In Their Eyes

        Andrew Fellick took a seat in one of the stiff wooden chairs arranged in organized rows across the small waiting room.
Grabbing an old magazine off of the low table, he pretended to leaf through it, doing anything to distract himself from the deluge of memories threatening to break through his mental wall.
    Tapping his foot, picking at the buttons on his loose-fitting shirt, nothing could distract him. Finally, he picked up a pen and gave in.

  Ellen Jackie, a receptionist at Roots Grief Counseling, looked up from the stack of papers. She saw a young man, his eyes closed, furiously moving a pen across the back of a months-old copy of Golf Weekly. Craning her neck to see better, she began to see a picture take form.
    She saw a girl’s face, heart-shaped and framed by a wild, frizzy mass of hair. But the most striking feature was her eyes.
  Even from Ellen's awkward angle, she felt that they held great sadness behind them.

    Andrew felt his hand move across the page, tracing the lines he saw so often in his dreams. He felt a tear fall onto his hand and realized he was crying.
    He kept drawing. As he traced the last hair, he opened his eyes. He refused to look at the drawing, no matter how hard his heart drew his eyes to it.

  Fortunately, at that moment he heard Dr. Roslyn calling his name. With a shaking hand, he carefully put the pen back in its cup and stood to follow the petite, motherly-looking doctor.
  Once in her office, he took a seat and tried to look anywhere but her face. Eventually his eyes had nowhere left to
go, and he met her eyes cautiously.
  “Hi, Andrew,” she began. “I’m Dr. Roslyn. How are you today?”
  “Mmmm . . .,” he mumbled, avoiding expression of how desolate he felt.
  “Mmhm,” she hummed, still trying to meet his gaze. “We’re here to talk about your sister? Alexa, right?”  She saw him wince at the sound of the familiar name. “Now, I understandthat you don’t want to talk about this,” she continued, “But once we do, you’ll feel so much better! It’s been four years, Andrew. It’s time to live again."
  Despite what Dr. Roslyn considered to be an inspiring speech, Andrew continued to avoid her gaze.  With a sigh, she sat back in her chair and settled for what she had. "Just tell me exactly what happened. I haven’t heard the full story yet.”
    Finally, he couldn’t take it any longer. Taking a deep breath, he told all. 

    Heat. It was everywhere, ever-present in a St.
George summer: in the pavement, in the air, in the eyes of the people
walking the city streets. Andrew was one of them, wearing his usual
attire of sandals, shorts, and a much-loved t-shirt.
    He was humming a song to himself, content and happy to be alive.
    He didn’t notice the shadow of death stalking his footsteps, waiting and watching.
    Andrew turned down a side street, heading to his favorite restaurant to meet
up with his friends and girlfriend. Eager to see them, he hurried up.
    He heard footsteps behind him, and turned around. He felt something
cold and metal pressed against his head, a sharp contrast to the heat
surrounding him. A wave of ice-cold shock came over him as he realized that it was the barrel of a gun. Part of him wished it was a dream, but the other part realized he was living in a nightmare, a cliche, horror-movie nightmare.
    He heard a heavy voice order him to “get in the truck.” Andrew turned slowly and saw a sand-coated black pick-up sitting by the curb,
the engine still throbbing, though the car was driverless. His mind started racing, weighing his options, few and risky.
    It seemed to be the only thing to do. He raised his hand in a flash. Hearing a crack, he felt the gun leave his head.
    Shedding his flip-flops, he made a mad dash toward the car. Saying a thankful prayer for his father’s impromptu driving lessons, he climbed into the driver’s seat, shifted gears and sped into the main street as fast as the engine would take him.  Only then did he feel the hot jolt of pain emanating from his wrist, bent at a sickening angle.
    He heard horns blaring as he sped the truck along. Then he noticed why. He was going the wrong way.
    One car stood out from all of the others swerving to avoid him.  A shiny new minivan, was quickly approaching.  The shocking thing was the presence of the two faces he loved most, staring at him with wide eyes. 
  He braked, a last attempt to save his mother and sister. But it was too late.
  Too late to stop, too late to save Alexa.
  A screech of brakes, a clang of metal on metal, a few screams, and Andrew’s life came crashing
around his ears.


