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Nick could always see the leaves on the trees. That was why everybody, including him, thought nothing was wrong.
Little kids with wide, sparkling eyes and new colorful glasses with creepy bespectacled owl logos slapped onto the sides always said something like, wow. I didn't know the trees had individual leaves. Look at all of them, all those infinite leaves. I had no idea those were there. Nick thought that was stupid. What did they think was on the trees? Just a bright green hat sitting on top of the jagged branches? And what did they think fell in the fall? The tiny seams holding it together? Someone told him once, oh, stop it, Nick. You just think that because you already know. His response; "It's not my fault they were too dumb to take a closer look."
You can't take a further look. Not with some things. Like his hands? Nick never knew there were lines drawn into his palms. Or that his fingertips held little works of art, completely unlike anything that had ever been. Or that delicate blue veins peeked out through his skin, almost the same color as the sky, but not quite. And what about a mirror? A picture? Just his face? No matter what it was, all he saw of himself was an unnerving brown blur, with a mess of black on top like some kind of weird beret and two blue dots somewhere in the middle. And sure he'd seen his mother from far away, his uncle, his best friend Luke, but there was only so much you could get from a distance. He knew the color of their eyes for sure, as well as their hair and skin, and the basic style of their hair and shape of their bodies, but too close up and he wouldn't be able to tell some strange, pale-skinned, brown-eyed brunette from Luke without listening to them talk first.
It wasn't until the teacher asked him to read from a book and he said I can't do it that they decided something was the matter. First they thought he just couldn't read, and Nick didn't really want to argue with them but he was pretty sure that wasn't the problem. He knew the letters. He knew the sounds they made, and how they worked their way into words. He sat in the back of the class when they learned those simple things, every single time and every class after, and those things and more had been written hugely on the blackboard, and were displayed in posters all around the childish rooms so that no matter where he was he always saw something clear. Then, finally, after he didn't even know how long, someone had the brains to say "hang on. Wait a minute. Maybe he can read. Maybe it's his eyes."
He chose black glasses when the time came — no owl, which he was eternally glad for — and his uncle nagged his mom about the price but she just told him to butt out, because he was the idiot who spent two hundred dollars on old film reels, "antique" chairs, and some weird modern art made from empty ink cartridges. For the first time, Nick saw his uncle roll his eyes. For the first time, he saw his mother smile.
"That's much better, isn't it, Nicky?" She asked him. Her eyes were bluer than he thought, and her eyebrows were thicker. A scar just barely cut into the right one. She had a dimple on her left cheek, her lips curved like a set of wings, and there was more to flesh than just a single color, a plain tract of smooth nothing. He didn't answer, but turned to a mirror in a dusty gray frame. Dusty. He could see all the dust, every single one of the minuscule specks. But that only mattered for a moment, because he could finally see his face. He wasn't just a blank slate. He watched himself smile, and his mom laughed.
They sat there for an hour while he looked at himself. His mom didn't mind, and when it was time to go, his uncle pulled a handheld mirror out of his overflowing shopping bag and shot him a smile.
---
There were so many things he never knew existed. Weeks later, he was still making monumental discoveries. And that was the thing about sight, you never stop making them. Like, individual strands of hair? When had that become a thing? And moles? Holy crap, what were those? Remote controls actually had things written on the buttons? Whaaaat? The wrinkles in old clothes and old flesh and not-even-old plastic bags? Oh man, his head was going to explode! He was like an explorer, a famous explorer, walking through some brand new world — a button had four little holes and the thread went through each one a different way, there's a little perplexing gap between reflection and reality when he put his hand on a mirror, the static on the TV wasn't just an empty gray field but was made from a million separate snowflakes, black and white and black and white and black and white and gray.
Unfortunately, it was all old news. Kids without glasses already knew these things, knew them since forever ago, and never cared to think twice, or even once, about them. Kids with glasses knew these things too, all these dull, common things. Who cared about the creases in your fingers when you had these infinite other wonders? When you had the leaves on the trees or the stars in the sky or the infinite shapes of the clouds? They all had that, and each other. Nick had… what? He had his hands, he had his face. He had Luke, who could only make himself care for so long. And his mother, who was obligated to, but was gone most of the day to work. And his uncle Pete, who neither cared nor pretended to, and snapped back that it doesn't matter what the dog's nose looks like, son, you've got chores to do.
