Amor Caecus

Chapter Four

           

Another month passes. Two. Yet, Jane is still no closer to accessing her sight.

"Maybe you were wrong."

"I'm not wrong."

"It's been nearly three months, and nothing has changed."

"You've broadened all you other senses, correct?'

"Well yeah, but-"

"It wouldn't make sense for you to be able to enhance your other senses and not your sight. You can get this, you just have to fi-"

"Find something I want to see badly enough. I know."

Jane lays back on the fur blanket they had spread out in front of the fire. She had decided not to ask where she got it from. As the temperature dropped outside, so did the temperature inside. So, she was grateful for anything that provided even a little warmth or comfort. Medusa was fine. Being part snake and all, she had the privilege of slowing her metabolism down enough that the cold didn't bother her too much. Freaking reptile. So unfair.

Medusa came to sit beside her, only a few inches away. Recently, she had been testing how close she could get to Jane, citing cold weather as the reason. Humans need body heat, she'd said. Jane couldn't see her, of course, but she'd had a strong feeling that Medusa was very pointedly not looking at her. Jane found that she had absolutely no problems with that and used that as an invitation to start subtly moving closer as well. Now, their fingers brushed when they passed each other things. The touched each other's shoulders or arms when walking past one another. Every single exchange nearly sent Jane's heart into cardiac arrest.

"What about the fire? You sit here for hours at a time and you've never seen it before. It's beautiful, surely you want to see?"

"I sit here for hours at a time because it's fucking freezing in here, Meds, not because I'm enchanted by the thought of a flame."

Medusa laughs, just like she does every time Jane uses her new moniker, and Jane smiles softly in response, her chest tightening with an emotion she has yet to face. She had been thinking about doing an experiment for awhile now, but she was worried about bringing it up. She didn't want to mess up this new ease that had developed between them. But she knew this would work. She could feel it.

"Hey, um....I had an idea about that, actually."

"Yes?"

"Yeah, but it's a little dangerous." She started picking at the blanket beneath her, her nerves starting to show. Just get it over with. "I want to look at you."

A few seconds passed in silence.

A few seconds turned into a minute.

A minute turned into three.

Jane was ready to run out into the snow-covered woods and offer herself to a bear out of sheer humiliation when Medusa speaks.

"No." Her tone is harder and colder than she's ever heard it before. She tries not to let it hurt her. She expected this.

"Hear me out. I think if I-"

"No."

"Meds, come on, it might actua-"

"I said no." Her tone remained steady, but the sound of hissing suddenly rose. If they were angry, she was angry. Jane realized that this was the first time in a while that she had even registered the noise.

"It doesn't have to be your face." Her voice came out soft, almost a whisper. She had to tread carefully here. "It can be your hands or your arm or your feet for all I care. But I've been here for awhile now and I'm...I'm more curious about you than anything else." It was a big confession. The first verbal confirmation that Jane felt anything other than hostility and disgust for her, even though those feelings had dissipated long ago.