White Ladder, Covered in Water

I've always envied people who could read eyes.  They say, the eye is the window to the soul.  And your emotions, your motives, your deepest hopes and dreams you've always wanted to keep hidden, they're like that girl who always strips all the way down when she's changing.  And she always makes a show of it right in front of the window.  She pretends that she just doesn't notice the blinds wide open right in front of her, but it's that paper-thin attempt at keeping up an appearance of innocence that makes the whole thing that much sexier.

That's what they say, at least.  I wouldn't have any idea, given that I haven't seen it.

The one thing I can spot, though, is a twitcher.  Magic users, every once in a while, twitch their eyes.  They just bounce around for half a second before going back to normal.  Blink and you'll miss it.  But time it just right and you can catch their eyes twitching.

On the outside, if you paid close enough attention, it looks like they just caught a glimpse of something just an inch off of whatever they were focusing on.  On the inside, migraine is too mild a word for it.  On the inside, it feels more like your brain's developed claustrophobia all of the sudden and tries to make a break for it.  Just for half a second, though, and then it's gone.  During downtime, at least.

It's not as hard to notice the twitching when they're casting.  Barring the lighting or fire or whatever it is raining at you.  At that point, their eyes look like they're ready to burst in their sockets.  Pop.  Pop.  It's not a very pleasant sensation.  Needless to say, pain tolerance is one of the first things a trained mage studies.

Will was anything but that.

"You alright?"

He was rubbing his temples.

"Yeah," he pulled a bottle of aspirin out of his pocket and downed it with his coffee.  "Just a headache.  Happens sometimes."

"So how's Micha doing?"  He didn't miss a beat.  This wasn't new to him.

He only had the headaches so far.  The headaches aren't so bad.

"She's alright, I guess," I stared at my coffee.  "Sitting around at home, constantly refreshing her email, waiting for a reply from any of the places she sent her resume off to.  Half of them don't even bother sending stock rejections anymore."

"Seriously?  That's bullshit."  He took another sip.  "Doesn't she have like, two degrees or something?"

"Nobody's hiring," I said.  "One degree, two degrees, job experience means shit.  I'm stuck working all day every day and I still barely manage to scrape in enough to maybe go out and get coffee with old friends once in a while."

He half-smiled, half-snickered, and went back to his coffee.  The girl in his eyes decided her top would work better with a skirt instead.  She had it fastened before I could get a good look, but it was good enough.  I had an in, at least, even if I had no idea what I was getting into.

I half smiled back.

"You're lucky, still living with your parents.  Rent is so fucking ridiculous these days you don't even know."

"Eh, I just feel like there's so much I'm missing out on," he said.

"Did you seriously not hear me?  I wasn't being cute when I said I only had enough to head out for coffee once a month.  This outing seriously wrecked my entire budget.  At least you can still do things."

We sat.  He was looking at something near his shoe.  I took a sip while we waited.

"I'm twenty-six," he muttered.

"There's no shame in still living with your parents, Will," I put my cup down.  "Just about everybody is these days.  And the ones that aren't are just one unpaid sick day away from being on the street."

I closed my eyes for a second.  I couldn't tell if he noticed.  We both took a sip.  He wasn't saying much today.

"Hey," I said, poking at the remains of my cheesecake.  "You wouldn't mind if I asked you a question?"

"Go ahead," he said.  He'd taken to holding his cup two-handed.

I sighed.  He gave me that, "Well?" look.

"What..." I bit my lip.  "What did you hear, my blue eyed son?"

He put his coffee down.

"Melissa."

"Yeah?"

"Please don't say that."

"You've heard it, then, haven't you?" I slid my plate towards the middle of the table.

"Once," he said.  "Just once."

"I want you to stop," I moved my fork.  "Just stop right now."

He didn't say anything.

"You can still stop now," I said.  "Those headaches you get?  Close your eyes as soon as they happen.  Keep them closed until it's over.  They'll go away after a few years."

I pushed my fork again.  "Just...just...They'll get bad.  They'll get really bad, worse than when you're casting.  They'll hurt like nothing you could ever imagine hurting, but just close your eyes, and grit your teeth, and just, stop."

"Are you alright?"

"I'm more worried about you right now.  I can handle this."

"I can't understand a word you're saying," he said.  He was staring.

I raised a finger for him to give me a minute.  Breathe.  It was getting hard to talk when I got stressed.  My tongue wouldn't work right anymore.  You won't notice it unless you're looking for it.  You wouldn't even notice that nothing you said came out in English.  But if you paid attention to it, you could feel your tongue moving the wrong way.  It wouldn't be making the words you thought you were saying anymore.

I took another breath.

"How's this?"

That came out alright.

"I got that."

"It gets really bad," I said.  "Once you start seeing them."

"Seeing what?" He was starting to lean.

"It'd be better if I didn't tell you."

"Alright."  He tried not to push it.  But I could just barely make out in his eyes that he wanted to know.  More than anything else.

"But once you start seeing them, when your eyes twitch..."  I stared at the crust on my cheesecake.  I wish I had the stomach to finish it right now, especially after how much I paid for it.  "I don't think you can turn back after that."

He eyed my cheesecake too.  I wonder if he thought he could make something out.

"What does this table feel like to you?"

"Like a table," he said.  "Why?"

"It feels wet to me," I said.  "Like somebody spilled their water and the baristas haven't wiped it down yet.  Everything feels that way to me now."

He looked away for a second.

"Do you know how cold that gets?"

He didn't answer.

I could see them out the window.  The headaches were gone, at least.  I figured, the headaches, the eye twitching, all that must be your mind trying to deal with what it was taking in.  It's not ready to perceive something like this yet.  Not at the beginning.  It's a new baseball glove, just out of the box.  It'll be stiff, it'll fight you every step of the way, it'll take forever to break in, but once you do, it'll start catching properly.  And it loses its stiffness.  When you stop getting the headaches...

"Will?"

"Yeah?"

"My break's almost over."

"Mm."  He stared at his coffee.  I stared at mine.

"Could you come over tonight?"

He glanced at my hands for a second.

"Alright."

If he looked at me, I think I could almost make out what he was thinking.  Maybe.  It looks like the girl got up and closed the blinds.

I tried smiling.  He didn't notice it anyway.  They were right outside the window.