Chapter 2:

Every morning, I wake up, go through the painfully boring motions of getting myself ready, and then head off to school to receive an edition that I don't even desire, but perhaps, one day, will come to appreciate. It's always the same dull cycle: wake up, eat, bathe, brush my teeth, leave. Du ring this mind numbing procedure, there is always one thing that isn’t quite so numbing at all. Every morning, before I bathe, I stare at myself in the mirror for at least a good five minutes, scrutinising every flaw. Obviously, the thing that stands out most is the eyes. Even to me, after seventeen years of living inside of my own body, they creep me out. It was always my dream to do eye surgery, make both irises the same colour, but since that isn't possible, I'm turning to the next best thing: contacts. 

At first, I wanted to make both eyes brown, but I decided that it would be too big a change. Besides, I don't want to have to wear contacts in both eyes. Therefore, I've chosen to keep the colour of the eye that I like better: the green one. 

“So remember, put it in the liquid every night,” the woman reminds me as she puts the package in a bag for me. I've been saving my lunch money for weeks to pay for this. I briefly ponder how my brother would feel if he found out what I was actually using his money to do, and I realise that I probably don't want to. 

“And don’t use the same pair for over two weeks. Take them out while sleeping.”

I have to admit, her customer service is good. Most people would just cash you and let you leave. 

“Thank you.” My outlook on this new acquisition is enthusiastic. I'm sure that this will improve my life, if not the way that others see me, the way that I see myself. 

Stepping out of the air conditioned store, I am hit — no, punched — by a wall of sweltering heat, the sun feeling as if it could melt the rubber off of my shoes. This is what I had walked through to get to the store,and that's what I have to walk through to get home, but it's well worth it if I get to go to school looking normal on Monday. 

Of course, Damien just has to be sitting in the living room when I walk through the door. I can't just make it to my room in peace. Awkward conversation reminding me of our broken relationship just has to be a part of my day. 

“Where were you?” 

The sound of his voice as I walk through the door frightens me. I expected him to be upstairs in his room. 

“Out.” Being the idiot that I am, I didn't think of a good lie in all the time that was given to me, and I'm not able to come up with one on the spot.

He taps his fingers against the armrests of the couch, suspicion plain on his face. I almost expect him to ask me what's in the bag. He looks at it with slight curiosity as I clutch it to my chest. Thank God I got a black bag, and not one of the clear ones that he could see through. He may not be able to see through the bag, but he can sense my discomfort rolling off of me in waves and diffusing into the air like the smell of rotten eggs. He makes the intelligent decision to let it go. 

“Okay. Shout me if you need something.”

Before he can even finish, I’m walking up the stairs, a sense of excitement flowing through me, but much stronger than before. It's as if once I stepped through the door, my anticipation went up tenfold because I knew that I could finally see it, feel how it works. 

It's kind of like pooping. When you're out with strangers, you can hold it in, contain it (most of the time) but the second you step through that door, it feels as if it's trying to explode from inside of you. 

I have the worst analogies.

The bag feels as if it weighs a ton and a half, ready to drag against the tiled steps, as if it could possibly change my life. I'd told myself that I'd wait to try it on until tomorrow, but now, seemingly out of no where, it feels harder than ever. Standing outside of the communal bathroom at the top of the stairs, I try to decide my next move. If I try it and don't like it, it will screw up my entire day. Better now than Monday morning, though. 

“Screw it.”

***

I'd be lying if I said that I'm not nervous. As I am the type of person to overthink, I am considering a million and one ways that this could possibly go wrong. What if the damn thing gets stuck to my eye, and I get an infection? That would be beyond disgusting; I've seen multiple eye infections, and they all look horrifyingly nasty, and extremely painful. And then there is the issue of infections possibly leading to blindness. Another scary possibility, is the idea that it might roll back behind my eye. Now I know that this ideology is a bit extreme, but that is the kind of ridiculousness that goes through the head of an overthinker. 

After reading the instructions on the box about five times, I carefully open it, and a few minutes later, it's in. 

I've never felt more beautiful in my entire life. Not when my first crush kissed me in grade two. Not when my father gave me a princess dress for Halloween, because he said that I was his Cinderella. Not when my mother gave me a makeover for my tenth birthday. 

Well, there was one thing that made me feel more beautiful. When my brother told me that I was a swan. Thus is close enough. No to say that it is perfect (they are slightly uncomfortable, and they're not precisely the same hue) but in this case, vanity feels no pain. I Look at myself in the mirror from several different angles, a huge grin across my face. 

“Emma?” I hear my brother's voice,causing me to jump, pulling me from my fantasy world with my, almost equally green eyes. His footsteps get louder as he walks up the stairs, his flip flops squeaking against the tiles. I look at myself, and I feel strangely... acceptable. But there's something else. What if I let him see? What if he comments, and it gives us something to talk about? Because currently, that's all I want. Something to bring us together, even if it's the awkward topic of my eyes. It's something that he's avoided for so long,something that we used to speak about all the time. Yet another indicator of how far apart we have grown. 

“Yeah?” I reply, opening the door and poking my head out to face him. This is it, I think to myself. And even if he gets angry, at least it means that he feels something, as if I am more than just a burden for him to bear. 

He reaches the top step and raises his head to look up. I see the exact moment that he notices the change in my eyes. I see it, but he tries to hide it; he has an annoying habit of doing so. His mouth open to say something. And the he closes it, saying nothing, his face showing nothing but mutualism. 

Come on, Damien. Talk to me. 

I want him to talk to me, care, ask, anything, but instead, he simply shakes his head as if to clear it, and says nothing. 

“You hungry?” There is a long pause after his words. I give him adequate time to say something else, insert anything that he might have neglected to. I wait. And wait.  But when he looks at me questioningly, it's clear that that's all I am getting. 

I don't have the heart to answer with words. I know that if I open my mouth to speak, I will probably start crying. Therefore, I simply nod.

“It's downstairs.” And then he leaves. Just like that. Sometimes, I wonder if he how's how much the little things that he does, or in this case don't do, hurt me. I doubt it, though. He's many things, but I don't believe that he is a sadist. Apart from that, I don't know why I expected anything else to happen, but the disappointment that runs through me is as harsh and unforgiving as ever.