Something Matt learned from a fairly early age: sometimes, the best way to protect yourself was to keep parts of yourself to yourself. No one needed to know everything about you. You didn't need to volunteer too much about yourself.
People meant well. They did. But unless they’ve been through the hardships and struggles you’ve been through, well, most of the time people had a tougher time relating to you and your challenges. And sometimes when people weren’t actually hearing you, that disconnect in communication could and often did lead to bruised egos and hurt feelings.
Matt didn’t resent anyone for that, though. That kind of gulf in communication. It was just human nature, right? We didn’t experience one singular world which was objectively true, there was only your own subjective one. And you experienced that world through the… through the lens of your own perspective. That lens shaded everything. It shaded every single thing you ever touched and felt and did and thought.
Matt knew this. He knew he was just as guilty of not recognizing his own unexamined biases as anyone else. It was impossible to live life otherwise. The trick was not only to recognize this in others but to recognize it in yourself too.
Which meant Matt understood that he shouldn’t take things personally whenever someone offered ‘helpful’ advice unsolicited. Advice on how he should deal with his grief, for example. Or his disability. And often, this form of advice came from people Matt didn’t even know. Which happened more often than you’d probably expect.
This wasn’t to say he had no one he could talk to; there were the nuns at St. Agnes, and of course Father Lantom. And in that brief moment before he was sent to the orphanage but after he lost his sight, he underwent occupational therapy, and grief counseling and all that sort of thing to learn how to cope with his new reality. Not just physically but emotionally as well. As much as he trusted them, and he did trust them, he still held some things back. Didn’t tell them everything. As Matt mentioned before, he knew how to keep his secrets. But he also understood the difference between heeding advice from trusted professionals who knew what they were talking about and receiving tips and suggestions from random strangers who didn’t.
Again, people meant well, but sometimes it was best to keep some things to yourself.
Specifically, he was talking about things like the wildly out-of-control hyper-senses he had developed almost immediately after the accident that blinded him. How in the world was anyone supposed to even begin to approach that topic.
It was just all too much, all the time. Everything he felt and heard, it pushed in on him and out on him and it was all so invasive, and not even those trusted professionals to whom he could usually confide understood what was happening to him.
Hell, he didn’t even tell his dad what he was going through. How much pain he was actually in. Matt didn’t want him to worry. His dad already had to shoulder so much, Matt didn’t want to add to that burden. Or any more of a burden than he already was. Instead, Matt could pick himself up, dust himself off, and keep going. And that’s what he did.
So Matt knew about keeping things to yourself. He knew about keeping secrets and keeping firm boundaries between your inner and outer worlds.
Stick taught Matt a lot about erecting those boundaries. Which was very good, but in truth, Matt’s feelings surrounding Stick were… well to say they were complicated would be putting it mildly. The man was an asshole. Really, there were no two ways about it. He wasn’t kind, and he wasn’t nurturing, and in the end, he left Matt behind to fend for himself. But he taught Matt how to fight and gave him the tools to work with those sensations which so overwhelmed him rather than against them. It was hard, frustrating work, and Matt didn’t always have the patience to deal with it all. But he did, and it saved his sanity.
Which was another thing Matt learned from an early age: allowing people to get too close was a mistake and it would eventually end up biting you in the ass. You let people in and they’ll just end up leaving you. It was best to keep your heart walled up and closed off. That way, no one would have the chance to carelessly pick it up in their fat hands and rend it apart into a thousand tiny pieces.
Maybe, just maybe this kind of walling off would help protect his sanity. Other people’s… everything just got to be too much. He had no right to know such intimate details about the people around him, especially without their knowledge or consent, and Matt began to fully understand and appreciate the value of other people’s secret-keeping needs. Of course, before his accident, he understood the concept of privacy. He wasn’t that dense. But now, with his heightened senses, well, it was painfully obvious just how important it was to maintain personal boundaries.
If he deserved privacy, well, then so did everyone else.
This was especially true growing up in the boys’ wing of an orphanage such as St. Agnes. And in the spirit of privacy, that was as far as Matt was willing to expand on that particular subject.
*
Sometimes he couldn’t sleep. And by ‘sometimes,’ what he actually meant was ‘all the time.’ At one point it was near nightly. He would lie in bed and the entire world would scream straight into his brain. It could get so bad he would have to physically remove himself from his room and sneak outside just to give himself the distraction. Sneak off the orphanage grounds, even. It got to the point where he became a pro at doing this without anyone noticing, which was aided by the fact that not long after he first arrived at the orphanage, he had been moved into a tiny room the size of a closet, owing to that fact that the other boys in the wing found his late-night screaming too disturbing. He didn’t blame them for that though, of course he didn’t, he was very much aware of just how upsetting his late-night wailing actually could be. He could hear not only the other kids talking about him and what a freak he was in hushed and frightened whispers, but also from the nuns in charge of them who had absolutely no idea what to do with him. It was all too much. All of it. Not only for himself but for everyone else surrounding him. Hence his sneaking up to the rooftop late at night. Or, more often than not, to the roof of the church which sat adjacent to the orphanage. He’d sit up there for hours and hours like a statue where he could use the tools he learned to control his sensory intake. It was a fantastic way of getting out of his own head, and sneaking outside and heading up the highest point he could find would become a habit and strategy he’d employ for the rest of his life.
