We walked back to my house from Mrs. Castellano's bakery through a stirring blizzard, with the taste of almond biscottis and tiramisu still lingering my mouth. The snow was landing on my face with an unpleasant stinging feeling, but it wasn't nearly as bad as the snow seeping through my sneakers. In fact, the snow got so thick so quickly, I had resorted to holding Orenda's hand again. My trusty white cane wasn't too great with the fluffy knee-high snow, the snow I've gotten so used to.

        "She's a good baker." I told Orenda, as she pulled me away from an incoming obstacle that I bumped into, just fast enough so that I wouldn't trip over it. My shin throbbed.

        "She's practically good at everything." 

        "She is a mom."

        "Moms know it all, don't they?" She joked.

I kept walking, while straightening my glasses every so often. Even though I had gotten used to the brain squishing feeling they gave me, they were still too small and still too childish. My feet started to lose their feeling, along with my nose, and that's when Orenda dusted off (or more like pushed off a trillion pounds, since I could hear a tremendous thump fall on the ground) of snow on a bench somewhere and said, "I need to rest."

        Well, considering she had ran through snow while directing and pulling a blind boy, it was normal for her to be tired. But, she was heaving and groaning and maybe even crying; which either meant she was being too dramatic or she was really not okay.

        I sat down on the bench beside her, trying to face her way. "Are you o-"

        "YES! I'm great." She said, still out of breath. "Let's go."

        "We can wait for a while." 

        "Nope. I'm all better. Alright, let's go." She grabbed my hand again and we continued walking.

When we reached my open window, and I could feel the heat seeping through it, Orenda and I said our goodbyes, as usual. Her heavy footsteps trudged away and I climbed into my room and fell on the ground, (face-first might I add) and dusted myself off. I closed the window, the coldness leaving and the warmth enveloping me.

        It never occurred to me why exactly Orenda would want to hang out with me and give me free food; because let's face it, if people give you free food, there's something going on. Sometimes I thought it would be because she was lonely and as desperate for a friend as me - even though I had Egan. Although, he was the kind of friend that would help me beat the specially hard levels on the video games, listen to all my blind person troubles, and come and tell me about his exciting 'normal' life while I sit on the hardwood floor in my room going, "uh huh. Yeah. I see. Beat him up. She's into you, man."

        Or maybe there was even the slight chance that she liked me.

The cold snow was sneaking its way into my system, making me start to shiver. I took off my shoes, socks, and jacket first then threw them aside, and listened carefully for breaking glass or a bang! of any sort. Then I proceeded to taking off my pants and rummaging through my clothes pile for the fabric that I recognized as jeans. My dad always told me that when in doubt, always go for jeans. He said that I could wear a doughnut and guess what? Jeans would match it and jeans would make me look all cool and jeans were the reason that I had friends. By 'friends', he meant Egan. 

        Speaking of the devil, once I found my jeans and started feeling for the top, my dad's booming voice said, "where you been, Finn?"

        "DAD! WHAT THE HELL?!? I'M NOT WEARING PANTS!" I screamed and flopped around, trying to get my jeans on, but I didn't know where to stick my feet so I just collapsed on the floor. He was laughing and I was downright furious.

        "First of all, watch your language. Second of all, I don't really care if I see your boxers, being the fact that I've changed your diapers and seen your willy," he kept talking and I started to slip on my jeans, "and third of all, where you been?"

        "Um," I pulled my jeans halfway up and sat down on my bed. My face was heating up and I realized that my own dad had actually embarresed me in front of myself. "Not here, but you obviously know that."

        "Finnegan." His voice remained calm, but I knew that if I pushed it any further it would not be too pretty.

        "Orenda came. I went with her to her mom's bakery. I got free food." I deadpanned.

        "Orenda? Who's that?"

        "The girl from the Christmas party when I was six. The one who said my eyes were scary.The one who made you tell me that I'm a blind kid, like I've always been."

That made him quiet down right away, and all that I could sense was the cold water dripping down my hair and onto my forehead. I was certain that my parents didn't want a blind kid, I mean they had to send me to a special school (the 'school for the cool kids', they said), and when that didn't work out, they had to get me a weird ass tutor. Not to mention all the explaining they needed to do to tell me that I was blind, that I was different, and even to convince me that I was not a mistake. But, I definitely was. And they knew that.