---
Things were good, he guessed. As good as they could be. His mother's job was steady and she started to worry way less, his uncle played old records when she was out and sometimes even danced with Nick with a great rare smile, he saw Luke almost every day, school was finally a breeze, and his father hadn't shown up in a nice long while.
No.
Scratch that last one.
But the thing about sight is, half the things you saw you wish you'd never seen. Like, his mother had this orange-haired doll. She'd had it since she was a little kid, and one year, one birthday or Christmas or maybe just a random day, she gave it to Nick. And Nick loved that thing. His name was Patch, his mother said. Nick loved Patch. For a long long while, until he met Luke, Patch was his only friend — not including his mom or uncle or the dog. That blurry white blob was practically all he had. Then he slipped on his plain black glasses and blinked a few times and held Patch up to the light, and…
Wow. He was creepy. Angry, tilted eyebrows, tribal paint like tears and scars, a long spear in his hand. He started giving Nick nightmares, and Nick started keeping him under the bed. He felt awful, for a long long while, because he loved that doll. It all faded after a while, but Nick still missed him sometimes. A lot of times.
And that was just one thing. One very tiny, inanimate thing. His mother's frown? No thank you. His mother's tears? Uh, no frickin' way. Uncle Pete's glare? Get that out of here. His seething father, in any way, shape, or form? NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO.
It was a normal day. Things were good, or so he thought. His mother was at work, at her nice steady job. Uncle Pete was out shopping, getting groceries and junk from yard sales and new, fun records. Luke was stopping by later, sleeping over, too. No homework that night. He went in through the back door and saw shattered glass spread across the kitchen floor, sparking in the yellowing fluorescents. He recognized his mother's wine glasses. His uncle got them as a joke, or maybe he bought them completely serious, but a joke was why he gave them to her. They were rainbow, red and orange and yellow and green and blue and indigo and violet. Under the lights, on the floor, chunks of red and orange and green lay glittering like stars, like city lights. There was a crash, and a million bits of blue leapt through the air.
"Pieces of shit," that familiar voice said. Nick froze, wanted to back out the door and go sprinting into the forest, but it had already slammed shut, and it was too late. "Louisa! Is that you?"
His father looked like him, almost, and that alone made Nick's throat close up. They had the same dark skin and the same big nose and the same thin lips and the same solid jaw. But his father's hair was a curly brown, his eyes a devilish black. His brows were pulled down in anger, and there were tiny scars running down his cheeks.
"Nicholas!"
Nick didn't say a word, and that disrespect got him a split lip and a doubled view. He went sprawling into the glass. His father said, this is just the start. Nick shut his eyes. The dog barked, and howled, and whined. But he didn't bite. He never bit. Nick played Luke's voice in his head, even long after his father had gone. The dog's nose brushed against his cheek. He pressed his face into his fur, stars still spinning in front of his eyes, and waited.
---
His new pair of glasses weren't as nice.
His mother took him, alone that time, mouth a straight line, starting to worry again. They were still black but the frames weren't as square as he liked. He got stuck with the little bespectacled owls, beaks stretched into a demented smile, feathers blue and white and green for some ridiculous reason, far too childish and young, and he glowered into the mirror.
---
His uncle handed him a set of keys, and showed him how to lock and unlock the doors. Nick tried not to roll his eyes. He wasn't brain dead, and he didn't need a babysitter.
"I know how to do this. I've done it a million times."
"Just want to make sure," Pete said. "And give me your old keys. They won't work anymore."
"Here."
"I put deadbolts on the insides, too. You know how those work?"
Duh. He nodded. Pete guided him inside, and showed him anyway.
"I've seen these on TV," he said. Also, I'm not an idiot. Pete nodded.
"Good. Then you're familiar."
Nick crossed his arms, and winced. He uncrossed them. Pete frowned, and Nick pretended not to notice
"You got a few days off next week, don't you, son?"
Nick shrugged. It hurt a little. "I dunno. I think."
"Well, now you do. I'm gonna take you hunting."
"Hunting?" Nick glanced out the window, to the forest behind his house. "Really?"
"Yes, really. Toughen you up. Get you out of the house."
Nick liked the house. "Okay, I guess."
"Ain't no I guess about it."
"Okay."
"You'll enjoy it," Pete said, and double checked the locks. "It's part of bein' a man. Once you get into it, you'll have fun."
---
Nick did not have fun.
Nick did not have fun.
Nick did not have fun.
He didn't want to shoot the deer. He didn't want to shoot the deer. He didn't want to shoot the deer.
