𝖛𝖊𝖗𝖘𝖆𝖎𝖑𝖑𝖊𝖘 𝖒𝖔𝖘𝖙𝖆𝖋𝖆𝖍

"You know what? Fuck it, make the nuggets nine."

I shrugged, rummaging in my purse, looking for the correct note. "Should I be bad and order a milkshake with it?" I asked, handing her the money, "Last time I had a milkshake here was back when I used to drink them to piss off my ballet teacher."

The woman behind the counter outstretched a shaky hand to take the cash from me, trying to pretend like I hadn't just caught her staring. "I mean sure, the strawberry one's my favourite."

"I'll take the caramel one with the blended peanuts," I shook my head, still tapping my finger along their counter, "If I'm going to be bad, I might as well go the whole way, right?"

She nodded, punching in my order whilst still sneaking glances at me. She looked like she wanted to ask me if I was okay or worse, ask if she should call the police. She'd already done the first as soon as she looked up from the cash register when I walked in, her jaw dropped and I didn't exactly give her a second before I started to spew out my order.

Half of my face was blooming into a blue that even my dark skin couldn't hide, my cheek was crusted over from the cut and one of my nostrils was filled with a napkin I'd asked for to stop it from bleeding all over their restaurant. My ear was split in a way I knew would look so cool once it healed and I'm pretty sure I still had glass in my shoulder.

I'd had worse nights.

I was actually on my way to the hospital when I'd spotted the little food place, lit up for me like an eden in blinding neon lights. They were practically begging me to come in. I used to visit the place a lot when I focused all my energy on pissing off Madame Dubois, but once I moved, the visits dwindled as I discovered my love for cooking.

But I still had yet to clean my blood off my kitchen knife, so that would have to wait.

When she returned with my drink, I was excited to put it to my lips and turn around until I had a head on collision with someone behind me that caused me to pour the milky goodness completely down the front of their shirt. "Fuck, Oh my-

"No! it's my fault I'm so-

I shook my head, grabbing the entire container of napkins from the cashier, "No, no I should've been watching where I was going," I apologized, pressing the tissue to her chest, "It's completely my fault."

Her hand came out to wrap around my wrist, taking the tissues from me and, for the first time, I took a look at her face. A really good look. "No, I assure you, I definitely wasn't watching where I was going."

My jaw went slack at the pearly whiteness of her eyes, no pupil, no colour, just a pool of ghosts swimming beneath her lashes. "Oh!"

She nodded, in an expecting way, "It's alright there's no way you could've known," She began to reach her hands out to pat the floor that surrounded her, "I'm supposed to have my glasses on but they fell too."

It took me a second to realise she thought I gasped because I was frightened of her looks and another mess of apologies came out of my mouth. "I just hadn't realised, it has nothing to do with your," I sighed ruining I was only making it worse. "You know what? Let's start over," I got up and helped her to her feet, "I'm Versailles."

Her expression fell for a second but she masked it over, "I'm Nico," I fetched her discarded glasses and gave them back to her with a smile that I quickly realised she could not see, which made me feel dumb. "Thank you, I can get you another milkshake-

"Oh, you don't have to," I rushed, already feeling bad enough about the situation.

She took a step past me, towards the counter, "Don't worry, I want to, from what I'm smelling, I hope it wasn't a milkshake with peanuts in it because I am terribly allergic."

"Shit really?" My eyes popped out of my head and my fingers flew to my phone that was in my back pocket, ready to make a very embarrassing phone call. "I can get an ambulance here-

"I'm just messing with you," she laughed, slipping her glasses onto her face, "But imagine how much worse this would've been if I was."

A few minutes later and I was sitting in the booth furthest away from people with Nico across from me. We surely looked like an odd pair with me and my battered face and her and her black hair with chunky fire red highlights, but I tried my best to ignore all the staring.

"I'm sorry," She giggled as she threw one of my stolen nuggets into her mouth, "Before we continue I just have to ask because I've been wondering all night," her smile slipped into a bit of a grimace, "You wouldn't happen to be Versailles Mostafah, would you?"

