Saturday's Storyteller: "She read me like Braille."

by Belinda Roddie

She read me like Braille. Her fingers danced across my shoulders and arms, caressing every mole and every goosebump and every random sprig of hair that rose from my puckered skin like a sad stalk of black grass from a smooth desert of brown flesh. Soon, her palms began to navigate the creases of my hips, the spider webs of stretch lines weaving across my torso like they were actually alive and bristling with sunlight, golden and warm against my lover's hands. She did not have to touch my face to know that I was crying. She did not have to sense my body shaking against hers to understand my sadness.

"Some day," she whispered to me, her teeth almost grazing my ear lobe, "you'll come to understand how wonderful of a person you really are."

That night, lost in the cushions of my father's old couch that I had stuffed into my depressing apartment, was the last night I saw Sasha for nearly six years. She had been twenty at the time; I had been twenty-seven. The age difference did not matter to her - when she brushed herself against me, she got to experience, firsthand, the growing map of my body, the contours of my waist and chest as scars rose and fell with my breathing. 

I had dealt with many things, seven years her senior, that she had never imagined she would ever get close to encountering. I had been mugged and slashed by a drunken man on a San Francisco street corner. I had burns from too hot of coffee served in a styrofoam cup by a vengeful coworker, lost as much as I was in the maze of white, sterile cubicles. I still had welts from years of bad acne, my futile attempts to stifle the largest pustules with lotions being just that - futile. And of course, the massive gash left behind from my C-section, my child lifted from me by latex gloved hands, crying for its mother. He had never been able to hold my hand.

Sasha had heard my stories, her ears nearly perked up as she lay beside me, her red curls spilling across my shoulder as she propped her head close to my clavicle. She had been able to identify my pain, my frustration, even my secrets just by the strokes of her fingers. She hadn't seen my face scrunch up as I was ready to sob. She hadn't winced when I had bit down on my bottom lip, hard, and accidentally drew blood. Not until, when she kissed me, she tasted it.

And then she was gone.

It was too tiring for me to explain why, and, truth be told, the reason was simple: My needs were very different from hers, and I had failed her when it came to holding her up as much as she held me up. A stone can only prevail against a few storms before the hail, rain, and lightning starts to wear it away. I had begun to erode her, and to save herself, she had fled.

Only now she was coming back. And I was going to pick her up at the airport at seven fifty AM, twelve hours from now, in fresh clothes and with a new haircut. She wouldn't be able to notice the color of my new shirt or the look of my bangs brushing against my surprisingly clear forehead. But she would be able to touch me, hear me, and smell me. My aroma would tell her everything about my six years without her. I had to make a good impression.

But it was seven fifty PM at the moment, the night was egregiously warm, and the scar from my Caesarian was beginning to ache again. It was time for a bowl of mushroom soup and a very, very tall glass of apple ale.

***

It wasn't that I missed seeing the way a scarf rustled in the wind, or the pink tongue of a cat as it lapped away at a milk bowl, perfect porcelain. I had lost my vision when I was very young. However, if I were given a choice - say, to have my vocal cords cut out in exchange for new eyes - I'd accept that offer to see again in a heartbeat.

Megan was the first person I knew who looked beyond my glazed pupils, and the way I wobbled against the wall and flailed that dreadful cane in order to strike every obstacle in my path. She had first complimented me on my smile, then on my dresses - which I was very careful about organizing, in order to get the color she liked most, which was royal blue - and later, on my patience. I had to have a lot of that with her. And when it drained dry, she didn't have much to compliment me on anymore.

I was assisted to the airport by a good friend of mine, someone who I had spent considerable time with as of late. We had been childhood pals, and he had, essentially, been my guide dog minus the dog part and plus the human part. He would describe the way characters in a movie looked, hold my hand when concerts go too loud, and lead me through crowds in order to get to my favorite restaurants in the bustling downtown. If he had his way, he would even feed me everything, like I were a baby. I didn't let him have that much fun.

I would meet Megan by the baggage claim, led over by an assigned flight assistant, as it were. I wasn't sure if we'd hug, or kiss, or even high-five. In the end, I found myself strangely looking forward to touching her again. And, if anything else, finding the strength and courage to hold her as she cried during the night even when I desperately wanted to switch roles.

The main reason I was visiting her, however, was bigger than that - Megan's son, who she had given up at the age of twenty-two, was now eleven years old, and I had happened to meet him. He, too, had gone blind at a very young age, and we had found common ground in our struggles to appreciate the world without light or color or shapes. He had learned to play guitar. I said that his mother would be so proud of him. His response? "I wouldn't know. I've never met my biological mother."

Perhaps, for the first time, he finally could.

This week's prompt was provided by Daniel Bulone.