When his uncle grabbed the gun from his hands, and the gun went off, Nick thought he'd killed him. He'd thought he'd killed his uncle he'd thought he'd killed his uncle he'd thought he'd thought he'd thought—
Uncle Pete yelled at him, then he didn't, then he quietly took him home. Nick went to his room and stared at his hands, and cried into Pete's dirty green shirt when he came in and put his hand on his shoulder and said "it's okay."
---
He'd lost his glasses in the forest, when the kick of the rifle knocked him down. His uncle took the blame, and said he'd take him to the glasses place, and told his mother that he'd pay for it himself. She rolled her eyes and shrugged. "Okay. Fine. Just get ones he likes."
There weren't many Nick liked. All the ones that were black were too small for his tastes, in one way or another. He wound up picking up red ones. They weren't half bad, he guessed. Uncle Pete scoffed at them when he thought Nick wouldn't notice, but they weren't half bad. No owl.
---
Pete came by a few weeks later with a dead deer in tow. Nick recognized it immediately, from the pale brown fur and the twirling antlers.
"You said it was okay."
"You nearly shootin' me? You're lucky I forgave that."
Not that. "It was an accident."
"I know it was an accident."
"I said I'm sorry."
"Sorry wouldn't help a bullet hole."
He looked at the deer, the patterns of white on its fur, red now. He remembered its eyes, almost blue. "But you said it was okay. You said it was okay not to."
His uncle blinked, glanced at the deer himself."You have to grow up sometime, son."
"You said we didn't have to."
"You have to grow up sometime, son."
"You killed it."
"You have to grow up sometime, son."
Nick remembered one time, when his uncle was playing an old record, back before everything had to be double locked and his glasses had those haunting owls, something broke and it started to repeat. He couldn't remember the song, or the line, but he remembered the tune, and it played over and over again. He could practically see that busted record swirling uselessly around in place of his uncle's tongue. Grow up, grow up, grow up.
Fine, then. He would.
Nick turned around and walked away. Pete came into his room and put a hand on his shoulder but Nick acted like he wasn't even there, and "accidentally" spilled blue paint on his wrinkled green shirt.
---
Nick frowned at his paints, and used his knuckles to push his glasses up his nose.
“Running low on blue,” he said to his dog. His dog, sitting by his feet, looked at him like he was crazy.
“Hey, don’t give me that look. It’s actually a big deal. I need blue for this one.” This one referred to the incomplete painting sitting on his easel. It was a bright city night, a portrait of the time he went with Luke. He had most of the spaces filled in, the dark skyscrapers and the purpling sky, the rain-slicked streets and the yellow windows. He just needed the lights, the lights that came from everywhere, the red and orange and green and blue.
He sighed, and wiped his hands on his hoodie. He always wore it when he painted, for basically this exact reason. Needless to say it was smeared with color. “Whatever. I can do this part later, I guess. Remind me to tell mom to pick up some more.”
His dog yawned, and rolled onto his back. His dark eyes stared up at him. Nick rolled his own, and rubbed his stomach with his foot. “You’re so helpful. Thanks.”
He scratched his nose, and imagined the finished product. He smiled.
Nick liked painting. He liked drawing. He liked art. He hadn't for a while. Actually, he hated it. But the thing about hate was that it sprung from what you didn't understand.
It took him until he finally saw the world, but he eventually understood. More than understood. He was amazed by all the colors, and all the possibilities of colors, and all the little details he could pour in or leave out and how every line looked different and how every pressure looked different and how everything he did was different and amazing, and Nick loved art.
“What do you think I should do with it, when I’m done? I already have one kinda like it. Same city."
He curled his toes, and his dog panted in approval. “I dunno. Maybe I can give it to Luke?”
He barked. Nick laughed.
“Yeah, you’re right. I should charge him.”
Nick’s dog was named Polish, like the verb, to shine, or the noun, the substance used to shine, depending on how you felt. His uncle pronounced it like the adjective, of or relating to Poland, completely on purpose, just to be stupid. Once he even brought a bunch of flags over, ones he'd bought at another dumb yard sale, and started calling him other things. German, he'd call, and throw the German flag over his head. Canadian, he'd yell, and there was the Canadian flag, circling his brown body. Vietnamese, he'd shout, and suddenly his dog was wearing the Vietnamese flag like a bright red cape. He had almost every country and saved the Polish flag for last, and that was when Polish finally perked up. He jumped into the flag and rolled around in it like he was having the time of his life, and by that point Nick was laughing so hard his stomach hurt. So was Pete, and one of his stupid old records was playing in the background.