  Tears fell down Andrew’s face, coloring the beige
carpet a darker brown.
  “Alexa died immediately. My mom was crippled, and she never forgave me for it.  For either of them” He put his head in his hands, his shoulders shaking as he tried to stifle the sobs he had held in for years.
  There was a long quiet, broken only by his uncontrollable crying.
  Eventually, Dr. Roslyn spoke. “Andrew, I think that the best thing for you to do would be to forget. Forget about that
day, forget about how you felt. Forget about Alexa."
  A burst of anger overcame Andrew. Throwing the doors open, he sprinted through the halls. Somehow he made his way to the car, violently jerking the door open. His shaking hand started the ignition, and a trembling foot pressed down on
the gas.
  Where was he going? Anywhere but here, somewhere he could be alone in his grief, where people would stay away from him, would leave him to mope and scream and blame himself.
  The next thing he knew, he was at the cemetery, standing over a familiar headstone.
  Alone. Totally and utterly alone, until he saw a slow funeral procession was passing by, following a tiny, child-size coffin.
  He looked, and saw the sadness in their eyes. They looked, and saw the sadness in his eyes.
  And Andrew understood. That’s all that life was: sadness, and death, with those tiny spots of happiness scattered throughout.
  He didn’t want it anymore. It was too much. Dr. Roslyn was right. The only way forward was to forget, and the only way to forget was to leave.
  St. George held too many memories, too much to remind him. Getting back into the car, he started the ignition and went down the winding road leading out of the cemetery. Pulling onto the freeway, he began to think.
  Of the gun that hadn’t even been loaded, of the truck that had carried death, of the sister who had been lost in an instant of panic and fear.
  He had to move on. He had to forget. He had to leave.
  But where? What place did not have pick-up trucks, or little girls playing on the sidewalk? What place was completely void of those painful triggers?
  He heard horns blaring, waking him from his questioning thoughts. He realized he had slowed down, and he looked out the windshield, hoping for a sign indicating a place that sounded promising.
  But ahead of him he saw Alexa, her fragile frame barely visible in the haze of desert dust.
  Alexa!
  He had to stop.
  Andrew Fellick’s foot reached for the brakes.
  The car stopped. The traffic didn’t.
  With a screech of brakes, a clang of metal on metal, and a solitary scream, Andrew Fellick found the end he wanted.
**********
  A bright light filled Andrew's vision. In the center, he saw his sister, wearing white, her thick blonde hair billowing out behind her, looking positively angelic.
  Angelic!  Could it be…
  It made sense. He had felt the pain, a thousand knives penetrating every nerve of his body. He had felt the liquid warmth spreading over as he lay there, limp and unmoving. The jolt, the pressure spreading from his chest as his heart surely stopped…
  Please, tell me I'm home…
  He saw Alexa floating towards him, and felt his hand raise to meet her. She stopped just out of reach, leaving a dull ache in his chest as he found that he couldn't move his feet to approach her.
  "Alexa? Alexa, I miss you!"
  "I know, Drewy. But do you care about me?"
  Aghast, Andrew stammered "How can you even say that? My life has been on hold for four years because of what I did to you.  And you ask me if I care about you?"
    Her face crinkled into a smile, despite the tears glittering in those jewels of her eyes. "Exactly, Andrew. You've wasted four years. Four years that I never had, years that I never will have. Didn't you learn anything from what happened?
    "Life's short. Maybe your's wasn't as short as mine, but you don't have forever.  Now isn't your time, but that time will come. You know what will make me happy? To see you happy again. These four years have been torture for me, may even more so than for you. Seeing you suffer, dwelling on this, never laughing, regretting everything you never said… it's more than I can bear.
  "You get a second chance. Don't screw this one up."
    Andrew saw her drift away, pulled back by an invisible force.
**********
    A second bright light filled his vision, this one harsh and white.  He heard panicked voices at first, which after a while faded to resigned sighs and mutters. Straining, he was able to focus his eyes until he made out a pair of wrinkled eyes above a green surgical mask.  The face turned around, and he heard a gravelly voice shouting for something.  After a second, he saw yet another bright light, this one leaving him seeing red for a few seconds.
    Though he wasn't able to make out any words with his ears still ringing, he comprehended relieved sighs before he blacked out.

    When Andrew woke up, all he noticed was pain. No longer the sharp stabbing and slicing, but a pounding, throbbing ache encompassing his whole being.  As he became accustomed to the pain, he noticed scratchy sheets surrounding him as he lay horizontally on a thin mattress. A hospital bed.  He strained and struggled, trying to sit up, but he couldn't move.  Turning his head to the side, he saw a metal bar, a railing on the side of his bed. He concentrated all he could on moving his arm to grasp that bar. 
    But nothing happened.  Andrew began to panic, and a scream made it's way through his dry throat.  Seconds later, a nurse bustled in, saw that he was awake, and hurried out of the room.  After a few seemingly endless moments, the nurse reappeared, this time with a gruff-looking doctor, his face weathered and wrinkled. 
    The doctor whispered instructions in the nurse's ear, and she hurried to Andrew's side and began fiddling with the bags of liquid that were attached to a needle in his arm.  The doctor began talking to him, his voice deep and gravelly. Andrew didn't understand a word of it before his world went black yet again.

