Angel is the nicest person I have ever met. I met him when I was thirteen, right after my accident. These three mean girls were laughing at me after I had run into a wall trying to get away from their horrible comments. He was the kid that would always sit in the corner of the room by himself, he never talked to anyone. I didn’t really know him all that well. He was in a few of my classes but I never really knew he was there because I couldn’t see him and he never talked to me.
He walked right up to those girls and told them to leave me alone, in the toughest voice he could muster in front of the schools worst emotional bullies, not even strong selfish jocks could compare to the chaos these girls made whenever they spoke to someone they didn’t like.
“Hey, leave the poor girl alone! You have no idea what she’s been through!” I cried at the sound of his voice. I could hear the girls’ clothes run together as they shifted nervously, and I heard their feet shuffle across the carpet as they walked away in defeat.
“Alyssa, are you okay?” His face was very close to mine; I could smell the peanut butter from the sandwich he had eaten earlier. I looked at him, or where I thought his face would be and smiled as tears slid down my cheeks and dropped onto the floor.
“How do you know my name?” I stuttered as I finally understood that he had asked me a question. I could feel his breath on my face as he breathed deeply.
“Just because I haven’t talked to you doesn’t mean I’m not there.” I cried again. How many good people will I pass by in my life and not even know that they are there?
After that we went to the library to study for an upcoming science test. We sat next to each other, each of us with a book in hand. I was just learning Braille, and I faltered and paused as I tried to read the foreign language. Angel asked what the different patterns of bumps meant and how they could be read, so I taught him all that I knew, which wasn’t much at that point. We laughed as we both tried to decipher the strangely written book. Soon after that I had completely learned Braille and I taught it to Angel. He would practice his skills by reading me Braille books. I would lean back in my chair and imagine in my head the fantastic tales that Angel read to me. I smiled and for the first time after becoming blind I felt genuinely happy.

Angel and I were sitting on the edge of a dock, watching the sunset. Every Saturday night we would do this. We both didn’t have any friends except each other, so we were never busy on the weekends. We would hang out almost every day. Most days he would come over to my house and we would study for tests or assignments, but during the summer we didn’t have any school work. So in the summer time he would come over to my house every Saturday at noon and he would practice reading Braille to me. We would do this for hours. After he read for an hour or two, we would switch and I would read to him.
Every Saturday at sunset we would sit out on the edge of the dock and tell each other the exciting events of the week, which usually consisted of whatever books we had read or how many birds Angel had counted on the way over to our normal spot on the old dock. He would tell me about the world that I couldn’t see, about the storm clouds he could see on the horizon, or the flashes of lightning he saw from his window the night before.
I was happy. Angel and I sat side-by-side on the dock, and I listened as he described the flowing colors of the sunset. He kept telling me how much it reminded him of my paintings. Every sunset reminded him of a different painting.
I smiled as I wondered what it would take to make this perfect day even more perfect. I slowly laid my head on my bony shoulder and wrapped my arms around his scrawny frame. I could feel the muscles and tendons in his neck move as he craned his neck towards me. I shivered as he brushed a piece of hair out of my face and I could feel his eyes watching me, even though I could not see him. He told me his eyes were blue. I asked him to be more specific but he just shrugged his shoulders, making sure I could feel them rise and fall and that I understood what it meant. I asked again. He laughed and turned his head towards me again and I could smell the mint of his toothpaste.
He told me my eyes were green. I cried. It had been two years since I had seen my own eyes. I missed looking in the mirror and seeing my face. I don’t know how my face had changed, what time had done to its features. I always ask Angel, but all he says is that I had become more beautiful. I always cry when he says that.
It’s hard to pretend to be something you’re not. It’s hard to pretend that you are strong, and that you don’t care what people think about you. It’s hard to pretend that you are made of stone, and that words don’t faze you. But I do it every day. Every day I can hear those three girls making muffled comments about me, and every day I pretend that I had never heard them. But I do hear them and it does hurt. Emotional hurt is the worst hurt you can ever feel. I thought about killing myself once. Maybe jumping into a busy street and hoping I get hit by a car, but I quickly dismissed the thought.
I can’t live without Angel. Not even in the afterlife.

