"Someone's at the door," Matt said from where he lay propped up in bed with his book in his lap.
"How could you possibly...?" Foggy said from his position on his stomach on his bed, arms propping him up and television blaring in front of him. His question was interrupted by the sharp knock. "You know," he said to Matt as he turned off the TV and stood up to answer the door, "Sometimes I wonder about you. It's like you've got superpowers or something."
Matt smiled at that. If only Foggy knew.
He knew it was a woman because he had smelled her perfume. It was particularly strong, and mixed with other smells of makeup and hair products. It led him to believe that she was probably very feminine looking, and possibly very good looking.
He knew she was good looking when he heard the way that Foggy's heartbeat picked up when he saw her, and smelled the sweat that flooded the man's palms. It always amused him when Foggy teased him about his ability to detect hot women, because his friend had no idea that he functioned as Matt's hot woman detector. It made him an excellent wing man in more ways than one.
"Ummm," Matt heard Foggy say. "Wassup? I am... Foggy. That's me. Can I, uh, help you with something." 'Smooth,' Matt thought. He could practically picture the way that Foggy was leaning against the door frame trying to look more relaxed than he was.
"Hey," said the woman, with an accent that placed her as being from Southern California. Matt was very good with accents. "My roommate and I were wondering if you had any milk we could borrow. We ran out and I'm totally desperate for a coffee."
"Milk?" said Foggy, "Yeah, for sure. We have some. Just give me a minute. You can come in if you want though." Matt heard her come in and shut the door gently behind her as Foggy moved towards their mini-fridge and opened it.
"I'm Lisa, by the way," said the woman. "Hey." There was a short uncomfortable pause.
"Oh, Matt, she waved at you," Foggy said after a moment. "Matt's blind, so he didn't see."
Matt couldn't gauge the woman's reaction to that news, but smiled and waved back anyway.
"Awww... that's so sad," Lisa said. Matt immediately disliked her, as he disliked most people whose first reaction on finding out he was blind was to express pity or not properly acknowledge him in the room. Just because he was blind didn't mean he was broken.
"But it's so cool that you, like, live together," Lisa continued. And even though Matt hated being pitied, he saw an opportunity to be as good a wing man to Foggy as Foggy was to him.
"It's very cool," said Matt. "Foggy is a pretty great roommate. He's so patient and really helpful when I need anything."
"Awww," said Lisa again, like Matt had just told her Foggy rescued baby birds and saved babies from burning buildings. "That's so nice."
"Yeah, well, you know," said Foggy as he brought the milk over to her, "It's no big deal. That's just the kind of guy I am."
Lisa went to leave with what she came for, but Foggy stopped her. "You know, Lisa, we have coffee too. You're welcome to stay and hang out if you want. Or we could go out! For coffee, I mean. Then you don't have to feel like you owe us anything for letting you borrow the milk," he said.
'Oh, brother,' thought Matt. At least he had tried to help.
"Oh, sweetie," Lisa said, pity returning to her voice. "Ewww."
Matt had disliked the woman before, but now he had to refrain from getting up to personally escort her out of the room.
"I mean, you're nice and all," Lisa continued, "But just... ewww." Matt heard her leave and close the door behind her.
Matt swore that he could sense Foggy's heart breaking a little. He didn't know what to say. He wasn't 100% sure what just happened.
For a moment, the room was silent and uncomfortable.
"That was rude of her," Matt finally said.
"Sure," said Foggy.
"It was!" said Matt, disbelieving the resignation he heard in his friend's voice. "And it's her loss."
"You don't know that," said Foggy.
"I do," said Matt.
"No," said Foggy, "you don't." Anger was creeping into his voice.
"Foggy..." said Matt, but he was interrupted.
"Just stop!" said Foggy. "Stop pretending that we're the same, alright! We're not!"
Matt didn't understand why Foggy was so upset and he told him so.
"Remember when we first met?" Foggy said. "I was excited you were my roommate because we could go out and meet women together, like we both could help each other. I was wrong to think that. Because all that's happening is that having you around looking like you look is just making me feel really shitty about myself. That's what that was about, just now. She saw you and even though the blind thing freaked her out, she was still giving you googly eyes. I had no chance there."
"I didn't know she noticed me that way," Matt said. "She didn't even say two words to me. And I tried to help you out."
