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Nothing about Caitlyn's eye was pretty.
In stories when someone lost an eye, it left a sexy, fine vertical line for a scar, and a tastefully grayed-out eye that tied together the grizzled look. Caitlyn didn't have an eye anymore. Half a lid hung uselessly over an empty socket, and not even the eye patch could hide the jagged scar that ran towards her ear. Looking at it made people uncomfortable, and she still felt searing steel every time she looked in the mirror.
Even when the bandage came off, she still wore an eye patch all day and all night, alone or with company. She only took it off to shower. When Vi would glance at it in bed and a worry would form in her brow, Caitlyn would roll over and pretend to fall asleep.
One night Vi caught her head as she tried to roll over. She brushed her thumb around Caitlyn's ear, lifting the strap of the eye patch just a little. Caitlyn's skin sighed in relief and her stomach knotted with dread. But Vi looked at her with those big, wet, puppy-dog eyes, and Caitlyn let her continue.
Slowly and gingerly, Vi slid her fingers under the strap and worked it up and over. It tugged at strands of hair and she paused for each one, carefully freeing it without pulling. Finally she rested her palm beside the patch, thumb between the fabric and Caitlyn's nose, and stopped. She looked at Caitlyn for a long moment, and when she said nothing, removed the eye patch.
The skin around the empty socket and across her forehead was red and irritated. A steady, dull pain throbbed with each beat of her heart, and when she moved her good eye, muscles in her other twitched, unable to recognize what was missing.
Vi brushed her calloused thumb along the bottom of the socket, soft as a whisper. It came to rest on the scar before the ear, and Vi shifted to lean forward. She pressed her lips against the empty socket with utmost tenderness.
"I've never loved a perfect thing in my life," she said softly. "Why would that change now?"
She cupped Caitlyn's chin between her thumb and forefinger and kissed her again on the lips. She trailed the back of her hand along Caitlyn's eye as they parted and rested it under her head, gently rubbing her thumb back and forth along the scar.
Caitlyn could still cry without an eye, she had learned. Lacking direction, the tears slid down along the inside of the socket and came to pool in the bottom, only a few managing to work their way out to her cheek. Vi wound the end of her shirt around her finger and gingerly dabbed up the pool.
Vi shifted closer under the sheets and pressed their foreheads together. Caitlyn's skin gasped at the soothing air and a tension that she had been holding in for weeks finally melted away from her shoulders.
Nothing about Caitlyn's eye was pretty; everything about her was messy and beautiful.