"Why do you bother to attend these...meetings if they bring nothing to you? No hope, no friends, nothing. What is it that keeps your mind so willing to participate if you know that nothing will come of it?"

Aurelia shrugs. Her mother often asks her things like this because she's curious and doesn't quite understand what she's trying to do. Sometimes Aurelia doesn't really understand it herself. No one ever takes her words to heart, and the difference that she's trying to make goes unnoticed because everyone chooses to let their illness control them.

She's tried to explain how she's trying to help people in a way that's better than the therapy, but it always seems to get lost in translation when it comes to her mother. Aurelia loves her mother, but it's come down to a point where trying to explain herself has just become tiring.

Aurelia sighs and tries to give her mother a simple answer, "I don't know. I suppose it's just something to do. Or rather, something that I'm supposed to do. It's not all that bad. Plus, they feed us for free and that's never a bad thing."

Her mother sighs and the faintest of smiles graces her lips. "Alright, I'll see you whenever you get back from that little café of yours. Please be careful."

Aurelia opens her door and playfully rolls her eyes. Her mother still worries about her so much even though she's gotten used to being blind and finding her way around town. The eye roll wasn't of much use considering that she can't see and her mother can't see her eyes behind her dark glasses, but the action makes her feel like she's still just like everyone else.

A soft laugh falls from her lips as she gently pushes her door open, "I'm blind mother, not incompetent. I will! See you at home!"

Sure, it had taken her a good while to adjust to being blind after seeing for most of her life, but that doesn't make her any less careful. If anything, it makes her much more careful than she ever planned to be.

Having to see with a stick and wear glasses that are darker than a black hole all the time does get irritating though. But it isn't really like she has much of a choice in the matter. Things are much worse when she doesn't use her cane or wear her glasses.

Just like every Saturday, Melissa opens the door for her and greets her with a cheerful hello. Aurelia returns the greeting in an equally cheerful manner, although she doesn't really care too much for the woman: she's always gossiping and her voice is so high pitched that she swears every time they interact she's getting steps closer to being deaf.

She's greeted by a familiar and welcoming voice the moment she steps into the large room where the meetings are always held. "Welcome back Miss Twinpeake! You look well!"

Aurelia smiles, "Thank you Donovan. I'd say the same but my eyes are sort of permanently out of commission."

Donovan runs the 'support group,' but he's more of her friend than her councilor at this point. After meetings, they sit and talked about anything and everything. That's another reason why she keeps attending the meetings. He's sort of her only friend and she likes to talk to someone that isn't one of her parents.

Not that she doesn't like talking to her parents, she enjoys their company very much, but it's nice to have someone else to talk to.

Donovan laughs with her. He thinks that she's funny more often than not and she's happy to be his friend. "Yes, well, it's the thought that counts. There's chocolate chip cookies, fruit, and some lemonade. If you'd like anything, just let me know and I'll be happy to get it for you, as per the usual arrangement."

Every week he brings in refreshments and, more often than not, they are incredibly good because they include her favorites. He always helps her get some so that she doesn't feel bad for ruining anything.

Aurelia laughs again because what he's said raises a red, and very amusing, flag in her mind, "You make it sound as if you're really trying to give me drugs instead of refreshments. Yes, I'd like some fruit and lemonade, if you don't mind."

She couldn't see him, but across the room Donovan's son, Harry, was standing against the wall. He's standing there and watching as his father greets people. Really, he's bored out of his mind with the whole ordeal already, but his father insisted that he accompany him today and learn how to run things, just in case he decides that he wants to follow in his footsteps. Which, Harry doesn't think will ever happen. It upsets him to be around people that he can't help, and doing that as a job would keep him up all night.

Aurelia specifically catches his attention. She doesn't look or sound depressed in even the slightest manner. Despite being blind, she wears a smile and laughs like nothing's wrong. It puzzles him because no one else is acting like that.

Everyone else wears solemn expressions and most of them look like they'd rather be anywhere else but here. He can't really say much considering that he's wearing the same look, but he certainly doesn't share the same outlook; he's not dying like they are.

Another thing about Aurelia that catches his attention is how familiar she looks. But her sunglasses hide her eyes and a good portion of her face so he's at a disadvantage.

His father helps her to an empty chair and proceeds to fix her a good sized bowl of fruit and a moderately filled cup of lemonade which he brings her soon after.

Harry's eyes still watch Aurelia curiously. He thinks that maybe it's all just an act. Maybe she's been forced to be here and if she plays along she doesn't have to stick around for so long. Or maybe she's genuinely happy. If the latter is true, he certainly has no idea why, but he admires her for it if that's the case.