Polish was a good dog. Nick had him for most of his life. He barked at strangers but never the mailman, and yapped like a dog five times smaller whenever Nick or his mother came home. When it was Pete, he hopped in circles around his legs, panting like he’d run a marathon, tongue lolling out of his mouth and drool pooling on the floor. When it was Nick’s father, he growled and howled but never bit, and sometimes Nick regretted his furry kindness, but that kindness was a thousand blessings after his father was done, when he would press his cool nose to Nick’s face and curl up next to him on the floor, whimpering on the broken glass as Nick reveled in his gentle heartbeat.
"Yeah," he went on. "I'll do that. To thank him, you know? I keep goin' over there."
Polish twisted around to lick Nick's ankle.
"Just remind me, okay? I need the blue paint."
---
Pete offered to bury Polish, or so his mom said, but it was all Nick's fault. He should be the one.
Nick had been working in the yard a lot. Like, nobody ever mowed the lawn except his uncle, and even that was a rare occurrence. And the fence out back had always been broken, and just about anything could saunter in or out of their yard. And their yard furniture, a white table and some chairs, they'd been getting dirtier and dirtier over the years.
So the grass was shorter, but pretty uneven, and the biggest hole in the fence was covered up by some temporary boards, and he was rubbing furniture polish into the faded brown stains in the table and chairs. When his mother said it was time for bed, he left it outside. He didn't mean to. He left it outside. And his mom said that the bottle was the same simple colors as Polish's favorite chew toy, white and blue with red on top, and the material was way too thin, way too easily broken, it must have been a defect, he couldn’t have known, and shouldn't blame himself. She didn't say, "It wasn't your fault." She said, "You shouldn't blame yourself."
Nick buried Polish under the big oak tree, where his first memory was of life, and his first memory was of Polish. Different moments, but it didn't matter much. He didn't let himself take breaks, just kept shoveling. He tried to ignore the images in his head. The swelled green tongue, the frothing maws, the milky eyes that never closed, no matter how many times he tried. Movies were wrong about that.
His mother tried to give him a hug when he was done, but he denied her. His uncle was there too, but Nick pretended not to notice, and ducked away from his open arms like a bat out of hell. He went in his room and moved a chair in front of the door. He found Patch, somewhere under the bed, and his face didn't matter much anymore.
Nick stopped working on the backyard. He went to Luke's house after school.
---
Nick pulled his hoodie on, and sat in front of his easel, and stayed that way for over an hour.
It was late at night, and his mother was working overtime, and the crickets chirped, but he kept all the lights off. Someone drove by, they'd think no one was home. Or at least, wouldn't know which room was his.
He kept glancing at the door behind him. The house was so quiet at night. He never noticed. It made him want to scream. He hated it, for a million reasons. The thing about hate was that it came from everything you knew.
The city was unfinished. Still unfinished. He still didn't have blue paint, or at least, he didn't have enough, but he needed to do something so he set that canvas aside for now.
He painted the oak tree. He painted a tiny owl, from his very first memory. He painted a tiny dog, from his very second. Then a deer, a buck, standing proud with elegant antlers. It was a laundry list of all his mistakes. When he was done it was somewhere around three in the morning. He looked down at his feet to ask how it was, and he'd never felt so alone.
---
"Your uncle's sorry."
"Can you pass the salt?"
"I said, Uncle Pete's sorry. About the buck. And the dog."
"Please pass the salt?"
"It's been weeks."
"Mom, the salt?"
"Nicholas."
Nick reached across the table for the salt.
---
Luke was away, some family trip, so Nick reluctantly trudged home. When he got to the back door, he blinked.
Already open? Not a good sight. Broken locks? Bad, bad, bad. Glass scattered across the floor? Fuck.
Nick's plan was to back carefully away, back through the fence and back to the woods, maybe even back to school, but then a shadow passed over the door and pushed it open and Nick froze.
"Nicholas, where's your mother?"
Nick, head bowed, shrugged.
"Humph. Where's her brother?"
"Goddammit, boy, look at when I'm talking to you!"
Nick looked. He got a bloody nose for his trouble. He cursed, and got a smack on the mouth for that, and it ripped right open.
