Blinded
I met her on the stairs. Her face was sore and beaten even worse than the week before. Without words, I was able to tell what had happened. It had been going on for a few months. Sadly, she’s been used to it so much that she knew how to control her tears. I rushed down to help her up the narrow steps and opened the door to my apartment. I led her into the bathroom so she could clean her small, crusted rivers of blood while I got her an ice pack from the freezer.
Trouble had always followed Ann since she was little. Her two older brothers belonged to the local gang and her father was a heavy drinker with more than his share of problems with the police. Her mother was away at work most of the time so she could provide for them, leaving Ann at home, usually alone. Her mother always warned her that if anything happened, that she was supposed to call her. Ann never did and always tried to cover it up, saying she fell while playing at school. Her mom saw through it though to what was really happening, so she took Ann with her and moved as far away from them as they could.
When I peeked back from the freezer, I saw Ann trying to make her way over to the kitchen. I immediately dropped the ice pack and rushed over to support her. As soon as her arm was on my shoulders, she dropped all her weight down on me. I carried her to my bedroom and set her on the bed. I gave her a few extra pillows as I went to get the ice pack. When I returned, she was trying to sit herself up, so I practically jumped over to Ann and help her.
“You know, I can still do some things on my own,” she said.
“Yeah, I know. But while you’re here in my apartment, you don’t have to,” I responded with a smile.
She looked up at me and gave me a half-smirk. “Okay, I guess then. You’re the boss.” She plopped back down onto the pillows as I started to rub the ice pack over her sores and bruises. “I never did say thanks for all that you’ve done for me.”
“Hey, don’t mention it. You know I’m here for you and that I’d do anything you want,” I said.
“Yeah, I know,” she replied. “That’s what I love about you. . .” She stopped her sentence quickly and stared back into space. I paused for a second but returned to mending her wounds.
Ann and I met in sophomore year in high school. She had just transferred into school and knew absolutely nobody on the campus. One day, she was getting into a little scuffle with some jerks in the school parking lot late after school. I was coming back from hockey practice and saw what was going on, so I dropped all of my bags, grabbed my hockey stick and bolted towards them. A few swings later, the guys left and I helped her up. I introduced myself and we started to talk for quite a while. I offered to walk her home “for protection” and she gladly accepted. After that, we were walking together everyday, talking and laughing on the way. Since I was practically the only person she knew and felt comfortable around, we began hanging out together, eating lunch and everything. She would even stay after school to watch me play hockey. She didn’t know anything about hockey, but she seemed to catch on more and more each day.
I turned on the television in my room on so she could watch as I fixed her something to eat. Her last sentence stuck in my already confused mind. On some level I knew those feelings were still there in her, I even prayed that they were still there, but I never really thought it would happen. Back in senior year, I asked her out to my prom and she agreed. Before, we had been hanging out like crazy, practically like boyfriend and girlfriend. I had been thinking of that idea for a while now but decided to keep our friendship ahead of anything else. Being a little shy also play a part of my decision. However, that night I chose to throw all of that away, since it could be our last night to spend together before we go to college.
“So, any word yet from UCLA?” I asked.
“Yup. I just got it yesterday. I got accepted on a full-time scholarship!” she exclaimed.
“Oh my gosh, that’s terrific!” We both leapt towards each other and hugged out emotions out. One of us, however, seemed to express a little too much of their emotions, so we released her grasp and looked back down at the table. Neither of us knew what to say at that moment, so we let the awkward silence fill the space between us.
“Well, the only thing that really sucks about it is that we’re both going to be so far apart.” Ann said, breaking the silence.
“Yeah, well, we’ve already been apart many times already,” I responded.
“True, but never this far apart for such a long time. I mean, I’ve been dying to go to UCLA since forever and I know that you’ve always wanted to go to New York to do pre-med. I don’t know if I can handle it.”
“Why? What’s up?” I wondered. I noticed that her eyes started to wander around the room. Ann always did this whenever she was about to go into something deep, with a lot of thought.
“Well, lately I’ve been questioning our friendship, looking at it from the first day we met. Recently, it seems that you’ve been acting different around me. Every time we talk, I can tell in your voice that you’re hoping , searching for something more between us. Is that true?”
That moment, that single minute, came from out of nowhere. I never expected this to come from her. In that single statement, she had me caught. I had absolutely no words to say to her, to explain myself to her. Except for the truth.
“Honestly, I have been thinking about us, what if something more could happen. I’ve noticed how people have already been treating us like we were together, so I started to think, ‘What if we were together?’” Her eyes stopped traveling around the room and started to fix themselves onto me. “I wanted to ask you earlier but then even more ‘what if’ questions started to pop into my mind, you know. ‘What if you said no?’ ‘What if we didn’t work out?’”
