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“Does he know what you look like?” Karen asked.
“He's got a rough idea,” Foggy pondered, trying to remember so he wouldn't lie. “I only ever let him put his hands on my face once, 'cause... Weird.”
Yeah, that's only because you decided to make it weird, Foggy thought, but didn't say it out loud.
After all, a blind person would probably be curious to know who he spends most of his time with and what that person looks like. Foggy himself would probably go crazy if he didn't have the opportunity to know what other people's faces looked like. The last person Matt saw was his own father, and after that, it was total darkness. Or was it darkness? Matt never explained exactly how he “couldn't see”. Foggy remembered something about Matt not even being able to call it “black”. It was literally nothing. And somehow he has to find his way in this world, and sound alone is clearly not enough.
At a college party, a girl chatting with Foggy asked the same question as Karen's one as soon as he mentioned Matt. And Foggy was taken aback because... he probably didn't know. It wasn't entirely obvious to Foggy, as if that's how it should be. Foggy often forgot that his friend didn't perceive the world the way others did, even though he knew better than anyone else that he was blind and often used this to tease him and make faces right in front of his face. Matt was probably told that he had a “fluffy, shaggy friend that looked like an dusty teddy bear”, but who knows how Matt interpreted that?
What if, in his mind, every time he interacted with Foggy, he really perceived him as a teddy bear, like in cartoons, or something like that. That would be... a little offensive, even. Foggy had never thought about how Matt could even understand what the peson he has a conversation with looked like. And over the next few days, it stuck in his mind, no matter how hard he tried to figure it out. The only way to know for sure was to ask Matt himself.
That evening, as he was getting ready for bed, Foggy suddenly jumped out of bed, as he always did when he had an idea, loudly letting Matt know that he was about to say something. What kind of bar had opened on 45th Street, how to save money on lunch, whether it was okay to invite a girl to their room, or something like that. So as soon as Nelson's bed creaked and there was a dull thud on the floor, Matt, at the other end of the room, immediately turned his head toward the source of the sound. He was already used to doing this to let the other person know that they had caught his attention.
“Um,” Foggy froze, not even knowing how to approach the subject. “I remember you picked someone up at a party a couple of days ago, right?”
“Hmm, no,” Matt frowned. “We just had a nice chat, but that's all.”
“Wait, what? Seriously?” Foggy was taken aback. “Tell me right now if she was cute, and I'll decide whether or not to call you an idiot.”
“How should I know?” Matt laughed. “You know I'm...” He waved his hand in front of his eyes. “This.”
“Oh,” Nelson blurted out, slightly exaggeratedly. “But you... You must know what the people you hang out with look like, right?”
“Well, people usually just tell me what they look like, but for some reason they're very embarrassed to describe themselves,” he shrugged.
"No wonder! A beautiful girl would never say she's beautiful about herself."
“I suppose so,” Matt grunted. “That's why I usually just go with what I've come up with myself based on what others tell me.”
“And what do you think I look like?” Foggy smiled and braced himself for the most inaccurate description possible.
Matt thought for a moment. He even sat up from his reclining position to sit on the edge of the bed in a thoughtful pose.
“I... I don't know...” he muttered. “I mean, I know you're... big? And you have a lot of unkempt hair? I don't know. Is that it?”
“Seriously?” Foggy laughed. “Not that it's not an accurate, but still. Like, dude, we've been friends for a whole year and you've never even thought about what I look like... in detail?”
“Apparently not,” he shrugged again. “I mean, appearance doesn't matter to me anyway. I'm more... into personality.”
“But you've never been even a little bit curious?” Foggy was surprised. “I don't mean just about me, but in general.”
“Well, sometimes I touch people's faces.”
“What?”
“Well, you know, I trace their features, memorize them, and that gives me a more... complete picture of people,” Matt gestured animatedly as he explained. “I rarely do it, and only with people I... trust the most.”
“For example?”
“My father... My priest... Um, Sister Maggie, who took care of me at the orphanage... Mary Sue, a girl from the orphanage.”
“You had a girlfriend at the orphanage?”
“What? No, we didn't... We just lived in the same orphanage and were friends. And she was seven when I got there. How did you even thought something like that?”
