#idea1

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And so his father left. It was not a shock, to him, to anyone. Not even to his mother, though she bled from her eyes as if she had been blinded. He did not comfort her. That was not what he did. He kept his distance, through his mother's wails, and tried to remember how his father had looked when he walked out the door that morning, but he could not. He stopped trying.

He didn't tell his schoolmates, although the teachers sent him pitying glances as he wrote his vocabulary words. The glasses weighed pounds upon the bridge of his nose, restricting his airway, suffocating his judgement. He was older now, and knew not to draw attention to himself. And yet, he found himself shifting his eyes to look outside the frames, and noted that he was no longer surrounded by spirits. The children had ink inside of them, molten black, swirling around in their cores. He found that they were much more beautiful that way.

Late elementary school brought with it a new understanding. His mother no longer cried. Or smiled. Or talked. She fixed him meals and she slept, and he did not miss her. Her form seemed to melt more with each week, much like a candle that had burned for much too long. The maroon in her eyes, once so captivating, had faded until he could not distinguish them from the rest of her. Every piece of her seemed to be slipping away, and yet he could not care enough to help. He thought again, and again, am I wrong? Is there something wrong with me? And found again, and again, that he had no answer.

She asked him one day, she said, "Elijah, why won't you say anything?" But her voice sounded like the whispers of a mad scholar at death's door, and he declined to answer. She didn't ask again, and he almost wished her eyes would stop bleeding.

He couldn't look her in the eye when he left the room.

And so she faded, and so years passed. Classmates moved away, teachers came and went. Colors shifted, changed, elaborate patterns becoming clear. He watched it all with a disinterested eye, and yet his eyes catching still, even now, on the eyes of a boy who had not changed. The kids who shook him down still had turmoiling white under their skin, but not him. Not the boy with the cherry red eyes, whose ebony skin had not lightened a shade, even through into secondary school. With the glasses, his appearance could be so deceiving. Skin like caramel and eyes like oceans, calm colors, soft colors, colors that spoke of grace and quiet. And yet, his bare soul hid no such lies.

They did not speak. Not aloud, never aloud. But a look can be shared between two who had seen each other, really seen each other, that spoke novels more than any conversation. It became a game. A glance, 'I saw you behind the school yesterday.' An eyebrow raise, 'You know why.' A brush of the hand as a pencil is passed, 'I wish I didn't.'

His mother had asked him when he came home with a handful of pencils, "Why do you need that many?" But she didn't expect an answer, and he didn't have one to give. She was asleep again anyways.

The first time the boy spoke to him, it was to relay a redundant piece of information. "Cassiel. That's my name." But his voice felt like a holy commandment, and he didn't have the heart to tell him he had known his name since the day he had seen him first, eight years ago. Those days had passed, and yet his gaze still held the same sinful weight that they had then.

"You already know my name." Was all he said in return, but the sparks in his stare were all the answer he needed.

They knew each other the way identical brothers know the other whom they had never met. Everything, and yet all at once, nothing at all.