“Why do you think that we wouldn’t work out?” she asked. I looked up and I saw her staring right into my eyes, right into me. There was something about them that was different.
“Do you think it would?” I asked back.
“Well, there’s no way to find out unless we try,” she replied.
I was ecstatic. I never thought that this day would come to me. So now that it did, I wanted to do all I could to keep it here. That night, I did all the romantic things, getting down on one knee and asking if I could be her man, holding each other tightly during the slow dances. I hated so much for that night to be over, but couldn’t get over the fact that we were finally together.
The summer went by and we sadly left each other. We would get back together every day that we could, but all that changed when I met her older brother James. He and Ann met each other during her sophomore year in college. He claimed that he was finished with his old life, so he left their father and younger brother by themselves and decided on taking a business major down in UCLA. After staying at a friend’s house through high school and most of college, Ann, being the angel she is, offered to let him live with her. After a while, she started to act stranger and stranger. Every time we would meet, she would have some bruises on her arms and sometimes her face. She said she would get them from accidents at work, but sometimes, she wouldn’t believe what she would be saying.
When I graduated from New York, I transferred down to UCLA to finish up with medicine, and to be with Ann. Something seemed different, though, in her life. I could tell each time I would talk about James, somewhat accusing him of the bruises. Each time I brought it up, she would either change the subject or get in my face about it, saying it was none of my business. Then, the day came when she couldn’t deal with it anymore, and after three of the best years of my life, they were thrown away, just like that.
I brought Ann’s dinner to her and sat next to her while she ate, still mending to her wounds. Every time I looked at her beautiful face, all swollen and bruised, I hated myself even more for letting this happen to her.
“You know I can’t let you go back,” I told her.
“What are you talking about?” she responded. “Nothing’s going on there.”
“Bullshit. Do you even know what you’re saying? Can you even see yourself right now?!” I yelled as I threw a mirror in front of Ann, showing her each scar and bruise on her face. I was so furious with my anger towards her brother and being able to do nothing, that I was blinded to see what she was tired of. Ann broke down in tears and threw her dinner everywhere.
“You think I like what’s happening?! This is the same reason why my mom and I left my brothers and my dad. I had to deal with this for the first few years of my life. Do you think that I want this all over again?!” Her anger and sadness opened my eyes to what I did, and I quickly comforted her.
“Look, I’m sorry. I don’t want to see you go through that again.” I wrapped her in my blanket and hugged her close. “But, I guess if you want to go back to him, I’ll make sure that you don’t have to go through it alone. Alright?”
“Thanks,” she said. “Thanks for everything.” I stayed there next to her all night until she fell asleep. I tucked her in, turned off the lights and crashed onto my couch in the living room. When I awoke in the morning, she had left to go to work and I had classes in an hour. I grabbed a quick breakfast, changed and headed out to class. I had hoped that she would be okay, that her brother would be in a better mood today. I hoped that James would see what he had done to Ann, to his own sister. I should’ve hoped harder.
Later that night, two policemen were waiting for me at my apartment. They had told me that they found Ann in an alley about two blocks from where she worked, badly beaten. James was there, (what a coincidence), and he called an ambulance to rush her to a hospital. By the time she got there, it was too late. Ann had lost so much blood already, there was nothing that they could do. That moment, my heart sank down into my stomach. I tried to accept what had happened, but the two police knew that I couldn’t hold it in anymore, so they left me in my apartment. I cried all day long, and I didn’t sleep for the following week. Each day I thought about her, what had happened, and her brother. I couldn’t say that I hated him, because what I was feeling was far stronger than hate.
I saw him the weekend after at Ann’s funeral. Her mom tried to arrange it so that James wouldn’t find out, but somehow he did. People were probably saying that he found out from the news reporters, but I didn’t care. I just knew that I didn’t want him there, and would keep him as far away from her as she really wanted to. I sat down right next to that bastard and tried to wait as long as I could. After they let Ann into the ground, everyone headed back to their cars. I followed James to his car and slowly approached him. How dare he say that he cared for her, I thought. How dare he say that he was her family. I reached into my coat pocket and pulled it out. My hand calmly fitted itself into its cold steel handle as I walked towards him. As he looked out of the window, I stood there, looking him dead in the eyes. All too easy.
On the TV, the news was saying that the police were closing in on James as the prime suspect of Ann’s murder, but they were taking too long. I knew it was him from the moment I looked into Ann’s eyes that night. The court convicted me of first-degree manslaughter, and sentenced me to life in prison, with others saying that I should die. I didn’t care, because I knew that it would be over soon. I was able to sneak in some scrap metal from the workshop. They weren’t razor sharp, but they would do. I would wait until lights out to let it happen. I just couldn’t wait to see Ann’s eyes again, how they held something special in them. Something that kept us together all these years. They held something that opened my eyes, back to the world we lived in.
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