"How many times do I have to teach you respect?" He growled, and grabbed Nick's collar, and dragged him inside. His clothes tore on the glass, so did his skin, on that and a million other things.
This time, Nick almost couldn't get up. Usually it wasn't that bad, he could still stagger into his room or go get the guy a beer whenever he barked for one. This time, he was just stuck gasping on the floor. Nick reached out, expecting warmth, but it wasn't there. He waited and waited, but nothing touched his cheek. Slowly, through the window, the sky turned orange, and branching out from behind the green trees were twisting tendrils of red.
He could hear the TV blaring, when he came back to himself. Some loud, offensive channel. He'd be distracted for a while but not forever. He'd get bored. He'd be back. Nick knew. Nick knew.
He tried not to groan or breathe or cry when he pushed himself off the floor. He used the counters to steady himself. He knocked some papers to the floor — two brown envelopes with contact information in them, one for his mother and one for Pete, and the note informing him of those two envelopes. He'd never actually looked at them, but as they fell to the floor he considered it.
"Nicholas?!"
His heart froze, and it burned in his chest, and something in him snapped. He ran, nearly yanking door off its hinges, and he was pretty sure he knocked over the lawn furniture, and he was pretty sure one of the chairs broke against the grass, and he was pretty sure he tore up the fence worse than it had ever been clawing his way through the barbed-wire hole, but he didn't care. He ran, and his hoodie got caught in the jagged bark of trees and the sound of fabric tearing filled his ears, drowning out the birds, and he couldn't hear any birds anymore, even when he wiggled free, stumbling on his pounding feet, even when there was no sound, nothing but the leaves in the wind, the leaves rubbing against each other and the branches and the trees like kindling and crackled like fire, he couldn't hear the birds, and he knew that was bad, he knew the birds stopped chirping when death was coming around, and he didn't want to die, and he didn't want to die, and he didn't dare look back when he heard cracking behind him he ran, he ran, he ran, he ran, he fell.
He opened his eyes, and he couldn't see anything. He couldn't see the leaves, couldn't if he wanted to, and the light came down through the endless canopy in gentle green waves. It was too dark to be comforting, and he looked away. He went to rub his eyes, and was unsurprised to find that no glasses blocked his way. He cleared the dirt out of his right one. His left one burned, and was swollen shut. He left it alone. Slowly, he sat up, resting against a tree. The bark dug into his back.
Where do I go?
He thought about Luke. He always went to Luke's house when his father got too bad. It was close, and it was safe, and he trusted Luke almost more than anybody. But he couldn't go to Luke's. Luke was away. And Nick never needed a plan B when it came to this. He always had Luke. He was supposed to.
I can't just sit here and wait, he told himself, shivering. The adrenaline must have been wearing off, because the movement hurt. He'll find me, probably kill me, or I'll just die. Freeze to death or bleed to death or get mauled by a freaking bear, or an angry baby deer, or an angry mother bird. Where the hell can I go?
Nick looked up when he heard a noise. It didn't scare him, somehow. Probably because it didn't sound human.
A white owl was perched on the branch. Nick half expected to see big round glasses, or bright green and blue feathers thrown in the mix, but it was just a plain white owl. The noise it made wasn't what he'd expected from one, and for a while they just looked at each other.
"You didn't used to have a nest in my yard, did you?" Nick asked it, hoping to crack the tension in his chest. The words came out muffled and broken. His lip started bleeding again, and he brought a hand to his swollen cheek. "Or know the owls that did? They ain't too happy with me."
The owl swiveled its head in an impossible angle.
"And what about any baby deer? Baby deer without a dad?" Nick wiped the fresh blood off his chin. Ouch. "They probably ain't all that pleased either."
The owl hooted. Nick sighed. He supposed he was lucky Polish didn't have any family in this forest.
"You know any place I can go?" He asked it.
Silently, the owl looked at him.
"Cat got your tongue?"
It blinked. It was sizing him up.
"That wasn't your little baby I killed, was it?"
It hooted, and flapped its wings.
"It wasn't your sister's or brother's?"
"I just wanted to help," he said, and lowered his head. "I'm so sorry. I just wanted to help."
The baby owl had fallen from the nest, from the oak tree in his backyard, and Nick only wanted to help. The only sound it made was a familiar crack as he picked it up, and its feathers and his hands turned red, and that was the first thing he ever remembered.
"Please tell me someplace I can go," he begged, and he heard the owl fly away.
---
His mother was at work. It was too far away. Scratch that.
