Open Your Eyes
~A One Shot~
I remember the first time we met. I had been in that dirty alley for only God knows how many hours, still trembling from the fear of my father's anger. Tear stains cut through the dirt and made clean tracks down my cheeks and though I was well hidden, my hiccups are what gave me away.
You were not much older than me but in the ways of the world you were wise. Maybe you were just a newsboy, a street rat, the one they called Skittery who seemed to be under a perpetual black cloud but to me you were simply Michael. The boy that had, unwittingly, saved my life; in all the ways a boy could save a girl.
With child-like innocence, despite your years on the street, you approached me. My eyes had been shut tight, trying to banish the events of the day. The way my father had looked at me with blazing blue eyes, his face contorted into a snarl as he advanced on me slowly because he knew that no matter if he took his time or came at me fast there was no way I could get away. And he was right; at least I couldn't until he was unconscious. Even though I was only eight, even after the worse beating I had ever gotten by that point in my life, I had managed to slip away from our small tenement house to finally hide there in that alley you found me in.
You had whispered to me, "Open your eyes."
Your voice had been so soft, those three words meaning so little to me until that moment when they fell from your lips. You were so gentle with me from then on; I never had reason not to trust you. I still have no reason; you always protected me where others had set out to hurt me. I know I loved you from that moment, the moment my blue eyes had opened to meet those hazel eyes, so full of compassion. I know when you were a newsie they viewed you as brusque, cynical and often times moody but they had never saw this side of you.
My heart pounding, I let you take my hand, knot your fingers through mine as you pulled me from my hiding place beneath the pile of rubbish. From that moment on, I was yours. Regardless of the fact that you never even asked me to be yours and despite the falling out we had later in life.
Do you remember those following years as well as I do? Sometimes, when I close the very eyes you asked me once to open I see these years as bright sun spots in my memories. We were young, free, and wild. It was like every minute from this minute now we could do what we like anywhere. For those five years we explored New York as children, played in the park as children, and viewed the world as children. Everything we saw was brand new and exciting; we had each other, enough to eat and an entire city open to us with no rules.
Until it all fell apart. You once blamed yourself and at the time I couldn't correct you. But, I'll correct you now. I'm old enough to take responsibility for the mistakes I made as a child and this was perhaps the greatest mistake. You, who had always been there, had always loved me and had never hurt me, hadn't even realized I was pulling away from you until that very moment I did.
I could never really pinpoint the moment when it all began to change. Of course, by this time I was thirteen and a young girl at thirteen goes through a lot. It was so much harder when you're surrounded by men; my father, my older brother, you, and your newsboy friends. No one understood what I was going through or how to help it go more smoothly and I was so frightened. All this feels strange and untrue.
After one brutal beating from my father and after he was sufficiently passed out, I began to seek you out. Just as I found you, selling papers with a scowl on your dirty face, I stopped and for a moment I could only watch you. Something indefinable had changed. Not in you, but in me.
A girl bought a paper from you, smiling coyly as she handed you the penny. The anger swells in my guts. You didn't even spare her a glance as you took the money and moved onto the next person. All of a sudden, as I watched her throw you a last, parting glance, I felt suddenly and most acutely aware of my own body. From the tattered trousers that were much too long, to the dirty, stained shirt and my flat, greasy hair. Granted, my father didn't make enough to keep me in dresses and it was true I was barely old enough to need them but I was so aware of how un-pretty I was next to that girl.
I ran home.
The next day, I found myself in front of the small, filthy mirror that was perched on the back of our sink in the tiny water closet in our apartment. My reflection showed me each fruitless attempt to tame my fair hair, to twist it into an elegant bun and to even scrub off the dirt on my face. No success in both departments and so, I avoided you.
Not too long after these events, I found myself pestering my father in one of his rare, sober moments and was more than ecstatic when he gave me money to buy a new dress. At least, a dress new to me. I scrounged the second hand shops for anything that would do and finally settled on one.
I loved that dress, the soft cotton between my fingers and the pretty, blue forget-me-nots that were embroidered around the neckline and hem. I remember the first time I wore it. How I spent so much time on my hair, laboriously getting it to fall just how I wanted it to and how I had pricked my fingers several times trying to stitch up the few holes the dress had acquired.
Most of all, I remember how you laughed when you saw me.
Oh, love, I know you now. I know you never meant to hurt me. You were young, a boy who hadn't even begun to notice girls as they noticed you. Your best friend had just turned up in a dress when you hadn't even thought about the fact that she wasn't just another boy.
Perhaps that was when I began to push you away. I cried that night when I returned home, feeling silly and humiliated. Unfortunately, that one event didn't stop me from acting like the girl I was. I continued to hang out with you, wearing skirts and dresses to make you see I wasn't one of your newsboy friends.
