2022 Watty Award Winner ✨
In which a blind girl and a disfigured army vet attempt to find love and belonging in a big bad world.
***
Olivia Harris is blind, and that's just the way it is. Naviga...
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CRISP OCHRE LEAVES bluster across cold slabs of marble that mark soil plots where the dead have been buried.
Autumn trees and grey clouds smother the sunlight into frail tufts. Golden shreds of it fleck James' gravestone like cinders, like ash. Connor reads the cold inscription of his best-friend's name for the first time and has the sudden, queezy urge to vomit.
He drops a scraggly, awkwardly-selected bunch of wildflowers onto the grass instead.
The mechanics of breathing are complex. Expansion of the intercostal muscles, flattening of the diaphragm, ribcage creaking open, negative pressure ballooning the lungs to generate a force that sucks in air. And then the muscles shrink, and the ribs relax, and the lungs cave in, and the air whooshes away. In, out. In, out. Repeat.
Or don't, and you die.
James is dead, but the daisies sprouting from his gravestone are fresh and curling and green with life.
Connor sinks to his knees, the lawn's dewy moisture wicking through his jeans.
Silent tears ripple. His heart feels like it's tearing to shreds. He decides to leave a piece of it behind.
He whispers ragged apologies. He murmurs his forgiveness into the breeze. He lets hoarse promises of marrow-deep love crack into the earth.
He knows James would say it back.
He smears his damp face into his sleeve and picks himself up and returns to his car.
And then he drives to his girlfriend's apartment. She's at her kitchen table, studying. Her laptop keyboard is studded with braille and her nimble fingertips fly across it.
He wraps his arms around her, buries his face into the soft dip of her shoulder. He doesn't say anything; he just pulls in the scent of her, sweetness and sunshine, love and acceptance, longing and belonging and home.
***
Author's Note [August 15th, 2022]:
I'm crying, I'm ugly, DON'T LOOK AT ME!
xoxo Ami
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