This Empty-Eyed Town

It was dusk when he began to walk. The moon hovered near the treeline almost hidden by the thick brush that lined the two sides of the street. The street lights were flickering. A nasty orange huge washed the empty road, and still, he walked. Head down, one foot in front of the other. His shoes were so terribly worn down, holes grew in the soles. The laces were fraying. They had once been white, now a dirty brown-grayish color. But it was the only pair he had. He tried not to let the patheticness of the situation seep into him too much. 

Nighttime was the only time he could meet her. She hadn't given a reason for that. Nico assumed it was due to strict parents, though he had never met her parents, nor any of her family. He tried to shove it out of his mind, how little she let him know her. He swallowed the growing lump in his throat. It was an ache, how he knew internally and relentlessly that he didn’t deserve any of what she had, they had. Or at least they did. She hadn't spoken to him for days, he pushed the thought far from his mind. 

It was a winding half-hour's walk to Finley's house from his own. They lived in a desolate town. Broken street lights between empty parking lots. He thought about her as he walked. There wasn't much else to do. He had memorized these roads. No one drove past him. Not one. He heard no laughing, no music, no talking. The streets stayed as dead silent as potholes and the dirty old benches. It was plain to see that the people in this town were as empty as the bare space around him.

But she was different. She was loud, her laugh untamable. It was as if this place hadn't touched her. She hadn’t minded his messiness, she hadn’t minded that he seemed to be ten steps behind everyone else. She hadn't… until five days ago when he had asked to meet her father, when he had implied the word “love.” Their constant texting and calling had stopped dramatically. She had barely looked him in the eye. 

He sighed, and put his left foot forward. There was nowhere else to go anyway. He hopelessly wanted to see her, to fix whatever he had done wrong.

It wasn't too much later when he finally rounded another corner and saw her house. Deep underneath his ribs, he felt something flutter. But, head down again, he continued walking, trying not to let his shoulders cave in. His bravado fading.

He could hear muffled talking inside, laughing too. The air around the house seemed to pause despite the growing winds. The glass windows emitted a warm light. He heard sounds of chairs scooting across what sounded like wooden floors. The wind whistled around the house, brushing his hair gently. 

His hand reached into his pocket, gently tugging his phone loose. His fingers nervously twitched over the keys. He hit send and loosed a breath.

I’m here. It read. 

He heard a chair scrape the floor, and a faint echo of footsteps. The door opened softly, noiselessly, and there she was.

Finley was beautiful, but it was hardly that simple. Fin was the moon herself, water, and waves, Finley was poetry and all the good things in the world. The wind brushed her soft black hair into her eyes, and with small hands, she tucked it behind her ears. Nico looked down at her and smiled, until she frowned and began to speak.

“What the hell are you doing here Nico? This is ridiculous, I can't see you here,” she whispered in a quiet voice, but not a soft one. Nico blinked, caught off guard.

“I missed you. You- I-” he stumbled over his words, “you haven't talked to me in days Fin.”

“My family cannot see you.“ She stressed the word. Tucking her hands deep into the pockets of a jacket she had stolen from him months ago. 

“Why not.” He pried, not sure if he wanted to know the reason. 

“You know why.” Her face grew hard.

“No. I don't.” Nico pressed. 

“I mean-” she threw her arms up in the air, the wind picked up covering their voices and so she raised hers a bit. “Look at you. You’re not exactly the guy they’d want me to date.” Fin looked to him for understanding, for the compassion he always gave. 

Nico broke eye contact and looked downwards. She went on, now desperate to make him understand.

“You don’t have good grades or hygiene and you’re not exactly a rule follower, you’re, how do I say this? You’re a lot, Nic.” He stared at his shoes, willing them to be cleaner, willing his shirt to be less wrinkled, he ran a hand through his hair. Trying to tame the curls. 

“I’m too much. Is that it?” the words were barely audible, swept away in the heavy wind. He waited for her answer.

