blind || sitkolson [C]

iv.

I stuck by his side anyways.

Even when he was up at night crying because of such vivid nightmares filled with terror, when he couldn't feel better because he couldn't just open his eyes and see that I was there anymore.

When he woke up early like always, because it was routine; but he laid back in bed miserably, unable to watch the sunrise.

When he cried for hours and hours after Angelo and Kelly got married, because he wanted to see the happiest day one of his best friends would ever experience.

When I wasn't his husband anymore, when I was his caregiver.

But that's fine, because I knew he still loved me.

But everything was in a different light now, seen in a different way, with a different air around our lives.

Ricky tried painting again. With no real image in mind, because he couldn't make one.

I sat next to him whenever he pulled a canvas out, holding out the paintbrush with the color he requested.

I didn't understand why he would still paint, if he couldn't see.

"I don't need to see it," Was his response. "It's like when you write something down while you're sad. Like poetry, or a rant, or anything. You don't plan to look back on it because you remember how miserable you felt whilst writing it. You don't want to go back. Every painting I create usually looks pretty disastrous, I can tell without even looking. So I imagine to someone who can see, it all looks like it represents something complicated, right?"

I nodded, and asked what he meant.

"It's exactly that, Ryan." He had told me. "Something complicated."

We didn't talk much throughout the day after that conversation, but he slept in our bed that night for the first time in nearly a year.

And he slept all night.
No nightmares.