Around eleven thirty, more people start to come in and help themselves to some food and chairs before his dad decides to get things moving along. His eyes are still trained on the blind girl with the bright smile.

Harry pays little attention as his father greets everyone with some 'words of wisdom' and asks them if anyone is willing to share first. All of this crap is nonsense and there isn't much of a point in giving it any of his attention. No matter what he says, the only one that's going to leave happy is the blind girl.

Of course, no one wants to go first because no one wants to be here. It looks like half of them are regulars. A good number of them just sit there twiddling their thumbs and looking anywhere else but at his father. Aurelia raises her hand, but his father politely declines and asks someone else to go first because she's always the one to start.

About a minute of awkward silence fills the room before his father decides to randomly call on some girl named Tiffany. Tiffany has liver cancer and hasn't been feeling too well since she's started chemo. She doesn't think she's going to live much longer and she just wants the pain to stop.

Just about everyone has a similar story, and Harry finds that he has to tune everyone out after a while or else he'll want to cry with them, or for them.

However, he can't force himself to tune it out when the blind girl starts to speak.

"Hello, my name is Aurelia, yes like the movie Fool's Gold, but I'm not that special, I promise. I'm nineteen and I've been diagnosed with stage three Anaplastic Astrocytoma, which is a tumor located in the brain. Originally, it was a stage one and benign, but as I got older I started to get headaches, feel nauseous, and lose sight for long periods of time.

"The surgeries never got rid of it and neither did the chemo. I lost my sight completely at the age of sixteen. Now the doctors say that I'm on the road to a stage four Glioblastoma, which will spread and eventually kill me. I've stopped the surgeries and the treatments and I've found that I enjoy life more this way, even though my choice cuts down my time. I'd just like to say that your life is yours to decide and, even if you're riddled with cancer and sickness, you shouldn't give up because your life is worth living, even if it isn't for much longer. Thank you."

Harry's astonished. She went from normal to blind just like that and she's perfectly okay with it. Not to mention the poetic quality of her voice and her words. She spoke like she's lived a thousand lives. He's hooked and she's hardly done anything at all.

Harry tries to put himself in her shoes, to slowly lose his sight and have to change everything. He can't even fathom how hard that must have been and yet, she seems perfectly content with how her life has gone and how it's currently going.

He wonders how she handles the bad days--if she has any at all.

Harry watches her curiously for the remainder of the meeting, his mind still trying to piece together any little thing about her.

Aurelia sits with a small smile on her lips. She doesn't move very much, save for the occasional shift in her seat when her backside gets uncomfortable-the aluminum chairs really aren't the greatest, but it's all they have to work with.

Donovan ends the meeting with an extensive prayer and everyone clears out as if there's a fire. Everyone except Aurelia, who is still sitting in her chair with that small smile on her lips as she holds her cane.

She's felt someone staring at her the entire time and, now that it's not rude for her to mention it, she asks in a playful tone, "Are you going to keep staring, or are you going to talk to me?"

Harry's eyes widen and he panics, his mouth opens and closes without producing any sound as he tries to come up with something to say that doesn't sound creepy. How did she notice?

Donovan laughs as he cleans up what's left of the refreshments and Aurelia's smile blossoms the longer that Harry takes to answer her question.

"Just because she's blind doesn't mean that she doesn't notice, son."

Aurelia laughs lightly and explains, "What you've heard about the sixth sense is true, especially when you're blind. I can kind of just feel people staring at me. It's incredibly odd but it does come in handy sometimes. I didn't know you had a son, Donovan?"

Harry's father laughs once more, the sound echoes in the large and nearly empty space. "Never came up in conversation. I've got a daughter too, but she's off doing her own thing somewhere in England with her mother. This one just doesn't know what he wants, but he's good company."

Aurelia continues to smile, she's beyond curious about him now and she finds it highly amusing to toy with him. "I'll keep that in mind. Is he disabled, or just embarrassed that I caught him staring?"

Donovan laughs some more and Harry watches as Aurelia's smile grows around the edges. "I'd like to say both, but it's only the latter. He's not really one to mind his own business."

Harry finally gathers his wit to speak up for himself because they've talked about him long enough in his presence. "I'm sorry, I really didn't mean to stare. You were just the only one smiling and seeing everyone else made me want to curl up and just shut the world out for a while."

Her smile now gives him a nice view of her teeth, which are a natural white and were straight enough to be called straight. Her red lipstick fit her perfectly, although, he does wonder how she managed to put it on so precisely.

"Yes, well, I find that moping about things does nothing good for the soul and those around it. I've been there before and it wasn't very pleasant."

Harry finds himself smiling as well. She's certainly right. "That's a very good way to see things, considering the circumstances."

