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Matt hasn’t been able to see since he was nine. Not in the regular sense, not with his own two eyes. Sight was taken away from him long before he’d learned how it could be a distraction, how it could ruin things.
Matt had overheard people before, explaining to others as if it was right, that they couldn’t be with this person because of a physical attribute they couldn’t change. He’d heard law professors explain that certain types of smiles could charm people right out of a cuffs, or that the correctly timed tear could shatter a heart and flip a jury. He’d spent years listening to people talk bad about their appearances as if it mattered to who they were.
Sight seemed pretty overrated, in Matt’s opinion.
But the thing was…Matt remembered what it was like to have sight. He remembered, even if only in shivering replays, what the night sky had looked like on his one camping trip as a kid. Matt, with ever fading dimness, remembered his father’s smile and dark eyes. Matt remembered just how snow looked in New York, a blanket of white that stilled everything for a moment before it was tarnished a questionable grey and shoved to the side.
Some things mattered in Matt’s small memories of sight. There were things he wished he’d taken the time to memorize as a kid, like the way his dad’s eyes twinkled with victory or the way words looked as they curled off the page of a book. But it was too late for that. There was no going back in time to filter more meticulously, to pick and choose what mattered the most to keep in visual storage.
But sight didn’t make a person who they were. And Matt didn’t need sight to know the important things.
No eyes, no matter how well they could see, would ever show Matt how bright Foggy shone. No amount of staring would ever unravel Karen’s inner web and spread it out into the tapestry that made her who she was. And no amount of seeing Elektra would change how easily she burrowed under Matt’s skin and implanted herself into his very DNA.
Decades after the accident, now accustomed to the painting he could create in his head, Matt knew for a fact he’d never need sight. Yes, he missed being able to see the city’s beauty that was always hidden to tourists. Deep in his chest, Matt desperately wished he could see Foggy and Karen just once, the people who saved him, put a face to years of happiness.
But he didn’t need it. He’d never be happy if it came back.
Matt’s sight was long gone, but it had helped him to see what a lot of people took for granted. It helped him to see what lied beneath all the falsity of outside appearances.