Luke was gone. His doors were all locked. Scratch that.
School was closed. The sky was deep purple and no one would be there. Scratch that.
Here's the thing about sight. You see things you don't wanna see. Like a dead bird in your hands or a dead deer in your uncle's or a dead dog in your yard. Like a frightening face on something you love and a familiar one on something you hate. Like broken locks and broken doors and broken glass. Like there's only one place for you to go, but you don't want to see the man that lives there.
Nick wasn't even sure that his uncle would be home. The guy was always out, running some errand or another, rooting through one thrift shop or another, prowling around one street or another for a yard sale. He could go in, call the cops, and be out of there before Pete got back. At least, he hoped.
Getting to his feet was harder this time, much harder, but he closed his eyes and did it, digging his palm into the jagged splinters of the tree. His legs shook, and he cradled his left arm to his aching chest. He was pretty sure it was broken.
"God," he groaned, gasping for breath. He blinked a few times, to clear his spinning head. He walked through this forest every day to get home from school. At least, the days he didn't ride the bus with Luke. He knew his way around. He knew how to get to Pete's. "Alright. Dammit. Alright."
---
To keep himself going, Nick tried to tell himself he was going to Luke's. The lie didn't go over very well, somehow he saw right through it, so instead he just thought of all the times he went there before.
It was the same routine. After his worst cuts were taken care of, Luke sat close to him in the bathroom or the closet or wherever Nick felt like hiding, and if Nick couldn't stop shaking Luke wrapped his arm around his shoulders and brought him closer. He always let Nick rest his head on his shoulder, and chattered quietly about other things as he fell asleep. Sometimes their hands touched. Sometimes they held hands. It didn't make it worth it, but it was something, even if Luke didn't mean it the same way Nick did. And Luke's parents, they were the ones who washed off his cuts and put ice against his bruises, careful like they were doing an operation, always saying things like, are you alright Nick, does this hurt, tell me if this hurts, I don't want to hurt you, do you need an ambulance, do you need anything, are you sure you’re alright, how could anyone do this, what kind of monster does this to a little boy, and they called his mother and his uncle and the police and offered to let him stay a few nights until he felt okay. He loved going there. Luke and Luke's parents and Luke's friendly dog Rusty always made him feel at home.
The first time he went there was the second time they ever met, and Nick actually found him by accident. It was a Tuesday. Definitely a Tuesday. He didn’t know that because he had some feeling attached to the day. He just knew, and Luke always said that was a strange thing to remember. He saw Luke playing in the yard as he ran by, wearing a blue shirt and a dark red hat, and the hat was how he knew. The big yellow C on the front was like a bullseye. Luke loved that stupid hat. Nick never saw him out of it.
They may have been young, but Luke had always been a leader. He offered to call the police, and Nick said no. He offered to call his mom, and Nick said no. He offered a drink, and Nick said yes. Luke pulled some foul vegetable drink out of the fridge, Nick recognized it because Pete was always trying to make him and his mom drink it. Gotta have a V8, he always insisted to them, and chugged down about five at once while he and his mother wrinkled their noses and shared a pointed glance. Nick told Luke and Luke laughed, because his father was the same way, except his father never drank them, so they just had a million of them piling up. Luke said, maybe his uncle should stop by and take some. Nick said, yes. He said that Nick should come by too and they could play with Transformers some more. Nick said yes. Smiling, Luke handed him a water bottle and Nick downed it in a minute. He asked for the trash can and Luke said to just stick it back in the fridge.
"Are you sure?"
Yeah, Luke insisted. My mom can just take care of it.
The fridge was full of empty water bottles, all lopsided and crumpled up. Nick, unsure, put his beside them. And that was when Luke's mom came home and saw him bleeding. Needless to say, she was frantic. First she was angry. She yelled at Luke, then she yelled at Nick, then Nick started crying, and she flinched backwards and got this terrified glint in her eyes. When she cleaned his cuts her hands trembled. She kept asking him what happened, and saying sorry for yelling, but Nick didn’t know how to answer. When she was done being scared she got mad again, and called Luke’s father on the phone. She screamed at him, and he screamed back. She hung up all abrupt, mouth pressed into a solid line, and took several deep breaths before she called the police. She was scared again, Nick could tell, and he felt awful.