Aurelia diverts the topic for a moment. She doesn't particularly like to talk about her blindness. "I like your accent. It's very pleasing to the ears."

Harry's glad that she can't see the light tint rise in his cheeks. "Thank you, it comes with the family."

Aurelia laughs again and he's transfixed. She's got the kind of laugh that pulls at the heart and it makes him want to say anything at all just so he can hear it again.

Aurelia really likes his sense of humor and plays along, "Sounds like a very good trait to me."

Harry doesn't know what else to say and fumbles with his thoughts just so he can keep talking to her. "I'm Harry, by the way."

A soft laugh passes through her painted lips and Harry swears that he's stopped breathing. "Aurelia, but I'm sure you already know that."

Donovan chuckles lightly from a far corner of the room. Harry's nervous and he's only ever nervous around girls that he likes. Currently, he's enjoying the show.

Harry's hand finds its way to the back of his neck, a nervous habit that he'd developed in his early teens. "It's almost lunch time, would you possibly let me buy you some?"

God, he sounds like he's in grade school again. Harry wants to smack himself but he refrains because he looks from the ground to her sunglasses and notices that she's still smiling.

Aurelia thinks that he's rather cute and her heart nearly leaps out of her chest at the opportunity to invite someone new into her life, someone that doesn't seem to mind the fact that she's blind and dying.

"I have a routine, but you're welcome to join me if you'd like to."

Harry nods forgetting that she can't see him for a moment before he quickly speaks up. "Yes, I'd like that very much."

Aurelia extends her walking stick and stands. Her smile hurts her cheeks, but she doesn't mind. She's finally made a friend her age. "Try to keep up. I'll see you again next Sunday, Donovan."

"Try not to give him an aneurysm, if you can! See you next Sunday, Aurelia!"

Aurelia laughs vibrantly in return, "No promises!"

She's out of the building before Harry can really process what's going on and he has to jog a little to catch up to her. Once they make it outside, she takes an immediate left and he's surprised at how well she knows the area and how quickly she walks along the sidewalk. Her remark about keeping up is starting to make sense.

She can tell that he's surprised with her pace and she smiles as she slows down and clarifies, "I've been coming to your dad's support group for a while now, so I know this part of town like the back of my hand."

Harry finally falls into step beside her. He doesn't really think before he opens his mouth and starts talking. "I just moved over here from England a few days ago. I got tired of the same routine I guess, so I don't know much about where I am yet."

He's sort of rambled, but Aurelia doesn't mind it at all. "I'm sure that you'll like it here. The people are nice, for the most part, and it's pretty quiet. Plus, this area specifically has that small vintage town feeling. Which is really nice if you're into that kind of thing."

Harry shrugs. It doesn't sound much different from where he came from, "Does the routine ever get boring?"

Aurelia knows that he isn't talking about her and that he's talking about the town. He seems to have a habit of being rather vague. "Yes, it will the more time you spend in one place. There's really no way to avoid it. No matter where you go, it will eventually become boring. What are you running from?"

Harry smiles softly. He's already taken a keen interest in the way that she speaks about things and how she just seems to know certain things without them being said. "Myself I suppose."

Aurelia stops walking in front of a nice little café and she turns to face him with a whisper of a smile on her lips. "And why's that?"

He shrugs. He's not really sure of the answer himself. "Because I'm tired of being average, living an average life, and doing average things. I want adventure, I want excitement! I want to be...free."

She knows what he means. There's really nothing holding him back other than himself. "Then why not do exactly that?"

Harry thinks about it for a moment before he has an answer that actually makes sense. "I guess I just don't want to do it alone. Loneliness is the worst feeling in the world, if you've ever known it."

He notices that her fingers are tapping on her cane, almost as if she's waiting for something.

"You're quite right about that. Could you open this door for me? Some people aren't too kind, or don't pay attention, and usually end up hitting me with it or walking into me."

Harry internally curses himself for not doing so before as he rushes over quickly to hold the door open for her.

When they make it inside and to the counter, he finds himself surprised again as she orders for herself without hesitation. In light of trying new things and being adventurous, he decides to order the same thing.

Their food comes out in minutes and after a few good bites, his curiosity gets the best of him. "So, what is this? Like a bigger version of an Italian BMT from Subway?"

Aurelia laughs, "I suppose. It's actually better in my opinion. Costs a bit more, but I don't really mind. How old are you, Harry?"

He sounds about her age, but she's not sure and she's incredibly curious to find out.

Harry smiles as he swirls his straw in his tea, the ice clinking against the glass. "I'm twenty years old."

