Blue Eyed Owl

i wrote this like, last year, but i found it in my docs and decided to post it.

Sam loved owls.

 

He had zillions of pictures of them on his walls. So many that you no longer could see the paint underneath, but if I thought hard I could recall that it was blue and I helped him paint it the summer going into tenth grade.

 

The shelves of his bookcase were filled with nonfictions and and childrens books about them.

On the nights I secretly stayed over, naked beneath his thin white sheets, I would eventually crawl out from under him, the cold biting at every inch of exposed skin, and pick one to read him until he had collapsed into the foggy realm of sleep that curtained him thickly. He had always been a heavy sleeper.

 

But me?

 

Not me. I stayed awake, watching him.

 

Sometimes he would take me by the hand and drag me into the woods a little after sunset to search for one. We never saw any. Or more like, I never saw any when I was with him. I know he must have seen plenty in the time he spent alone. The feel of his fingers laced through mine more than made up for it.

 

"Owls are so beautiful. Don't you think, Oli?" he would ask me while we made angels in the freezing snow beneath us.

 

He watched the sky, like always.

 

My eyes were trained on him, like always.

 

"Not more than you are," I would say lovingly, his soft smile warming me far more than synthetic fires and hot chocolate ever would be able to. In this lifetime anyway.

 

"But really," he would insist, and I always replied with the same answer. 'Beautiful beautiful beautiful.' He just never knew I meant him, not the owls.

 

His smile shone whiter than the clouds in the sky.

 

Sam loved owls. He really did.

 

Sometimes I think he loved them more than he loved me.

---

I had been taking a photography course that year. I wasn't so great at it, but it had been a far more appealing option than Healthy Gourmet or Basic Debate. Both at which I was sure to fail miserably.

 

So there I was, camera at my waist looking for inspiration. Looking for something nothing ididn'tknow that I would never find. Then it was poised to my eye. Back at my waist. Then at

my eye, but this time it stayed there.

 

Somehow, inspiration had stumbled upon me.

 

An owl, perched on a thicker branch amongst a watercolor scene. Indigo with a smattering of off-white freckles. My lungs blazed with invisible fire, the only indication I had been holding my breath, and surprised I exhaled sharply greedy for air that I couldn't seem to get fast enough.

 

I knew Sam would love it.

 

Everything I gave him eneded up in a drawer, under his bed, forgotten about and collecting dust in its bag in the corner.

 

But this. This would earn a spot on his wall, showcaes for everyone to see. Or maybe in a frame if my photographing skills were better than I thought and I was ever that special.

Silly hope seized my heart and made it ache terribly wonderfully.

 

It took a couple tried to get the angle right, to get it perfect for Sam, but finally I managed it. One finger, my index, rested lightly on the button that would capture this momenrt forever. Applied slightly more pressure because I was hesitant...

 

Then my phone had rung out, shattering the once-in-a-lifetime precious silence like a rock to glass.

 

Startled, I had dropped the camera.

 

I pulled my cell from my back pocket. A finger pressed the neon green telephone and I held the device up to my ear. The warmth of it was soothing against my frostbitten ear.

 

"Hello?" I had said breathlessly.

 

"Oliver? Oliver, it's about Sam! Get down to the hospital now! He's been in a "

 

I still don't know where my phone went. All I remember was that I didn't have it when I got to the emergency room, whispering to a bloodied, scratched, barely breathing Sam to stay with me, don't go, please, you're too young to say good-bye.

---

He said good-bye.

 

He said good-bye to the owls.

 

He said good-bye to his picture covered walls.

 

He said good-bye to his books about them, nonfiction and fiction.

 

He said good-bye to snow angels and the junk I gave him and secret nights spent curled in his sheets.

 

What hurt most of all was that he said good-bye to me.

---

At his funeral they read poems. There was a lot of tears. A lot of laughter, which I couldn't fathom in the least.