But Luke was Luke, and that meant Luke was steady and calm, and he just kept smiling his radiant smile. While his mother was still on the phone he took Nick into his room and insisted that he didn’t care if blood got on anything, and that his mother didn’t mean anything, she was a nice lady, she was just freaked out. He gave Nick a blanket to wrap himself in, and showcased all his colorful toys. Nick, despite everything, laughed.
---
Here's the thing about forgiveness. It has nothing to do with sight. All you can see for miles around is your own anger, and the only thing you know for sure is that this anger will always, always be there, and then the next thing you know you're laughing at their jokes and smiling at their words and you don't even know how it happened. It's not until you're miles away from that first point you even see the forgiveness at all.
Nick made it to Pete's house okay. Easier than expected. He broke into Pete's house okay, too. Way easier than expected — for a guy who personally installed fifteen different kinds of locks on all of Nick's house's doors and windows, he was very lax when it came to his own home. His search for a phone was… more difficult than expected, in that he didn't find one. He blamed the piles of junk that obscured walls and furniture and made it hard to maneuver. Most of his search consisted of him bleeding all over his uncle's things and knocking stuff out of their piles. He spilled a half-filled V8 all over the carpet, and sent a collection of umbrellas tumbling down like dominos. His legs gave out and he collapsed onto the tiled kitchen floor. He couldn't get them to work again so he just closed his eyes, and that was how his uncle found him.
"Jesus!" Pete yelled, jolting him awake with a pain in his chest and everywhere else, and dropped everything he was holding. Something glass shattered, and Nick turned his head away. "Nick?!"
Nick didn't answer, just tried to sit up. He couldn't, so Pete knelt down and helped him. He kept both hands on his shoulders. "Oh my god, Nick, what happened?"
"I made a mess," he said, and he was amazed he could still speak. "I didn't, I didn't mean to."
"Jesus Christ, you're a goddamn mess. Did you walk here?"
"I might've broken some stuff. I… I don't know. I don't remember."
"This was your father. Your goddamn father. It was him, I know it, that piece of shit, I'll—"
Pete stood up, or tried to, because he stopped short. Nick was holding onto his sleeve. He was staining it red.
"What if he comes here?"
"He won’t."
"What if he does?"
"I'll kill him."
"I think he wants to kill me."
"I ain't gonna let him kill you."
"I don't wanna die."
"I ain't gonna let you die, son. Just let go a minute, I need to call—"
He tried to stand up, but Nick didn't let go. "Are you leaving?"
"I ain't leavin'. I gotta call your mother. I gotta call the police."
"Don't leave me here."
"I'll just be right over there. I ain't leavin', I'm just gonna be right over there."
"Uncle Pete."
Pete looked at him. He settled back in, glass crunching under his legs. He pulled Nick into a hug and cradled him like a child, and Nick wailed into his shoulder.
"It's alright, son, it's alright. I've got you, I've got you, son, it's alright, it's alright, I've got you…"
---
The door closed behind Luke, and Nick looked at the hat in his hands. It was dark red, maroon, with a weird yellow C in front, and Luke's.
Take it, he'd said, holding it out with a strange, solemn look on his face. It's lucky.
"How do you know?" Nick asked him, and Luke smiled.
Because I do.
Take it.
Nick took it. Luke smiled his radiant smile, and promised to visit again tomorrow. Nick lied and said he didn't have to. Luke insisted, like Luke always did, and Nick smiled back.
They first met on a Tuesday, Luke and Nick. No, a Monday. It had that Monday feel. Nick was in the park, sitting in the shade and playing with his trucks in the dry dirt.
Luke walked up to him, wearing a red jacket and a red hat with a blurry yellow blob in the middle. The snow crunched under his feet, like dead grass. It rarely ever snowed. He said, Cool trucks, and sat down to play. Nick was shocked, and uneasy, and furious. He never liked strangers, and he barely even let his family touch his trucks. He glanced over at his uncle, sitting on a bench, flipping casually through a newspaper. The sunlight made his hair look gray.
Luke picked up the trucks, one red and one green. He made crashing noises, exploding noises, and airplane noises. Nick scowled.
"They're trucks," he snapped, and snatched the green one roughly out of his hand. "Not planes. You're doing it wrong."
Luke insisted they weren't. Nick grabbed the other one and said yes, they were.
Well, yeah, Luke said. But they're Transformers.