"That's right, you did. And that's the problem. You think you can actually help. You can't see, so you don't know, but I'm not an attractive man. I'm short, I have a body shaped like the friggin' Pillsbury Dough Boy, and I don't have much going for me in the face. Funny, sure. Nice, absolutely. But that reaction, that "Ewww" just now? That's what women think when they look at me."
"I'm sure that's not true," Matt said.
"See, how could you possibly know that?" Foggy asked.
"I..." Matt started, but then realized that he didn't have an answer to Foggy's question.
"You don't know," said Foggy, "because you live in a wonderful fantasy world where looks literally don't matter. I'm sure being blind sucks, but that part must be nice."
"Honestly," said Matt, "I never thought about it before. But I suppose it is."
"Yep," said Foggy, flopping back down onto his bed and turning the TV back on.
Matt thought about what Foggy had said. There was some truth in it. Matt knew that people were shallow and that looks mattered. He couldn't not know that because he existed in the world just like anyone else. But he was, in some ways, isolated from it, both because he was blind but also because he knew he was good looking. Other people made a point of telling him so. But he didn't know what Foggy looked like. He had never actually seen the man. It hadn't struck him as strange before, because he had been blind for so long that he was used to not knowing what people looked like. But now that he was thinking about it, it bothered him a little.
"Could I..." he began to ask, but suddenly wasn't sure how to ask what he needed to without making things uncomfortable. "Could I touch your face?" he finally asked.
"What?" asked Foggy, surprise and confusion in his voice.
"You're right," Matt said, "I don't know what you look like. There's really no way for me to know. But if I could touch your face I could get a sense of it, maybe?" He wasn't sure what he was even doing. He never really touched people's faces when he met them, not the way that he knew some other people without sight did. It always felt like a strange thing to ask someone, and he had never really felt the urge to be that intimate with anyone before if it wasn't sexual. He expected Foggy to say no or think he was crazy.
"I guess," Foggy replied, doubt creeping into his voice. "I mean, that's a thing blind people normally do, right? I think?"
"Yeah," said Matt. "Sure."
Neither of them moved for a moment. Awkwardness permeated the room.
"Are you gonna...?" Foggy said as Matt said "Did you want me to...?"
"I'll come over there," Matt said. He got up and made his way to the bed, and sat down next to Foggy, reaching his hand out.
"I might need you to guide me. I don't want to accidentally poke you in the eye or something," he said. This had quickly gotten way weirder than he had originally intended.
"Okay," said Foggy. He took Matt's hand and moved it up to his forehead.
Matt placed his fingertips on his friends head and began to map what he felt, moving down Foggy's forehead and over his eyebrows, down to the bridge of his nose. The silence was almost painful as he went. Finally he reached Foggy's lips, then his chin.
"You have a beard?" Matt said, surprised.
Under his fingertips, he felt Foggy laugh. "Sorry," said Foggy. "Yeah. You didn't know that?" He was clearly surprised.
"No," said Matt. "I never really pictured you with one."
"What?" asked Foggy. "How did you picture me, exactly?"
"I don't know," said Matt, moving his hand back up the sides of Foggy's face to his ears and running his hands along them. "It's hard to describe really. You have long hair, too?" He tugged a bit on Foggy's hair.
"Ummm, yeah! It is only just now occurring how messed up it is that you don't know this stuff. Not just about me, but about everyone. That's so weird!"
"It is," said Matt, and he finally moved his hands back into his own lap. "Hey, what colour are your eyes?" he asked, suddenly curious.
"Brown," said Foggy.
"And your hair?"
"Like a light brown, almost blonde I guess?" said Foggy.
"What do you weigh?"
"I don't want to talk about it. Chubby. Which I'm living with. I used to be a fat kid, so I'm alright with where I am now. You can feel if you want," Foggy replied.
He took Matt's hand and ran them up and down his sides for a moment, and Matt continued his exploration up his arms.
"Do you want me to do you next?" Foggy asked, a joke to diffuse the tension. "Just for the hell of it."
Matt laughed. "I think I'm good," he said. "Thanks, though." He got up from the bed and went back over to his own, picking his book back up.
"Oh, and Foggy?" he said.
"Yeah?" Foggy asked, rolling over back onto his stomach in front of the TV.
"You didn't seem that bad looking to me," Matt said, honestly. "No hunchback or unibrow or anything. So maybe stop being so hard on yourself. You'll meet someone who likes you for you."
"Aw," Foggy replied, laughing a little, "Thanks, Mom." Matt threw a pillow at his head with surprising accuracy, and things went back to normal.