“Oops, awkward!” Foggy laughed. “So... Do you remember them all?”
“Well, not so well with my dad. The priest... I talk to him a lot on Sundays, so that helps me remember. Sister Maggie, um, the last time I saw her was in high school. My friend was adopted when she was nine."
“So, just the priest?” Nelson chuckled. “You know, out of context, it sounds really weird that you touched the priest's face.”
“The important thing is that he wasn't touching mine,” Matt joked.
Foggy liked it when Matt used dark humor. It created a necessary comedic contrast between the joke itself and the person telling it, a charming Catholic with very strict morals. It made Matt seem more real than he usually was. So whenever dark humor came out of Murdock's mouth, Foggy laughed like a child. He loved this guy. And he envied him terribly. Not his blindness, but the charm with which he captivated every girl on campus. An amazing person. When Foggy laughed heartily, he brought the conversation back to where it had been.
“So, do you have any specific criteria for who you touch and who you don't?”
Foggy was curious because the list seemed to include only the most important people in Matt's life. Well, if he was never interested in what Foggy looked like, did that mean he wasn't that important? Did his best friend (and probably only friend) not share the same enthusiasm for keeping in touch after graduation? It wasn't that Foggy could say Matt was irreplaceable, but he had never had friends with such similar interests before, an inspiring and simply cool guy, whose friendship automatically made you cool. The guy jumped in front of a truck to save an old man's life, after all. A real superhero.
And the longer Matt took to answer, the more Foggy wanted him to touch his face.
“Well, I was a kid who was still trying to come to terms with my blindness. But now it's just weird.”
“What's weird about it?” Foggy snorted. “Do you have any other way of knowing who's who?”
“Foggy,” Matt smiled awkwardly. He even seemed to blush. “Do you want me to touch your face?”
“Who knows, maybe you think I'm ugly!” Foggy exclaimed. “I want you to envy my irresistible beauty.”
“And you... you don't mind? That I touch your face?”
“Pff, it's not like no one has ever touched my face before, dude! Do you have any idea how many people want to pinch my cheeks? Everyone around here. And you? You don't mind?"
“Well, actually...” Matt smiled. “It would be nice to know what the person I'm going to spend the next six years with, if not more, looks like.”
“Don't be afraid! Here, take a look.”
Foggy jumped happily onto Matt's bed, sat down next to him, and stretched his neck forward, making a silly face to confuse his friend. Matt, on the other hand, tucked his neck into his shoulders and reached out timidly with his hands. As soon as Matt's finger touched the deep wrinkle from Foggy's grimace, he immediately pulled his hands back and snorted, trying to hold back his laughter.
“Listen, I can't capture you with some scary face, I still need to sleep at night,” Matt laughed. “Can you make a normal one?”
“Okay!” Foggy rolled his eyes, then relaxed all the muscles in his face and closed his eyes. He didn't know why.
Something told him that he needed to be blinded for this process too.
Matt first touched the very cheek that Foggy's parents, aunts and uncles, brothers and sisters, teachers, and older students, who were touched by the first Nelson to become a lawyer, so passionately wanted to pinch. But he didn't pinch it, he just ran his fingers slowly down to his chin, which Foggy had recently shaved off his silly beard, although there was still a slight stubble there. Matt moved his hand with particular caution and tenderness, as if any slightly more abrupt movement would cause Foggy to explode or something like that. Foggy felt a pleasant tingling sensation down his spine and smiled slightly.
Matt framed his face, sliding his palm from his chin to his other cheek, then up to his temple. His finger lightly touched the bump just behind his cheek, and Foggy found it very ticklish. With his eyes closed, all his senses were heightened. As Matt slowly explored Foggy's face, Foggy began to feel every line of Matt's fingers, his hot breath reflecting off his palm, allowing him to understand the shape in which it was bent. His thumb hovered a few inches from his face, but it didn't go unnoticed either. And Foggy felt his heart pounding right in his ears. Loud, confident. He really felt a strange rush of blood to his face. It must have been red as a tomato. Realizing that something was happening that Foggy couldn't describe, he frowned, and wrinkles formed on his forehead, where Matt's fingers lingered.