Aurelia beams, "That's just about what I was thinking. Can I ask why you were at support group today if there isn't anything wrong with you?" She knows that she's asking a lot of questions, but she's not really used to talking to someone her age and it's the only thing she can think to do. She hopes that she isn't irritating him.

"My dad thought that maybe I would want to follow in his footsteps or something. So, I was a good sport and tagged along. Can I ask you a personal question?" He omits one other detail, but he doesn't think that she's the one he's been looking for, so it didn't seem to matter.

Aurelia takes a sip of her tea, a brighter smile threatening to break the surface because he actually wants to know things about her. "I suppose it wouldn't hurt."

"How do you deal with the bad days? That is, if you even have any at all. You seem quite content with how your life is going."

She mildly regrets letting him ask, but she did give him the chance and so she gives him an answer.

"Everyone has bad days; it comes with the cost of living. It's unavoidable. I, for one, drown. Both literally and metaphorically. My eyes no longer function to see, they function to cry. On my bad days, I drown in my tears and what I have lost. I lock myself in my bedroom with my playlist for when I break playing at a comfortable volume, but just loud enough so that my parents hear it and know to just let me be.

"I lay on my bed facing the ceiling and I pretend that I can see again. And, for a moment, I feel better. I picture the books that I had read, all of my favorite quotes and pages, every face that I can remember-especially my own-and all of the places that I long to see in person but have only seen in photographs. I cry until I'm numb and then I slowly begin to piece myself back together. It takes a few days, but eventually my bad days are just bad days and not bad places that I dwell in."

Harry stares at her in astonishment. She's given him a brutally truthful and beautiful answer where he had expected her to just brush it off or say something along the lines of 'I get by.'

Aurelia sips at her drink again. Her small smile returns with his silence, "I take it that wasn't the answer that you were expecting?"

Harry shakes his head and snaps out of his daze. "Not at all. That was...deep."

She laughs softly. He's not wrong at all. "I suppose you could call it that. Sorrow is like a deep seated root and it doesn't matter what you try, it will, in part, always remain."

He looks at her with a profound admiration for her character and for how beautifully and fluently that she speaks. "You're something else, Miss Aurelia."

Her smile grows slightly at the compliment. "Well, I'm just as human as you or anyone else on the planet when it really comes down to it. But thank you for the thought."

They have long since finished their food and Aurelia is seconds away from heading home when she hears him mutter, "Crap..."

Aurelia's teeth are showing again. She'd felt the coolness of the air long before they'd entered the café. "It's raining, isn't it?"

Harry looks at her with bright eyes and a wide smile. "How did you know?"

Aurelia maintains her cheerful smile, "I heard you."

She doesn't mention that she's become accustomed to the signs of changing weather because she doesn't actually want to give him an aneurysm and blow his mind for the umpteenth time in only two hours.

Harry lets out a quiet "Oh," before following up with, "Can I offer you a ride home?"

She laughs lightly. He sounds quite unsure of himself and she thinks that it's incredibly cute. "Are you asking or offering, because I can't really tell?"

A light blush rises in his cheeks, "Both?"

Aurelia mulls over the thought for a moment before deciding that getting a ride is far better than walking home alone and getting drenched. "Alright, but I can't help you navigate."

"That's alright! I've got GPS! I'll run around the corner and get my car. I'll be right back!"

She nods and her smile returns to her usual closed lip one as she waits patiently for Harry to return. He's a nice man and she quite enjoys his company, just like his father had hinted at. With any luck, he'd stick around.

Harry returns only a few minutes later with an umbrella in his hand for her because he doesn't want her to get wet. She doesn't have to ask to notice and she thinks it rather sweet of him.

The car ride to her house is nice and surprisingly comfortable. He has a good taste in music and he doesn't make things awkward like she's grown accustomed to with guys and her blindness. She actually finds herself wanting to sit in the passenger seat of his car for hours, at least, as long as he's there anyway.

Harry peers out her window and checks the address on his GPS to make sure that he's in the right place. How awful would it be to drop a blind woman off at a stranger's house?

"Looks like we're here. Just to make sure though, two stories, red car in the driveway, and a swing on the tree out front?"

Aurelia beams at the familiar description of her home. She remembers when she was little and used to sit and read on the swing out front for half the day.

"Yes, that's the one. Thank you for the ride home and for your company. Will I see you again on Sunday?"

Her hand is on the door handle but she hasn't moved an inch.

Harry's smile equals hers although she can't see it. "Yes, I will be there on Sunday. It was very nice to meet you, Aurelia."

The smile that she always seems to wear grows impossibly brighter at the prospects of seeing him again. "You too. Goodbye, Harry."

Harry's voice is slightly bashful as he replies. "Goodbye, Aurelia."