When I turned fourteen, I felt this anger that I couldn't explain. After a year of spending time with you, you still hadn't seen me as the budding woman I saw myself as. So, I started to see you less and less. Distancing myself rather than holding onto you for dear life. It was then you started to realize something was wrong, you began to seek me out when I hadn't visited more than a few days in a row.
That fall day, you cornered me. Asked me what I was doing, why I was avoiding you, why I was changing when you liked everything as it was.
That only angered me more and I found myself screaming at you. Telling you that change is what happens when people grow up and why weren't you changing? Why weren't you seeing me as I had been seeing you for over a year? "Open your eyes." I had spat at you, the first line you had spoken to me being thrown back in your face.
Those three words would be the last words spoken between us for almost another five years.
You told me about those years for you, how the boys had sworn you'd become more moody than ever but for me, those years were the blackest. My father's drinking got out of hand until it lead to his eventual death. I was left on the street, my brother having gone out west a year before that leaving no address to send him word.
I was completely alone in the world.
I know you know what that's like, but you don't know what the thought did to me. What it still sometimes does to me when you're gone for too many hours at a time. I was never the same; my world had collapsed all around me and I grappled to find anything at all to hold onto, with no luck.
After nearly starving to death, I met a woman by the name of Nightingale. She was a business woman, the kind of business good girls shudder to hear about, and she offered me a position. No, not as one of the working women but simply as a maid; I was to keep the front parlor clean as the guests waited and to do the laundry and bring the meals to the women who resided in the house.
Regrettably, living and working there led me to meet Thomas. A nice enough fellow on the outside, but under those plain, forgettable features was a man who knew how to corrupt the innocent. He was the reason I ended up in that small basement where you found me. He was the very reason I spiraled down into a deep, dark pit of depression.
I don't know how you found me, if you'd been keeping tabs on me, or why you even cared, but I'll never forget that second time you saved me.
The dark room was filled with smoke and a kind of hazy contentment had stolen over me. The opium had by then worked its way into my system and I was oblivious to Thomas watching me, his hands beginning to paw over my body, my fogged mind unaware of what exactly was beginning to happen.
You say you saw me go in, that you knew the moment I was lead down into the building that I needed you. You were right, I just hadn't even been aware of it.
I can still see you striding into the room; you're hazel eyes on me and me alone. The anger was plain in the tenseness of your shoulders as you put out your hand to me and shot a glare at Thomas. "Get up." You said your voice so much deeper than I remembered it. I had known in an instant who you were, recalled through a drugged stupor exactly the curve of your cheek, the thickness of your dark hair and how I had once-and, incidentally, still-loved you more than I had ever thought I was capable of loving any person.
Without a second thought I slipped my hand into yours and I felt as if I were floating as you pulled me to my feet and we walked from that dark room for the last time.
The week to follow wasn't a pretty one, was it? I don't know how you did it. How you worked and yet were there when I needed you, the pains of withdrawal racking through my body as my system cleansed itself. I didn't even know then just how far depressed I had been and I don't know if I'd have ever been able to pull myself out of it if you hadn't been there.
My bones ache, my skin feels cold and I'm getting so tired and so old, I remember thinking. Yet, you were there every minute of it. I woke up one night, lying cold and alone in your bed as you slept on the old sofa in the main area of your small, tenement apartment. I was shaking uncontrollably and I felt as if I'd never be warm again. Stumbling from the bed, I found my way through the dark to you, curling up on top of your warm body as you woke up and hesitantly wrapped your arms around me.
"Open your eyes." You whispered to me the next morning. For a moment, I wanted to ignore you, to continue to sleep but just as I decided to, you spoke again, "I need you to look into mine."
My eyes opened blue meeting hazel as I gazed up at you. I was feeling more clear-headed than I had in days and I felt my mouth open as I whispered the words as they crossed my mind, "I won't waste a minute without you."
You stopped, surprised. Searching my face, I remember you slowly lowering your own down to close the distance between us. It was the sweetest kiss I'd ever received and there wasn't anyone else in the world I had ever wanted to kiss more than you. Why did you save me? I asked you later that day, wrapped in your arms as I shivered from the last effects of withdrawal.
My Michael, you whispered to me sweetly, "There isn't anyone who could understand your soul or your fire like I do."
You saved me, in all the ways it counts. At night, when I'm feeling that sadness, the dark abyss creeping up on me, you whisper that it wasn't you who saved me but I who saved you.
We can fight about it all we want, but it still remains the same; I won't waste a minute without you.
A/N: All words italicized are from the song Open Your Eyes by Snow Patrol. A few words had to be altered to fit the past tense of the story but those lyrics do not belong to me. I hope you all enjoyed this little one-shot. It was just something I needed to write to take a break from All In. Tell me what you thought in a review.
Truly,
Joker is Poker with a J~
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