Hey all, it's been a while but I am back with another fic

this one is another A/U

I wrote it awhile ago but I wanted to finish the entire thing before I posted, unfortunately I don't think that will happen so I'm posting it now to see if people are actually interested in reading it

this is from Brady's point of view

enjoy!



I've been in love since I was five years old to a girl, who is a woman now, whose face I have never seen, but whose voice carried me through my lonely childhood. My story begins not where my life started but where I began to live. I made my first real friend when I was five and a half when most kids worry's centre around baseball and barbies, I was worried about never being normal. Of course I wasn't normal, not to other kids anyway. Being blind and going to a special school is never considered normal on the playgrounds of adolescence.

I can still remember what the air smelled like when I first met her, (corn-dogs, cotton candy, and sea water in case you were wondering). I remember the wind kept blowing off my baseball cap and little Belle would run to catch it or so I thought, when she let go of my hand and returned shortly to place it back on my head. How was I to know that my younger sister was my protector and ran after the hurtful children that plucked it from my head?

Later as we grew, I knew Belle watched out for me just as surely as I knew I wasn't like other children. Mom, (who was not my real mother but I pretended she was) told me I was special, sensitive, she said. It took me a while to learn that being sensitive wasn't always the best thing for a little boy to be, especially when sensitive meant you got your feelings hurt so easily by scornful children that just didn't understand.

I'll tell you about the day my life began and it may make you laugh but thinking back it makes me almost cry.

"Hey you!"

Belle tugged on my arm and made me walk with her. I guess the wind had gotten the best of my hat and she was tired from chasing.

"I said hey you! What are you stupid?" I felt my arm being jerked around and it hurt.

"Me?" I said, shyly. I'd never really been spoken to by another child before. Usually they asked Belle what was wrong with me and even at four she knew how to handle herself. She was always smarter than her age should allow. I rubbed my arm and kept my head down as usual. With my dark glasses on no one would know I couldn't see.

"Yeah you. Here's your hat." The girl said, holding out my small baseball cap. I reached my arm for it and came up short. "It's right here, what the heck is wrong with you?"

"There's nothing wrong with him, you go away and leave us alone." Belle shouted.

"Look kid, I was just giving him back his hat, I saw those creeps take it from him and I thought he might want it back." The girl said annoyed.

"Oh."

"Thanks." I said, grabbing for it eagerly and finally finding it. I'm sure the smile on my face was wide and goofy, but it was amazing, the girl, whoever she was, was actually speaking to me and had gotten back my hat.

"Yeah sure whatever." Chloe Lane told us, picking the scab on her knee. "Why do you let those brats yank your chain for anyway, you're not too wimpy, you should be able to take care of yourself? Doesn't it bother you that your little sister has to protect you?"

The smile fell from my face as I took in the dose of reality. "I didn't know that." I said softly. "I can't see."

"Well maybe if you took off those dark glasses you'd see better, ever think of that? Here lemme see 'em." Chloe snatched the glasses from my face and looked into my ocean blue eyes; they were unresponsive.

"He's blind." Marlena Evans, my mom, told the little girl as she knelt down, taking the glasses from the small child and returning them back to me.

"Blind? You're blind?" Chloe asked in disbelief.

"Yeah." I told her as I shuffled my feet nervously.

"Cool. Wanna go play in the sand?"

I didn't know what to do, what to say. No one besides Belle had ever asked me if I wanted to play. I couldn't seem to form words.

"Go on Brade." Marlena told me giving me a light nudge in the right direction.

"That your name? Brade?"

"Brady Victor Black is my name but sometimes people call me Brade." I said proudly.

"I like that. Come on Brade. I'm Chloe Lane by the way." Then she grabbed my hand and dragged me down the beach.

"I'm sorry. She's so forward sometimes, and it can be really hard to censor her. Takes after her mother, I guess."

"It's alright." Marlena told the redhead as she dabbed at her eyes. "I think that little girl just made my son the happiest he's ever been." Marlena smiled at her new friend.

"We just moved here from New York. I'm Nancy Wesley. Me and my husband and daughter just moved to the neighbourhood."

"In that case we'll have to show you around."

"That would be wonderful."



"So Brade, what's it like to be blind?"

"I dunno." I shrugged my shoulders. "I can see in my own way. Want me to show you?"

I was pleading to God for her to agree, I wanted so badly to see her as much as I could see another person.

"Yeah sure."

I reached out my tiny hand and made contact with her soft skin. I ran my fingers over her face and noted the small button-like child's nose that was similar to my own. I touched her lips and her chin and I got a clear picture of how she must look inside my brain. "You're very pretty." I told her shyly.

"That's what my mom says. I hate when she says that." Chloe announced.

I felt absolutely defeated, there I was baring my soul and she shut me down. "Oh." I said.

And she must have noticed the sadness in my voice or in my features because the next thing she said was. "But from you I like to hear it."

"What's it like to see?" I asked.

"I dunno. It's like having a rainbow in front of you all the time. I think we need more sand." Chloe informed me and bulldozed more of the gritty but soft stuff over my legs.

And that was it. The issue of me being blind was left right there in the sand. And that's how it began. Chloe never cared that I was blind and I don't ever think she really knew how that made me feel. Now I sit on a plane nearly eighteen years later, readjusting my thin frames as I look out the window. That's right. I said look. Dad always wanted the best for me and when we finally found a doctor that would perform the risky surgery that would give me sight. We didn't hesitate.

Chloe and I lost touch when we moved to the best blind oriented facilities the world had to offer. But I'm determined to make this trip worthwhile. I'm determined to let Chloe Lane know I loved her - love her still for that matter.