I sighed, realizing she was another person who'd probably heard of me on TV. "Yes, but I promise none of those reporters wouldn't have said any of that if they'd ever met me," I joked but twiddled with my fingers, "And besides what happened that day was a huge misunderstanding."

She stayed silent for a second before nodding finally, "I know," She ran her hand through her hair, "I was there."

It took me way too long to realise what she meant. Way too long to understand that the person in front of me was actually, "Nicotine Martinez?" My eyes widened.

"I'm surprised you still remember," She smiled sadly, turning her face back to her food, "Sometimes it feels like all of that happened a lifetime ago," She admitted, staring so hard at her burger that I might've thought for a second she could actually see. 

I couldn't help myself, in that moment I just had to ask. "What happened?" I blurted out too fast before I could bite the words back. My delivery made me wince, but she looked far from offended.

"Wow, I didn't think I'd aged that badly," she laughed, lightening up the mood until I clarified what I meant.

"Well, the last time I saw you, you could see."

She blinked at me and slowly removed her glasses, as if wanting to stare at me harder. With quivering lips, she asked me a question that only made me feel like I'd said something crazy, "What did you just say?"

I licked my lips, wishing I hadn't finished my milkshake because my throat was suddenly really dry. "I know all I've been doing is apologising, but I'm sorry if what I said came off as rude, I didn't-

"You remember when I could see?" Her voice was breathless now, desperate, and her fingers began to inch towards me on the table.

"Is that," I stopped to chuckle nervously, "Some sort of trick question?" I asked, "Are you being serious right now?"

"Versailles when you met me at the temple," she said slowly, "Before all of it happened, before you died," I flinched at the way she spoke about the most traumatic day of my life, "I could see right?"

"Yes, of course you could see," I affirmed, starting to grow unnerved by the interaction.

Her head dropped, like an athlete would after running for their life, she took in a couple of deep breaths and for a second I was afraid she was going to start crying but she composed herself and sat up straight again. "You don't know how long I've been waiting for someone to say that."

"And no one else remembers? Not even your parents?" I questioned incredulously before running my tongue along the side of my ice cream cone.

We'd taken our conversation outside shortly after her crazy questions and almost giddy shaking. I'd mentioned to her that I needed to just pop into the hospital to a few stitches because I'd had an accident when trying to hang up my curtains and she offered to walk me. 

I didn't add that I just needed to check if I'd broken any ribs.

She led me down the longer route but I didn't mention it as I'd assumed she hadn't really known too much about the area but I was proved mistaken when we passed by a little Dessert parlour and she insisted on buying me the best Ice-cream in town.

As soon as she distracted me with the sweet treat, she got right into where we'd left off.

"You're the first person I've met who doesn't think I've been blind all my life," she spoke, frustration in her tone. "And it's not just my family, it's everyone and everything," She rolled her eyes, her glasses now stashed in the front of her top. "Pictures of me from my childhood have me with white eyes, my teachers said so too and apparently I even had a psychologist that had told me parents I had an 'issue' with accepting my circumstances."

"That doesn't even make any sense," I said, more to myself than her, "Did you just wake up blind one day? How did this even happen?"

"It all happened in that stupid temple," she seethed, "And I know who did it too! They were- are punishing me because I know, they wanted to make sure no one would ever believe me because I saw!"

I stopped in my tracked, pulling the dessert away from my mouth, "You saw what?"

She looked at me "I saw the God's try to kill you."

The evening air blew a breeze at us that had me turning my eyes to the moon. It had always unnerved me, even more so when sometimes I swear it looked like a big eye just watching my every move. And in this moment, I knew it didn't like what it saw.

"And then I tried to rush downstairs to see if you were okay and I swear," The volume of her voice increased as if she was begging me to believe her, "I swear! I felt something push me and suddenly I woke up in the hospital with the worst concussion in my life and a darkness that didn't leave even when I opened my eyes."

"The Gods made you blind," I whispered softly with my eyes still on the moon.

"I told everyone Versailles," Her words shaky, on the bridge of turning into a sob, "I tried to tell them all but it was no use. I was blind, and I'd always been, so why would they listen? Why would they care? Why would anyone-

"Believe you," I finished.