 

Me; I did not laugh. Or cry. My stare was blan throughout the entire thing for the reason that it still hadn't sank in and I didn't know what to do. I barely heard a word they said about you. They didn't know you like I did. Most times, you were a mystery to even me. And that probably hurt above everything else, above the fact that I was never going to see you again.

People came up to me after. Spilled their apologies, the practiced words dripping from their tongue in a way that made me cringe.

 

Your family. Our friends. Your relatives. Our teachers. How weird, but you always were a suck up even if you didn't realize it which I know you didn't.

 

"I'm sorry for your loss," they told me.

 

"So young to go." Their hugs were out of obligation and cold. Meaningless.

 

"We understand."

 

They did not understand.

 

They don't understand.

 

I don't even understand, even now. Nearly a year later.

---

It has been a year. A whole year since you've said good-bye.

 

"I'll be waiting in the car babe," my guy in a green pullover and combats yells to me.

 

After you died I didn't ever think I would be capable of love again. Part of me never wanted to. It felt like a betrayal to you. And then, somewhere along the way, I stopped brooding like a little selfish b***h and realized that you would have wanted me to be happy and the world was waiting.

 

So here is my attempt at it. Love.

 

I don't know if I love Tom, my loud, overhyper boy back there, but he is the closest thing I've felt to it in a while.

 

But he won't ever be your replacement. Won't ever be you.

 

He doesn't love owls. In fact, I haven't found anyone since that loves them as much as you used to. I can't even remember why you no, wait. I do. You told me once, just once.

 

"Owls are so beautiful and mysterious. I think that's what I am sometimes. You know." Then, for once, instead of staring into the sky you fixed your gorgeous ice blue gaze directly on me.

"They make me feel like me. Like Sam..."

 

I think that was your way of letting me in. Of saying I love you.

 

I can't believe I forgot that.

 

"Babe, what are you doing?" I turn around. Tom is staring at me.

 

Oh.

 

Putting my back to him I slowly walk through the gate not aware of the overgrown graying grass or the tree we sat under once when we first started going out or the other grave stones. Having my eyes trained on my feet seems to be working. But when I hit your grave, I look up.

 

And gasp. The camera slung around my waist feels like it weighs five billion tons.

 

Sitting deadly still, perched on top of your grave is an owl. It is more beautiful than any one I've ever seen in a picture. More beautiful than the one I saw the day you died.

 

And it hits me there on the spot that this creature that you love so much, this nocturnal bird of the night, is out in broad daylight.

 

And oh, I ache with wishing you were here.

 

The heart in my chest is pounding eratically as we stare unblinking into each other's eyes. A bird shouldn't seem to hold this much intelligence.

 

And their eyes I realize...definitely should not be ice blue.

 

Ttttrembbliinggg. Im tembling. My lungs are on fire. So much emotion is swelling in my chest I believe for an instant I'm going to explode. Somehow, I keep my feet on the ground.

 

Camera. I remember it and suddenly it's at my eye. Still the same one I had a year ago, back in those woods when I got the phone call that changed everything my life was.

 

And this time I click the shutter. No flash. A perfect shot of *my owl. And I feel like this is the end. Like something warm and soft is healing over the cracked and broken pieces of me and I can finally be okay.

 

"Sam," I say.

 

You stare for a moment longer, a second, a heartbeat.

 

And you're gone.

Author's Note

sort of different from my writing now. as i said, i wrote this a while ago. but i still kind of like it.

Reviews

[PyroKitty24]

This was absolutely beautiful. I adored it. Of course, it made me cry too. But enjoyable nonetheless. It needed proofread, but honestly that is the only fault I can find. I was interested throughout the whole thing and felt the need to continue reading. I loved the whole thing. And I adore owls. Not as much as Sam, but I still love them. I love cats in the way Sam loved owls though, so I could still relate~

[JustNeedToBeHappy]

This is beautiful :) Really is. Kind of soft and stabbing and very very well written.