        "Alright." He said, and left, leaving me with half-on jeans and a chilly soaked t-shirt. 

-----/////----- 

Egan came over the next day, practically barging through the front door and actually ramming through mine, holding a bag of chips and humming a familiar church hymm.

        "Hey, Fish." He threw the crinkly bag onto my bed and sat down on my desk chair, a bit like Orenda would do.

        "Hi, Egg."

He had first started calling me 'fish' in third grade, after a long list of trial and error nicknames. Around that time every kid in the neighbourhood had a nickname for their best friend - whether it be dumpling, buttcrack, or chicken. And Egan had just moved to Toronto from Japan that year, so he was lacking friends - as was I. The nicknames were something that could help us be just like the other kids in the neighbourhood, so that everyone else would stop calling him 'little halfie', and me 'blind mouse'. So like the try-too-hard-to-fit-in children that we were, we spent two hours in the park that sunny summer day trying to figure out our personal nicknames.

        "Okay, so what has fins?" Egan asked me, after a billion trial and errors. His hand fiddled with the sticks on the ground, making cracking noises.

        "OH! Those Mer-men from The Adventures of Captain-"

        "FISH! FISH HAVE FINS! YOU'RE NICKNAME IS FISH!" He screeched and I believe that was my first Eureka! moment, the moment I realized that I was and always will be, Fish Annson.

        "AND YOUR NAME SOUNDS LIKE EGGS!" I screeched even louder. The pigeons flapped away from us; all cooing and probably finding some less insane kids to hang around.

        "I'M EGG GRAY!" He announced to me and at that moment we both acknowledged that he was forever and always, Egg Gray.

I like to think that the reason Egan and I were friends was because that we were the same. Somehow, someway, we were out of place in the gears that spun the world. He was the only half-asian, half-white kid in the neighbourhood and I was the only blind one. The other kids would isolate us to such an extent that we wouldn't even be allowed to smell them. Not that we did, of course. At least not Egan. It's like we were two spiky roses in a field of daisies, and if any daisy happened to touch us then their leaves would shrivel up and die. Although, their leaves couldn't possibly shrivel up more than the mean words they threw at us shriveled up our hearts, which only made our spikes sharper.

The crinkling of the chip bag shook me out of my thoughts as it got louder and louder, soon I figured he was opening it, so I walked over and held out my hand.

        "Jeez, wait." Egan mumbled and then led my hand into the bag. I grabbed two handfuls and started munching.

        "Why you here?"

        "Well, why not?"

        "Outlast Corruption?"

        "Hell, yeah."

So, he took the chips and I wiped my hands on my jeans, then we ran down to the basement. Usually, I would sit there on the couch and listen to Egan plug all the wires in, since colour and sight was apparently an important part in the art of plugging wires. The dystopian music of Outlast Corruption started playing suddenly, and I tipped over slightly to the side of the couch sank down where Egan landed.

        The basic theme of Outlast Corruption is pretty self-explanatory, on the most part. You just have to outlast the zombies in a corrupted world of death and AK-47s, playing as a young girl who lost her family in the early stages of the corruption. A bit like life, a bit more.

        "Dude, Egan." I paused the game, and he groaned.

        "Yes?" He asked. His leg started to thump.

        "Anyone asked you to the Valentine's Day dance yet?"

        "No one wants to go with me, and Finn, the guys ask the girls."

        "Oh."

        "Look, um, I'm not taking you."

        "Wha - Egan! I'm very much straight."

        "I literally just got shivers when you asked me." I laughed, and he did too. His laugh sounded vaguely like hiccups, a bit like he was struggling to breathe, but maybe that's because of his asthma. I opened my mouth to talk about Orenda again, but closed it. The music was still playing throughout our whole conversation, and now that it was silent, it kind of echoed through the empty basement even more creepily than before.

        "I feel different, man. And I don't like it, really. It's stupid, but I feel like I'm not even liked, just because of my 'eyes'."

        "I know you're different. In fact, you're the only blind friend I've ever had." He turned towards me, the smell of his sea breeze cologne wafting into my nose. "You're also the only person who can completely rock light blue racecar sunglasses, make great apple pie, and pretty much defeat the whole zombie nation with the sweep of your fingers."

        "Thanks." I pushed the thought of Orenda to the back of my mind as harshly as I could. 

        "No problem. Now, let's get this zombie coming in from the flowers."