A Dusk'd Archive

They look at her eyes and they see pretty indigo irises, with a peculiar shine, and they assume that it's alright, that it's worth it, that she should be glad to have them rather than common muddy or blue-ish eyes like so many others.

They laugh it off sometimes, when she tries to tell them what she sees, but when she tells a truth too close, or too uncomfortable, they squirm and look away and tell her to forget it, to turn it off.

But she can't. She remembers trying to, failures and the feelings of tears prickling in her eyes when she wanted nothing else but to tear them off her face.

She remembers the children at the orphanage, the ones nobody looked at but her, with their silence and bitten-off nails, with nasty words and scared glares, the ones who would shout and fight rather than admit she could hear them cry at night.

She remembers going to a friend's house, and looking at her father, and his hungry smile, and his wandering eyes. She remembers crying when she tried to tell, and how her friend ran away, calling her a liar and a fake, despite her own red eyes and large clothes, despite her white and blue skin and her thin smiles.

She remembers the woman at the supermarket, with her nice smile and her empty eyes, with truth rolling from her lips as easily as her lies.

But she doesn't tell them this. She says sorry, shrugs or smiles when they laugh, and learns to stay silent when she sees a truth too ugly to be told.

She knows that in the mirror, there's a reflection with strange indigo eyes and a pretty false smile, quick to come (she also knows that sometimes, the reflection moves, or smiles differently, to her, at her – but she stays silent on that too).

Her eyes see the truth, her mouth weaves lies. Because everyone needs the former, but wants the latter, and she needs them. So she gives them what they want, and in turn they smile at her and call her friend.