“Everyone thinks you’re not good for me.”

He heaved a breath. Trying to stop himself, but his anger did not yield to any master. His words came out as a yell. “So that's why you haven’t talked to me? Why haven't you even looked at me? I didn’t do anything wrong, you just don’t like me? You don’t get to do that Fin. You don’t get to just hurt someone like that.” He turned away. He could hear her speaking to him, calling. 

“No, Nic-” but she didn't dare speak louder than the wind, she didn’t dare to let her parents overhear. and on this empty street, so far from home, that was all that mattered. 

So he left. He headed for the road that led him furthest away. His eyes brimming with tears that he tried to ignore. Swiping at them with the back of his palm. They were warm on his skin.

He didn't know at what point he began to run, racing the moon or perhaps the beating of his heart. Nico outran every bad thought, his shoes broke open on the potholes, broken glass from alcoholics and cigarette butts lined the streets. For such a small town there were so many unhappy people. There were so many people barely alive. 

He thought of his shoes and his hair, of his cowardice, and then he tried not to think. His breath came faster. his skin burned despite the chill. There was no outrunning these things. He hated knowing where he was, but in this small town, there was no out. There was no outrunning anything. Not these streets he had known his whole life. 

Nico ran past he road where he had learned to ride a bike, where he had fallen and needed stitches as a child. He did not know why it made him so sad, or maybe he did. He would never escape this place.

He slowed to a walk after a couple of miles. The moon watched him sadly, hiding behind low clouds. The sky was so dark it didn't even seem to be there. But it was somewhat fitting, to be in a void. Nico knew he didn’t belong in the world. He wasn't good enough a fact that went far beyond physicality. At some point on the endless road that went nowhere, he stopped and asked himself the only question in his mind.

“What is wrong with you?” The words quivered on his lips. He folded himself into a sitting position on the road, the gray asphalt not a welcoming host. Small rocks bit into his hands. Nico's eyes burned with shame. 

He thought of his mother, his father, and the brother he once had. The reality of being unwanted, unloved. Nico was not easy to love, no matter his efforts. The truth was he was not smart, he was not handsome, he was average, and the holes in his clothes did not help. He cursed himself. He cursed his father, his mother, and all the flaws that wouldn't leave him. 

The blue light of his phone blinked on. He watched emptily as the phone rang. Once. twice. He didn't move, his lungs stayed still. He ignored the 9 missed calls.

Nico didn’t move for a long long time. 

It was late when he had sat down, it was even later when he surrendered himself to the road. A solid surface beneath him was far too tempting. Lying on the road, the sky was no longer a void, it was filled with galaxies, stars, and planets. It was filled with small lights promising false hope. In his pathetic smallness, he reached a hand up, maybe to scoop them up, maybe to hold on to something good for once. His hand was visible by the blinking light of a far away run-down lamp post. In the yellow light, his eyes picked out small scars at the bases of his fingers, a worthless reminder of the anger he had faced all his life. Punching walls did not make him more worthy. Punching walls did not make him loveable.

Nico turned his hand, studying it. He looked at the picked skin and the bitten fingernails, all the evidence one should need to disregard him. He looked at the softness of his skin and his callouses. His outstretched hand reached for galaxies, for anything more than this. Anything at all. 

He lay on the road for far too long. His body began to shiver, to shake. Cold seeped into his very bones, it made a home in his ribs, his stomach, his lungs. It clung to him as no one else had. The wasteland around him was silent. He got up and began to walk again. It registered somewhere deep in his mind it was a long walk home, and even deeper, he did not know where home was, not really. Not the kind with warmth and laughing and love. Not that it mattered, not that it was an option.

He walked and the moon watched him, for miles.

After a long time, Nico heard a distant car engine. He watched as headlights crested over the small hill, painting the road with color. Nico blinked rapidly, eyes not ready to adjust. He stepped into the other lane, out of the way of the driver, put his head down, and kept walking. The car passed him and swung back around. The lights skidded over him and then stood fixed on him like some sort of prey. A car door opened and slammed shut again. His feet continued forward, or backward, he didn't know.

