Blind for a Moment (Mylee/Kitty AaW thread)

My mother had sent me away on the notion that I needed to be close to my family, but I could see through her transparent words with ease, for I knew she was more than fed up with my constant tagging along and stepping on her heels, though she would never admit to it. I had overheard her talking to family friends, her voice tinged with awkward fidgeting as they asked her if her son ever grew up, for they still knew me as “Miles, whose curiosity was still that of a four year old.”

“Miles, who’s sense of reality was about as distorted as a pane of broken glass.”

“Miles, who would never grow up.”

I, Miles Krearns, who didn’t want to. For when you grew up, the sense of childish ignorance that was a blessing was ripped from your grasp, and from the day you became of age and on, you were expected to know the contract by which the world lived by, from the bold print to the words between the lines. I wasn’t ready for that, and so I spent my last years of being a teenager in a desperate attempt to push formality away, never missing a chance to stand in the rain until I was soaked to the bone or rolling down the steep hill on the outskirts of the district. Grass stains and dripping hair were simple, happiness being the only resulting factor from actions whose details were hardly thought out.

Jay Krearns had grown up.

Not in terms of age, really, for he was only a year older than my own wise age of seventeen, but with his mannerisms, his speech (or lack thereof), and even the stance with which he stood. He wasn’t the same cousin that chased me about at family gatherings, tackling me as we both tumbled to the ground as Mason watched on in amusement. He had moved on, carrying the weight of the broken world on his shoulders as his family shattered about him, and I had been no help.

I hadn’t offered my consolation or even told him I was sorry, because I wasn’t. I didn’t know how to be sincere in the situation of loss, because truth be told, I had never lost much, in fact, nothing more than acquaintances and shreds of my dignity had slipped from my grasp in the last couple of years.

Jay Kearns had lost it all, and I hadn’t been around to give him the time of day.

But even though I had lost time, days turning to weeks and months and even years, I was here now, pushing myself off the cold floor of the surf shack as the sun made itself across the sky. My back ached, and it felt as if years of toil and stress had been added to my body in the past eight hours I had spent in slumber. Jay didn’t have much to offer in his cramped space, and a second bed happened to be one of the necessities he lacked.

However, with the sun rising to a higher place in the sky, my spirits followed suit, and only a bit later I felt as if I had been awake for hours, and I bounded to Jay’s side, falling in step as we made our way out the door.

“Hey, Jay, where are we going? Not that it, you know, really matters, ‘cause I’m just really excited to be out now. We should stop by that one place, you know the one, right? The one with--”

However before I can finish my unending trail of thoughts I’m interrupted by the displeased voice of my cousin. A smirk of amusement crosses my face as he stumbles awkwardly, the contents of the bags he was previously holding spilling about at his feet. His introduction is choppy and awkward (but isn’t everything about Jay somewhere in the spectrum of those two adjectives?).

I lay a hand on his shoulder as he extends his own, “Nice one, Jay.” My other hand raises awkwardly in some kind of greeting, followed by an “I’m Miles, the clumsy one’s cousin.”

Miles, who doesn’t want to grow up or see the world for what it is.

But for now, just Miles will do.