To See Me Through Your Eyes

She didn’t know what Jenny Kellen’s problem was with her. It was an honor to be graced with her presence–even if she was only around to torment Alora. Still, her hands throbbed where Jenny had shoved her into the campus’s ongoing construction zone, making Alora spring out her hands at the last second so they could cushion her fall into the bed of nails. 

Even seeing that evil soul, pure malice swimming in a pretty blonde body, Alora felt her breathing stop when she walked by, falling into human instinct to stop and stare. Jenny’s eyes were her favorite, hazel; a pretty light brown with swirling greens and dots of blue that were always focused anywhere but on Alora. Even when Jenny was torturing her, she was never looking at her. Jenny looked at her blood, she saw her pain, her tears, but never her. 

Alora wanted Jenny to look at her. 

Dressed in her Catholic school uniform, she swept through the halls, landing by her locker, the locker only a few down from Alora. Her fingers itched, she wanted to grab ahold of her, truly feeling the girl's presence. 

Jenny selected her books from the locker, jostling them in her grip. Jenny slammed her hand into Alora’s open locker as she walked by. The metal clanged, swinging shut onto Alora’s fingers. 

Jenny never took her eyes off the hall in front of her

The bullying wasn’t always how Jenny and Alora had been. Alora remembered how they’d been. It was hard not to when their pictures littered most of their shared dorm. 

St. George’s Catholic School for Girls offered little excitement. Still, the few adventurous joys they had managed to sneak were framed in stickered photo frames and then promptly hidden when the teachers would do their monthly examinations. 

It brought them closer. Their kinship had always been forged in some type of secrecy from the day they met. Alora had been cutting through the alleyways of the schools towering buildings–back when she still cared about grades–when she caught Jenny swathed in shadows; the only things standing out in the darkness were her eyes gleaming more golden than they ever had as well as the orange tip of the lit cigarette balanced between her glossed lips. 

Her eyes had only widened momentarily, before she spat the cigarette onto the ground, smashing it into the cold pavement with a disinterested crunch of heel. Compared to such hostile actions, the next pleading words came as a shock, “Please don’t tell anyone what you saw.” she avoided Alora’s eye, the traces of an innocent girl that no longer existed. That would never again exist. 

“Only if you give me one,” Alora gestured to the remnants of the crushed cigarette. 

It became their little secret, a small exchange of contraband between passing periods, the smell of nicotine shared between them in an unused supply closet. 

Jenny was one of the few people who had a brain belonging to her. Everyone seemed to blindly follow, marching their way through halls and flowing into their appropriate doors like well-trained goldfish. 

Both Jenny and Alora were united by the fact that they didn’t want to be there. Alora went here because of history. Her parents went to her as well as her grandparents, her great-grandparents, and so on. Jenny had been at a normal school before her parents discovered that she was bisexual. They didn’t talk about it much, but apparently 

Sending her to a catholic school is what they agreed on. 

It’ll wash the sin out of her is what they got wrong.

Alora waited in those closets. Sadness and grief paved their way into anger. Fury sparked every hidden feeling within her–those ugly parts, the ones Jenny had screamed at her for. Their last fight stuck like a gong within her mind over and over. 

Tears boiled over and even Alora herself was too damn confused to question what emotion brought them to the surface. She was face to face with Jenny this morning. Even eye to eye, Jenny did not look at her. 

Her glassy eyes might have been aimed at Alora yet they only saw through. Did Jenny see her? See everything she attempted to hide? It was terrifying even though all she craved was to be close to her best friend, to have that feeling of the other girl seeing her in a way no one ever had. 

Alora decided to skip her fourth period. She had to talk to Jenny, say something, say sorry. Alora didn’t regret it. But she was sorry. 

Alora had been racing to return home, see her friend, and regurgitate all the gossip that whipped through the St. George halls, a constant cacophony of spectated confessions. They’d been living together for a month at the time. 

Alora would do anything to live in that bubble forever. 

Jenny was sitting on the couch when she got to their dorm. Her arms were crossed, a broken and distorted imitation of Alora, her anxiety that had always been so separate from Jenny. The hairs on the back of her neck stood alert.

“What’s up?” Alora asked. “Want a cigarette? I smuggled some more.” 

For once Jenny shook her head. She never refused a chance to smoke, a small act of rebellion against it all. A secret revolution that whispered through the air via nicotine smoke and bad-smelling breath. 

“Alora, I’m transferring schools,” 

Alora stared at her. There was no way she’d just said that. Her fists tightened at her sides. “What.” a question word framed as a command. 

“I’m moving in with my grandparents. I don’t have to be forced into this place anymore.” She said it with a smile, though her eyes remained saddened. More blue, tired. 

Alora wasn’t happy for her. “You’re leaving me?” she almost couldn’t believe it.

“I’ll stay in touch. I promise!” Jenny swore. 

Alora’s nails carved small crescents into her palms; she could feel their marks beginning to burn, flaming, broiling. “No! You can’t leave!” They were happy. St. George might have been oppressive but they were supposed to be in it together. 

Jenny looked down at her lap, allowing Alora to yell obscenities that she didn’t remember. Everything started to go blurry, a timeline lost and blocked out from her memory. She remembered grabbing Jenny and yelling at her not to leave while her friend merely stated that she had to. 

But Jenny had a choice. They both knew that. There was always a choice and Jenny didn’t choose her. 

Alora kept the photos up even after their fight. She walked into Jenny’s room, not bothering to knock on the door. No matter how long she knocked, there would never be an answer. 

Alora pulled up a chair, swinging it across from Jenny who was propped up on her bed. “Hey, Jenny,” Alora whispered. It was too quiet to talk at full volume. 

“....” Jenny stayed silent. 

“Please look at me. I know you’re made but you’re driving me crazy…”

“I’m going to go fucking crazy!” Alora pulled at her hair. She wanted to run from everything yet she also craved to hug her friend. 

Glass was now scattered across the floor. Their largest picture was in tatters, cracked frame and ripped in half. The actual glass covering was smashed into sharp projectiles. Some were dyed red. An imprint on the scene. 

Blood flowed in rivets.

Jenny still didn’t answer, her eyes looked past as always. Glassy, dull and muted. 

The eyes of a dead girl.

Only the slimy feeling between Alora’s fingers brought her back to the present. When did Jenny stop fighting? Her eyes weren’t even moving. Those eyes that had pierced her were now dull. Her fingers moved through the blood slicking her palms. 

What had she done? 

Dread sunk through her. 

Only now, months later, did Alora realize that what she’d done was best in the end. Now she wouldn’t leave. Maggots and flies picked through Jenny’s pale flesh. As long as they didn’t begin to eat her eyes. Those were for Alora only. 

“I know it might take a little bit to forgive me.” Alora took Jenny’s hands on her own. “But best friends forever,

Right?”