Free Intrepid by J.D. Brewer Page B

stalls didn’t exist because all I could see were my eyes.
    Purples swirled around my pupils like rolling thunder-caps. They took on shadings similar to a sunset, except these colors traveled from black to navy, to violet, to lavender before meeting my everyday celery-green. “I’m going crazy,” I whispered. I blinked and willed the purples to go away, but they only darkened the stronger my headache got. I stared at myself so hard that my face blurred in the mirror and my sight lost all focus.    
    I slammed my palm on the sink. “I’m going crazy.” I said it again as if saying it out loud was safer than keeping the thought inside. It was as if letting it out could disprove the claim, and as I said it, something deep down promised me I wasn’t crazy. Something that went deeper than instinct told me there was something really off about me, and there always had been.  
    “Don’t cry,” I said, but whatever was left of the mascara was already streaming down my freckles in soft, black rivers. “Count to ten.” It worked last time, and I had to believe it’d work this time. The number ten could definitely take away crazy-eyes. I breathed, and I concentrated on my surroundings rather than my situation. The bathroom smelled of bleach and mold. The air was stale, like not much moved through it. The feel was empty.  
    And empty was how I forced myself to feel as I counted.  
    One.  
    Two.  
    Three.    
    “Texi?” Iago said from the door.
    I closed my eyes and took another breath. “Go away.”  
    “You okay?” He came into the bathroom and put his hand on my shoulder. “What’s wrong?”
    “Please. Just. Go.” The swirling in my eyes felt like the soft shuddering sensation you get when someone grazes your skin with their fingertips. It was a feeling that should never exist on the eyes, and when I closed them, the itching only intensified.  
    “Look at me.” His voice was urgent, but I kept my eyes squeezed shut. I couldn’t let him see them. I knew that either purples were still swimming around the irises and I was a freak, or they weren’t and I was crazy. Either way, he was the last person I wanted to witness it all.  
    He grabbed my chin between his forefinger and thumb and moved my face so that it was pointed towards his. He squeezed my hand with his other, and said, “It’s okay. Look at me.” The gentleness in his voice made me remember a time when I trusted him with every secret and story. I was scared, and maybe he was right. Maybe I could use a brother. Maybe I could use some help.  
    When I opened my lids, the brightness was overwhelming. I had to blink away florescent spots before my eyes could zero in on his. He examined my face, and I searched for any traces of shock or confusion. The only thing I caught was clarity, like he’d just found an elusive answer for a hard test question.  
    “Just like when we were kids,” Iago said. “ Respirar en, respirar hacia fuera. Breathe in. Breathe out.” The tone of his repetition brought me back to when I was seven, and we had slumber parties all the time because Ringo kept having to go out of town. We’d build blanket forts in front of the T.V., and Iago always wanted to watch scary movies despite the fact that they always gave me nightmares. He’d wake me up and talk me back to reality: “ Respirar en, respirar hacia fuera.” I tired to match my breathing with his hyperbolic example breaths, and if my head hadn’t been exploding, I would have found the scene funny. He held my head between his hands like he was worried it’d float off like a balloon, and the coolness of his palms anchored me to the room we were in. For a brief moment I lived in the calmness that existed there. The pressure of my eyes pulled back the way the ocean pulls back water at low tide, and the dizziness in my brain stilled.
    The gesture from anyone else would have felt intimate. Instead, Iago just made me feel safe, like he knew exactly how to take away