As I sat there with my head on Angel’s shoulder, with my arms wrapped around him, listening to his story about how cotton candy is made, I inched closer to him. He must have noticed that during the course of his explanation I had moved so that I was firmly squished against his side because he put his arms around me and held me close. He continued his story and whispered it in my ear. I listened until his words had ceased and I laughed softly to myself. I flinched as I felt him kiss the top of my head.
I had heard the girls talking about their boyfriends, about how they would kiss by the lockers and kiss in the rain. I always had wondered why anyone would want to kiss in the rain. It seemed like an odd fantasy but I had heard many girls talking about how much they wished their boyfriends would kiss them in the pouring rain, or give them a rose and hold them close.
Last Valentine’s Day Angel gave me a rose. He told me he had picked out the prettiest one from the rose bush in his backyard. I had put my nose inside the circle of petals and smelled in the scent of it. I understand why a girl would want a rose, or to be held close. Angel would always hug me for a long time and I would feel my stomach flutter. I’ve heard girls talking about it, they called the feeling “tummy butterflies.” It does feel like butterflies are inside your stomach.
The only thing I didn’t understand yet is why people kiss. I asked Angel if he had ever kissed someone, but he said he hadn’t. I asked why not but he was silent and didn’t give me an answer, so I changed the subject.
I pondered this as I put one of my hands on his shoulder. I slowly slid it across the surface of his neck. I could feel his throat convulse as he swallowed nervously. My fingers felt the line of his jaw, then the curves of his cheekbone. I pulled my hand down a little bit and felt his smooth chin. My little fingers moved up and touched his lips. I heard him gasp softly.
I cupped my hand around the outside of his face and he did the same to mine. He pulled my face close to his, and we sat there for a bit, eyes closed, foreheads pressed together and each other face in our hands. I could feel my heart speed up, and I could hear his heart thumping loudly in his chest.
He pulled me closer. His cold nose gently touched mine and again we sat there as still as we could be. I could feel his hot breath on my face but I did not cringe away from him. The last thing I wanted to do was to pull away from him.
He pulled me closer still, and our lips met. Seconds passed but I still did not want to pull away from him, but I knew this glorious moment had to end. We ended up pulling away from each other at the same time. I could feel my cheeks grow hot and for a minute we were both silent as we waited for the other to speak. I could still hear his loud heartbeat. Th-thump.
I heard him sharply inhale before speaking.
“Well…”
“Well?” I asked him
“Well, that was… something…” Th-thump.
“Yeah… That was really something…”
His cotton shirt rubbed together as I heard him turn to me, and I could hear his hands rubbing together as he tried to find the words. Th-thump.
“Alyssa?”
“Yeah?”
He hesitated and rubbed his hands again.
“I think I love you.”
I felt the shock numb my body and the butterflies in my stomach slowly took flight as I felt along the dock’s rough surface and finally found Angel’s hand and grasped it in mine.
“I think I love you too.”
His laugh filled my heart with joy. We threw our arms around each other. We kissed, we laughed and we cried. I cried for the years we spent hiding this from each other and he cried for the wasted hours we spent together. We halted our tears and once again I felt his eyes on me. I heard his relieved laugh and he squeezed me tighter in his arms as if he was never going to let me go again.

Every Saturday at noon, Angel comes to my house. We read Braille to each other and laugh as we get it wrong.
Every Saturday afternoon he counts the birds as we walk down the boardwalk by the sea to sit on the edge of that old dock.
Every Saturday night he holds me close and tells me about the stars, and he tells me that they shine almost as much as my beautiful green eyes. He also tells me that his eyes are blue. We sit and laugh as we remember how we used to be and what it took for us to come this far.
I may be blind, but I can see sounds, and create an image in my mind of what I have become, and how time has shaped my features into what I have created.
And this is my story.