Nick didn't understand. But Luke smiled so wide Nick could actually see it, see the whites of his teeth, the curl of his lips. Luke fixed his hat and showed him — he could press a certain button and the trucks exploded into robots, and he could fold the limbs a certain way to make the robots back into trucks. Nick couldn't really see, but Luke put his hands over Nick's and guided his fingers. He did that every time they played with Transformers, because Nick was always too focused on the creases in Luke's soft hands and how they felt against his own to remember the motions they took.
"That was nice of him," Pete said, both back then, and now. Nick looked up.
"Yeah."
"You gonna wear it? That's what you do with a hat." Before Nick could answer Pete plucked it out of his hands and put it on his head. "There. Looks good."
"Does it?"
"Yeah. I'll get you a mirror later, you can see."
Nick didn't really want a mirror. His face was still swelled and cut and probably all purple and red. He wasn't really interested in seeing that.
"Anyway, I've got something for you too," Pete went on. "Here."
He was holding out a long, thin box wrapped in light blue paper and a dark blue ribbon. Attached was a tiny, polka-dotted balloon that proudly displayed the words HAPPY BIRTHDAY! in blocky, white, all-caps letters. It didn't float, mostly hung down limply at the side. Nick would have been angry, if he wasn't so confused.
"Uncle Pete, it ain't my birthday."
"I know," he said. "I just figured it needed a bit of decoration, is all. That was the only balloon they had.”
Nick rolled his eyes, but he was smiling. "Thanks."
"Are you gonna open it? Or do I have to do everything around here?"
"I'm the injured one," Nick reminded him, and gave back the box. He had planned to open it himself, but he couldn't pass this up. Pete sighed and shook his head.
"The things I do for you…"
"Yeah. Wow. Two whole things."
Pete snorted, and handed him the open box.
"It's a watch?"
"Yeah. Mine." Nick glanced at Pete's wrist, and it was true. His watch was gone.
"How come?"
"I figure you need a watch. It ain't lucky or nothin', like that hat, but you could stand to know the time, I think."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"I think you know," Pete said. Nick didn't dignify that with a response, and held out his wrist.
"Three whole things," he said.
---
--
-
Here's the thing about love.
It was a Sunday. It was very warm, but the air was dry, and scratched against his throat as he breathed. The breeze was light, and the sky was very blue. He parked the car and took a moment to just breathe. For once, he didn't stop to smoke. It was a Sunday.
He hurried to her room, and she smiled from the bed.
“It’s about time,” she told him. “You do know how to tell it, right?”
He rolled his eyes, even though he did need a new watch. He would have punched her in the arm, except…
"Is that him?"
"No, I'm holding this one for a friend." As she said it, she shifted the bundle in her arms. "His name is Nick."
Nick was such a tiny baby. Pete couldn't believe that something could be that small. He reached out to touch his little hand, but his sister did one better.
"Do you wanna hold him?"
Of course he did.
Nick was so small. Pete couldn't believe it. He looked small, and he felt small, and Pete feared that the tiniest movement might break him. And he was warm. The kind of warm you feel clinging to your skin just after you wake up. That was how Nick felt, exactly how. His little eyes were so blue. He was so small.
"Jason's out of the picture."
Pete knew. He'd figured. He'd hoped. "You say that all the time."
"I mean it. Now that I have him, I mean it."
"I believe you."
"Good."
Pete just watched Nick for a while. He didn't do much. He blinked a few times, and his mouth moved, but he didn't cry or coo or really move. He didn't look at anything in particular. His eyes were so blue. He had little strands of dark hair. He was so damn small.
"Don't worry. I'll be around."
Her shoulders relaxed. He walked over to the window, and sat down. The sky was slowly turning orange, and red. The leaves on the trees were a beautiful green. He looked at Nick. Nick looked out the window. Pete smiled. He thought he might.
"Don't worry," he said to Nick, real quiet. "I'll be around."
Nick blinked. His eyes were blue, and Pete thought the biggest part of him.
"You like the trees? See anything there? Or just the leaves?"
Carefully, Pete touched Nick's hand. It was so tiny, and soft. It didn't look it, but it was so impossibly soft.
"There are a lot of animals in there. Deer and squirrels and birds. Owls, like these on your blanket. You don't see any, do you?"
Nick didn't. He started to fuss.
"I'll show you someday. You might have to remind me. It'll be fun."
He adjusted his arms, pulled Nick closer. He couldn't believe how small he was. He was crying, and Pete was terrified, but he never wanted to let his nephew go.
"It's alright," he said to him. "Don't worry. It's alright. I'm here. I've got you."