-7 months later-
  I'm home.
    After months prodding and poking, of struggling and sleeping, of working and waiting and wishing, Andrew propelled his wheelchair up the donated ramp and into his house.  The view was strange, something he wasn't used to.
    The neighbors had cleaned the house for him during those months, and everything was different.  Before he had left for that fateful day at the counseling service, everything had been scattered around.  Dishes piled in the sink, bills stacked on the table, tubes of paint everywhere.  It had been that way since the day Alexa died, and had stayed so until he had been hospitalized. 
    Now it was like a whole new place.  Organized, clean, it was unfamiliar and strange. 
    Oddly, it was unlike home.  It had no personality, no welcoming sights that he had grown so accustomed to.
    He carefully navigated the twisting hallways until he reached the door leading to his favorite room: the studio.  The former garage had paint splattered across the walls, canvases stacked all across the floor.  It was the one room the neighbors hadn't touched.
  He rolled over to the box that sat in a corner and opened the heavy wooden lid.  He had looked forward to this through all those long months spent regaining feeling and use of his upper body.  He picked out some dark colors, a large-bristled brush, and a small canvas, and wheeled his way to the open area in the center of the garage.
  Andrew carefully set the canvas on an easel and set to work mixing his paints.  The deep blues and charcoals came to life as he dabbed them onto the canvas, forming intricate and strange designs. 
  Her eyes, those haunting eyes, he painted wide, their green irises bright and full.  Her hair was the way he remembered it, blonde, flowing out the way it had been when he saw her last.  Swirls and spirals overlapped with dots covering that face he had tried so hard to forget.  The result was something different from his usual style, something poignant and slightly disturbing.  Her childish beauty had a dark side shown in this painting, a side that Andrew had always preferred to ignore. 
  She had been only eight on that fateful day, and he was fifteen. Andrew had doted on her, had thought her perfect.  When she had arrived in their family, he had held her for hours at a time, with her perfectly happy in his sheltering arms. 
  Over the years, they had grown even closer.  They shared secrets and sorrows.  She had always been mature for her age, a little adult.  The two were such close friends, that they had the kind of mental and emotional connection that you often hear of from twins. One would know the other's feelings without any verbal communication, and over time it became almost telepathic. 
  Looking at that picture now, he felt the tears welling up in his eyes again.  He remembered years of sharing and comforting, but the one thing burned into his mind was his memory of her death. 
  He put the painting face down on the floor, not caring that the paint was not yet dry.  Quickly he rolled back into the house and out the door.
 
  On the streets, everyone he passed looked down at him quizzically, eyeing the wheelchair with pitying and wondering eyes.  Andrew didn't know where he was going exactly; he just let his arms propel him through the streets of St. George.
  Eventually he found himself in that dark alley where it had all begun.  There was nothing there that indicated what had happened there or the things that those events had set in motion.  It appeared to be just another dark, sketchy alley, filled with garbage and the feral cats associated with such.
  But it was different to his eyes. Here, he saw the spot where he had stood, the barrel of a gun pressed against his head.  Over there a ways, he could almost see the figure of that dusty pick-up truck. 
  Andrew moved on, unaware of following the path that the deadly truck had taken.  He reached the main road and the exact position where her body had lain.

    The smoke was rising from the tangle of crushed metal.  Andrew clawed his way through the shards of glass and chunks of metal and finally made it out of the wreckage.  But once he had made it out, he wanted nothing more than to be able to crawl back in, to bury himself and die, and never have to feel this pain.
  For on the ground there lay Alexa, barely recognizable through the tracks that shattered glass had raked across her pale face. She had been thrown through the windshield as the cars collided, and her head was smashed. Her beautiful blond hair was matted with sticky red blood.  Andrew stumbled towards her, taking her head in his arms.  He begged for her to wake up, pleading for just a smile, a wink, a shallow breath. 
    Finally, he saw some movement. Her eyes fluttered open, wide and shocked, staring through her brother.  A sudden smile filled her face for a moment before she went limp. 
    Andrew held her there until the ambulance gently tugged her away from his hands.  He knelt there for an hour, simply staring at the puddle of blood left behind.  He set his hand down on the pavement and brought it up scarlet with her blood.

    Now, a small cross stood by the curb, surely erected by some town official looking for good publicity. 
    "Sad, isn't it?" said a small voice behind Andrew.  He turned around and saw a petite blond standing there, looking for all the world like his dead sister. "I'm Ella. And you are?"
    "Andrew Fellick."
    "You mean…"
    "Yah, I'm the dead girl's brother," he said, with a little more anger than he had intended.
    "Well, I'm sorry for your loss," she said, seeming shocked by his temper.
    With a resigned sigh, Andrew responded "So am I.". He began to wheel away, embarrassed.  To his surprise, the girl followed, putting a hand on his shoulder, asking him to wait. "What do you want?" he asked, now genuinely irritated.
    "I was wondering if you wanted to go to lunch sometime?" she said as she blushed.
      Caught off guard, he could only stammer an "OK" as she wrote
a phone number on his hand.  Well, maybe it wasn't such a bad idea. What was that Alexa had told him?
      You get a second chance. Don't screw this one up.
        Maybe he wouldn't this time around.