The Blind Boy

16.

"That," he hisses, twisting her face in the dim lighting of his apartment, "is unacceptable." 

"Ah, it's fine," Ash murmurs, trying and failing to brush his prying fingers away. His eyes get no less attentive, and she feels herself growing a bit emotional under his worried scrutiny (which just won't do). "I've had much worse."

"Yes," Robb retorts, more ire coming into his tone. "Because that makes me feel so much better." 

Ash shrugs off her sweater when he finally relinquishes hold of her face, the mother hen that he is. "Really, 'sfine. Helen wasn't coming after me, anyways -- fighting with Tara, I got in the middle. She actually likes me." 

"If this is like, I don't want to see what hate is." 

"Fine, tolerates," Ash corrects wryly, settling herself down on his couch. She's a bit weary from earlier, tired enough from all the skateboarding she's been doing lately. Trying to get in as much as she can before the snow starts to fall. "Either way, I can take it." 

"I could call social services," he offers, settling in next to her, looking no less agitated. "One look at that face and they'd have to transfer you." 

"I'd rather stay at Helen's and not risk another creepy foster dad." She shudders at the memory. 

Sometimes she thinks his straying hands and cigarette stained teeth are the reason she can't stand to date or be touched romantically, as starved as she is for it. Casual, fleeting touches between friends have always been fine. Safe. Locking lips? A hand sliding up her thigh? Something about it feels as tainted and wrong as the mere thought of that old man. 

Apparently she's had creepy foster brothers too, but she doesn't remember them or their abrasive touches. It's like a blank slate sometimes, when she looks back at the years. One house blending into another, all the uncertainty and hurt slipping into the back of her mind so she doesn't have to face it. She remembers that man though, reeking and foul and mean. Worse than Helen, if one could believe. 

But she's not anything special. She's certain Robb has even been through something similar, not that they ever bring anything like that up -- it's a pained, silent truth of their parentless existence. Eventually it just becomes something to expect -- one's boundaries being nonexistent. A child's boundaries.

"Fuck, I hate this!" Robb explodes, raking his hands through his hair. "Absolutely hate it. What's the point of me having all this space and a job if I can't come and rescue you?" 

"Too young to adopt me," she points out, eyeing the supposed 'space' in the cramped apartment, but doesn't make a sarcastic remark. It likely wouldn't be taken well given the circumstances.  

"It's bullshit! The whole system is bullshit." 

"We could rant about that all day, but it wouldn't change anything," Ash points out calmly. It's best to be the calm one when he gets like this, all rants and enthusiasm. She really doesn't want to sit through a full blown Ted Talk.  "And anyways, Helen hurt you way more than she ever hurt me." 

"With her words, Ash. I was too big for her to go after me." 

"Some say that's worse. It hurts the soul," she halfheartedly jokes. "And anyways, didn't she throw a frying pan at your head? Five stitches? Ring any bells?" 

Robb merely winces at the memory, inhaling sharply. "How's Tara doing, then?" 

"Fine, I guess," Ash replies a bit more subdued, thinking back to her younger foster sibling. "She stays out all night, is hardly there during the day. I'm worried about her. She's been testier than usual, all twitchy and restless."