“Nico?” a small voice called. He turned slowly. There she stood. Hanging out of a car door. When their eyes met she exhaled, he watched the way her shoulders dropped. She began to run towards him, but Nico stumbled backward a few steps, and with a sad face, she stopped. 

“What are you doing,” he called. He wanted to yell, but he didn’t. 

“I was so worried about you-” she was crying voice breaking “you weren’t at home and you didn't answer and I-”

“Finley.” He tried to stop her, but it did no such thing

“No. Nico. I need to say this. I have treated you so horribly and I know it and I hate myself for it. I want to be so much better. I was terrified of my parents, of my family. But I do not care what they think anymore Nic, I do not care-”

“Finley,”

“-I get it you’re angry with me, but I want to be with you. Nic, I think I love-”

“Finley stop it! You don't love me!” He surprised himself with his outburst. But he could not stop. He could not watch this girl give herself up for someone as lowly as him. “You do not love me.” He spoke calmer this time, more assured. She looked like she might cry. “There is nothing in me to love, and you know that. Its why you’ve been avoiding me. I get it, Fin. I understand. You don't have to pretend for me. I will be just fine-” his voice cracked open and he shut his throat, swallowing down something terrifyingly big. 

“I am never going to be what you want. I am dumb and I am dirty and I am ugly-” his voice broke again and she stepped forward, taking his face in her hands. He flinched.

Nico had never been so vulnerable, so afraid. He shook beneath her touch.

“You are not ugly.” She said with more confidence than he had heard in her entire life. “I think you might be the most beautiful person I have ever met. I said those things because- well- you aren't normal. But I don't want 'normal'. I do not want another empty-eyed boy telling me I am hot.” She almost spit out the word, “Sometimes I feel you are the only real person on this entire earth. The only person alive in this damned town.”

He took in a shaky breath, and she continued, “I want to try this. I was being an idiot. I was afraid, I am afraid that I will mess something up, that I will hurt you. I am afraid that my parents won't like you, that they won’t understand that you might be the most important person to ever live-”

“-I am not important-” he cut in.

“You are to me.”

Nico felt like his ribs might break, for how constricted they were in his chest, he barely breathed. She kept going, “I do not care if you are bad at math. I want to be with you. Please let us try this. Please.” Fin begged before him.

Nico sniffled against the tears in his eyes. Even in his blurry gaze, she was worth more than all of those galaxies. 

“Look, I even brought my dad to help me find you, because I am ready! I am so ready to do this! To be us. Please.” She looked at him, persistent, in love, she reached out and took his hands from him. She held them gently between them. Nic's eyes flickered to a man hanging out of the other side of the car. Their gaze met for a moment, and despite his lack of everything, of smarts or looks, Fin’s father nodded at him. 

Nico looked back at Finley. His hands rested in hers. His cold, dirty hands. She did not mind. She did not pull away.

“I am not good enough for you,” he said quietly, almost matter-of-factly. She brought his cold hands to her face. The same scar-stained, childish hands, and she kissed them with soft lips. 

Nico's stomach dropped. His entire body almost gave way. Something burned in his throat, in his chest. It spread throughout him, melting.

“I do not care, I love you.” She spoke with more conviction than he had ever witnessed, more than any preacher he had ever heard. Her eyes were black in the night. They were wide and open and looking at him, seeing him. Finley saw him and was not afraid. She did not turn away. 

“I think I love you too,” he breathed. Someone finally loved him. Finley loved him.

“Let me take you home. Let me fix this. Let me fix us." She whispered.

Something broke inside of him then. His hands no longer felt so cold, his scars did not feel so ugly. In the dark, on a barren street, in an empty-eyed town, in the arms of a girl who loved him, Nico's body caved open.