Yeah, girls would love that, Foggy thought. And why doesn't Matt touch their faces? That's interesting in itself. Pleasant. Even sexy.
Foggy wanted to shake his head to get rid of this silly thought. But he didn't want to interrupt Matt. He wanted him to continue.
No, no, I don't like it, right? I mean, it's cool, of course. It tickles a little and all that. But I don't like some mysterious hottie touching my face, gently and reverently, as if it's really important to him to remember every detail of my face. Under different circumstances, I would punch that hottie in his pretty face. No, no, I don't like it at all. I don't like it at all.
Matt's fingers slid from the wrinkles on my forehead to my bridge of my nose, running his knuckle along my nose. Foggy took a deep breath as soon as his heartbeat accelerated to some extraordinary level that made his whole body ready to tremble. The tip of his nose. And then Matt removed his hand, only to return it immediately in a strange position, taking his chin so that his thumb touched the corner of his mouth, as if he were about to pull that face in for a kiss. Foggy tensed. And as soon as his finger began to move across his lower, plump lip, Foggy suddenly jumped back. It took him a whole second to come up with an excuse for his sudden jump.
“What?” Matt was taken aback.
“Ouch, dude, damn,” Foggy covered his mouth with his hands, pretending he had just been hurt. “You hit my sore spot.”
“Sore spot?”
“Yeah, my lips are chapped and cracked, God,” Foggy got up from the edge of the bed and headed for his corner of the room. “I also accidentally bit them till they bled yesterday.”
“Oh, well, um... Sorry, I didn't know,” Matt said in a strange tone. As if he knew Foggy was lying.
"Anyway, um... Was that enough?"
"Enough?"
"Well, for you to understand what I look like?"
"Well... I guess?"
"And how's that?"
“Well, you're definitely not ugly,” he laughed.
And Foggy blushed again. And smiled. It was unclear whether it was from the tension he had just experienced or from this lack of a compliment. In any case, he needed a little time to catch his breath and collect his thoughts. Foggy cleared his throat. He didn't even notice how this ticklish sensation had suddenly formed in his throat.
“Ahem, I'm going to the bathroom, ahem, to take care of my lip, God forbid it starts bleeding again,” he said, waving his arms energetically.
“Okay,” Matt grunted. “Then I'll go to sleep.”
And Matt plopped back down on the bed, turned his back, and covered himself with a blanket, wheezing as soon as he allowed himself to relax and sink into the bed. Foggy froze in place, already forgetting what he had just blurted out, but it was Matt himself who brought him out of the stupor he had put him in.
“Just don't slam the door, please.”
“Huh?” Foggy came to his senses. “Oh, yeah, of course, whatever you say, Mr. Sensitive Ears. Go ahead, good night.”
“Yeah, good night.”
Memories of this, for lack of a better word, incident instantly awakened in Foggy a need to recharge his energy. Fortunately, Karen had no plans to finish her plate of Mrs. Cardenas' cooking. Foggy was ready to lose himself in the amazing gastronomic pleasure and forget about this episode, which had taken place many, many years ago, but for some reason still bothered him when he was alone. But Karen's curiosity ruined Foggy's plans.
“You ever tell him what I look like?” she asked, smiling dreamily, hopefully.
“No,” Foggy almost choked. “He doesn't need me to tell him...” He faltered, realizing he couldn't tell Karen directly that she was incredibly beautiful. He could say that to Matt, but to her personally... It was easier to swallow his tongue. “He's probably got... a picture of you in his head. I don't like to mess with those.”
Foggy wanted to sink into the ground. He doesn't like to ruin them. Then why, according to his own words, does Matt touch people's faces at all? Foggy has no idea whether he really touches them or not. He was digging himself deeper and deeper into a hole that would sooner or later reveal the uncertainty he had buried long ago. Why did he even talk about Matt with the girl he liked? Of course, Foggy joked and reduced the possibility of a date with Karen to sarcasm, but he would have gone to great lengths to ask her out on a real date. Instead, he sat there telling her what a “sexual Rain Man” Matt Murdock was. He tried to focus on his food, the only consolation in this whole situation.
