the ones named after flowers. I haven’t seen too many flowers yet, but I can imagine the memory of the various scents and the texture of their petals paired with the colors on the paint chips. Tender Daffodil, Iris Impact, Rich Bluebell, Morning Glory.
“We’re almost there,” Liam tells me. “Can you see the sky getting brighter?”
I glance up from my paint chips, and look toward the horizon. I do see that the sky is no longer completely black, but there is a faint glow of blue stretching across the east. I am held spellbound by the changing colors before I turn to Liam. “Is it... dawn? Are we going to watch the sunrise?”
“We’re already watching the sunrise,” he tells me. “It starts off small, with a few notes of color. Then it grows and builds, like a piece of music. Pay attention, or you might miss the best moment.”
“You’re insane,” I tell him, but my eyes are glued to the sky. I have never seen the sunrise, and it seems almost surreal how the horizon is beginning to be touched by light. I am staring for a few minutes before I feel the car go over a large bump as Liam drives over a barrier of some sort. “What was that?” I ask him.
“You’ll see,” he tells me.
I am a bit nervous, as I try to look around and examine our surroundings. I can feel that the car is no longer driving on the hard road. I look out at the skyline again, and I squint my eyes to try and see better. I suddenly realize that there seems to be a harsh line directly through the sunrise. Like half of it might be a reflection—on water. “Are we on... a beach?” I ask him in surprise. “Are you driving on sand?”
Liam nods and smiles. “It’s something my parents used to do with me when I was a kid. It was the best part of my childhood. We’d drive out onto the beach and watch the sunrise. My dad used to say that we had ‘front row seats.’”
“That sounds so lovely,” I tell him as I gaze at his face in the dim light. All I can see is the shadowy outline of his nose, but I’m glad that I can even see that much. He seems a little guarded and withdrawn as he mentions his past. He hardly ever talks about his family, and I am honored that he’s sharing this with me. I feel like he’s really letting me get close to him.
“You should really visit your dad,” Liam tells me as he parks the car. “Wouldn’t you like to see what he looks like?”
I turn away and look back to the sunrise. “I don’t think I’m ready.”
“You could see pictures of what you looked like as a child!” Liam says to me. “Aren’t you curious? You could see pictures of your mother.”
The idea has crossed my mind. I close my eyes and take a deep breath. “I really wish I could,” I tell him. “I just feel really uncomfortable about going anywhere near the house where Grayson lives.”
“But he’s in a psych facility,” Liam says. “Wouldn’t it be better to visit your family while he’s not there? Before he’s released?”
“Liam, I still have nightmares almost every night. I need physical and mental distance to start to get better. I don’t care where he actually is. I need to get him out of my head.”
“Maybe,” Liam says, unbuckling his seatbelt and leaning over to slip his hand around my waist. He lets his lips linger just above mine as he speaks. “Or maybe you just need to watch the sunrise.” He gives me a single, resolute kiss before pulling away and returning to his own seat.
I glance over at him before looking back to the sky. The horizon is now being touched with splashes of rosy pink and a deeper lavender. The blue of the sky above is changing rapidly, going through a gradation of different shades so quickly that I can’t keep up. I can’t even begin to think of what to call them. Azure, Cobalt, Ultramarine. There are so many beautiful shades of blue that it defies description and takes my breath away. Suddenly, I notice something strange interrupting the sunset.
“What is that?” I ask Liam, pointing through the windshield of the car. “It seems like... is it a star?”
“I was hoping you’d be able to see it,” Liam says with a happy smile. �
�It reaches its peak brightness right before sunrise and right after sunset. It’s the planet Venus, also known as the morning star. It’s brighter than the brightest stars in the sky.”
A shiver of pleasure runs through me at this information. “I can see a planet? I am actually looking at a planet right now. Liam! How did you do this to me? I never dreamed I’d be able to see so much.”
“I used to be obsessed with stargazing when I was a kid,” Liam says. “I never wanted to be a doctor—I wanted to be an astronaut. But we were very poor, and that seemed like a stupid and ridiculous dream to my parents. They didn’t consider anything to do with space a real career. They wanted me to be reasonable, and reliable, and grow up to be a doctor like my grandfather who died in the war. So they borrowed lots of biology books from the library, and forced me to read them over and over. We couldn’t even afford a telescope, although I asked for one on every birthday and Christmas. It was all I ever wanted... a goddamn telescope.” He laughs at this memory. “I suppose they were right in the end. Being a doctor is a reliable career.”
“And if you weren’t a doctor,” I tell him softly, “I never would have met you.”
“Then I guess it’s a good thing I didn’t follow through with my plan of quitting school and becoming a UFC fighter,” Liam says with a grin.
“Really?” I ask him. “You really considered that?”
“I considered a lot of crazy things. I nearly joined the military once. Owen always talked me out of it, and reminded me that I had really good grades, and actually liked medicine. What I didn’t like was being controlled. But now that I’m here, I really am glad I listened to them. I do love my job.” He pauses for a moment. “I just like looking at the stars a little better.”
“Thanks to your job, I can look at the stars, too,” I tell him. “Well, one star—the sun. Along with the moon and Venus. But that’s more than I ever would have had without you. Your job might have stolen the stars from you but it did the opposite for me.”