“Hey, Foggy,” Karen called quietly, and he had to look up at her again.
Foggy pretended to be calm. In reality, he was on the verge of losing his mind. He prayed to his ancestors that Karen would change the subject. What if she wanted to tell him something about herself, something important, something that only close friends share? So he folded his hands professionally, as if he were still at work, and pretended to listen to anything. And he would have listened. Karen, lost in thought, kept trying to suppress an awkward smile as she stared at the floor. And then she said something that Foggy would compare to being doused with a cold shower.
“I want you to touch my face.”
“Um,” Foggy stammered. “But I can see you, so...”
“No, I... No, I know. It's just... I wanna know how someone who's blind would ‘see’ me.”
She wants Foggy to touch her face. Bingo! Finally, Foggy could touch her in a special way. It would have been a good sign if not for one obvious problem.
Karen would be imagining Matt in Foggy's place. The same Matt that Foggy had been talking about all evening.
He had been talking about how wonderful, intelligent, and kind he was, and how he knew exactly what a lady needed. Karen wanted to know if Matt would find her beautiful... And Karen was beautiful. So beautiful that Foggy was a little ashamed that he had somewhat ulterior motives for talking to her and keeping her as his secretary/manager in his office. That meant Foggy could touch her the way Matt had once touched him. That should be good, right?
No, damn it, she would think about Matt instead of him. She would sit and dream about Matt. Just as Foggy had been dreaming about Matt all evening, without realizing it.
He was in trouble. Foggy looked away, embarrassed, and realized the horror. Nelson & Murdock law firm was threatening to turn into a soap opera. Foggy Nelson liked Karen Page. Karen Page, meanwhile, liked Matt Murdock. And Matt Murdock... God knows where he was. Probably with someone else. And that was despite the fact that Foggy had just said that Matt's interactions with women were hardly “dating”. And why was Foggy constantly joking about how many women Matt had? Sure, there was something about Matt that made him attractive to women; after all, he was a really good-looking guy. But he hardly slept with every woman he met, even if he somehow magically knew they were beautiful, if only because of his religious beliefs or something like that. In Foggy's mind, Matt Murdock must be a stud, a womanizer, with a rich sex life, where every woman is at his disposal. Because Matt loves women.
Perhaps because Foggy was still trying to smooth over the “weirdness” of that evening when Matt touched his face.
“Look, you do me, then I'll do you,” Karen said with an enthusiasm that was borderline unhealthy, but actively restrained by a whisper.
“Um, yeah, okay,” Foggy said and stretched out his arms.
Damn it, I just told you that Matt knows when he's with a beautiful girl. Why would you even doubt that he doesn't find you beautiful? That fool got you out of jail just because of your beauty when I was ready to bail because you didn't have the money. Why are you making me suffer, oh Karen Page, you villain. You terrible villain. You're taking revenge on me because your beauty alone wasn't enough for me to save you, like Matt did. Why have U suffer like this?
Karen immediately grabbed his wrists. Goosebumps ran down his skin from the way she took his hands. Foggy still couldn't believe this was really happening, his eyes wide with surprise. And Karen only made the situation worse.
“You have to close your eyes.”
“Right,” he smiled and closed his eyes, preparing to touch her face.
Don't think about Matt, you fool, you're touching Karen! Beautiful, charming, funny, definitely your type. You just had dinner together and even said it was a date. As a joke, but still! This is your chance to win her over. Your chance to show her that you're no worse than Matt! But how do I do that?
And he was caught up again in thoughts of how Matt had touched his face. He wondered how he could repeat that with Karen. How he could make his hands seem just as careful, attentive, and interested in every little detail of her face, just as gentle. Karen pulled both his hands to her cheeks. And Foggy felt how hot her cheeks were. She was as red as a lobster. And Foggy was horrified. Did Matt also feel how red Foggy was at that moment? How nervous he was? Could Matt think that Foggy liked the way he touched his face? That he liked it...
So the two fools sat there and continued to think about Matt.
Until there was an explosion that blew out the windows, and shards of glass mixed with dust and dirt from the street flew in all directions.