Sometimes even crouching on top of a church like a stone gargoyle proved to be inadequate, and during those times he would instead sprint and jump and tumble over the many rooftops of Hell’s Kitchen and through her streets and alleyways. The physical activity was invigorating, and it allowed him to hone his senses further and to continue his training without the aid of outside guidance or support. But no matter which method he chose, at the end of the night, he’d slip back into bed before anyone was the wiser.
(Something he didn’t know at the time: Maggie knew. Of course she did. Maggie knew everything that went on in her orphanage. She was no fool. Apparently, Matt was not nearly as clever as he thought he was with the whole sneaking out at night thing. Of course, he was mortified when she dropped that particular bombshell on him, but then, he supposed humoring him in that way was yet another of the many secrets Maggie kept within her own heart in respect to her relation to Matt and his upbringing at St. Agnes Orphanage.)
Then Matt turned eighteen, completed his high school credits, received his diploma, and went away to college. (Well, “away.” He’d gone to Columbia University. He didn’t even need to leave the island of Manhattan to attend classes there.)
It was there where he would meet his roommate and eventual law partner, Foggy Nelson. Meeting Foggy changed everything Matt thought he knew about interpersonal relationships.
“This is awesome!” Foggy exclaimed within seconds of meeting Matt. That was probably exaggerating things a little bit, but not by much, given the way Foggy jumped up and rushed over to him. “We’re going to be the bestest of best friends!”
As it turned out, Foggy also grew up in the Kitchen. His family owned a butcher shop and were well established in the neighborhood. Hell’s Kitchen wasn’t all that big and it occurred to Matt that he and Foggy very likely encountered one another without realizing it. Matt was certain he’d been inside Nelson’s Meats with his dad a time or two.
Apparently, when he was a young boy, Foggy Nelson read a newspaper article about the accident which had caused Matt’s blindness. The article had apparently left quite the impression on the young Foggy Nelson, to still remember it all those years later, and Matt wasn’t really sure what to make of that. Every single one of the kids at St. Agnes had their own sob story. They were all orphans, after all, and no one, save for the adults, had been there by choice. Even then, many of the nuns themselves carried dark pasts which they refused to talk about. Which was completely fair as those histories and problems and life stories were none of the kids’ business, anyway. For most of Matt’s life, this unspoken rule of keeping oneself to oneself was simply the murky water in which he swam. So it was a novel experience, then, to meet someone for whom that kind of… childhood pain was a novel experience.
Matt laughed. He liked this kid.
“I just have one rule though,” Foggy said. “And this, my friend, is of the utmost importance: no secrets.”
“Oh,” Matt said. “Um. Sure." That was easy enough, he just wouldn't volunteer too much about himself. Especially anything he deemed too personal.
Privacy. Everyone deserved their privacy.
“Awesome!” Foggy said and offered his hand for Matt to shake. “Incoming! At your twelve o’clock.”
“Hm? Oh.” Matt said and accepted the handshake. Foggy’s hand was clammier than he expected, and now that he was paying closer attention, Foggy’s whole body seemed unusually low in temperature. Lower than he normally encountered in people, anyway. And Foggy’s heart seemed a little sluggish too. It was curious, but Foggy stood before him just fine without any obvious difficulty in breathing or complaints about the ambient room temperature, which meant that unless Foggy decided to bring the subject up, then his health was none of Matt’s business.
Matt must have made something of a surprised face at the cool contact though, because Foggy immediately piped up with, “You know what they say, ‘cool hands, warm heart!’”
Matt chuckled at that. It was something Sister Maggie used to say about her own chronically chilly hands. Except none of the other kids believed she even had a heart, given how stern she tended to be with them, let alone a warm one.
“I’ve always wondered,” Matt said through a lop-sided smile, “who exactly are ‘they’ anyway? You always hear what ‘they’ have to say, but we never actually find out who ‘they’ are.”
Foggy laughed. Foggy laughed so hard he choked on his saliva and had to clear his throat once the hacking cough died down. Foggy’s voice was scratchy when he tried speaking again, which sent Matt into his own fit of laughter “Oh, shit!” Foggy said. Or tried to say. "You’re so right! Why the hell do we listen to them, anyway? Fuck them!”
“Fuck them,” Matt agreed, still laughing. And he knew right then and there that he and Foggy were going to get along just fine.
*
“Are you kidding? I couldn’t do that!” Matt heard Foggy saying as Matt approached their room. Did he have company? Should Matt turn around and find somewhere else to study? Should he go to the library, maybe? Matt paused in the hallway. Then Foggy made a few sounds in the affirmative, which Matt assumed meant he was talking to someone on the phone.
He should go. Turn around and give Foggy some privacy.
Decision made, Matt adjusted his destination and headed toward the library.
Until he heard his name.
“I mean, that sounds nice and all, but I couldn’t just take advantage of Matt’s blindness like that. I mean, that would make me a pretty shitty friend and--.”
Oh, well, this was definitely none of Matt’s business. But he was good at tuning out input he didn’t want to take in, and so that’s what he did.
*
Foggy had taken to tucking his ice-cold feet underneath Matt’s warm legs whenever Matt sat on his bed to study. The first night Foggy invited himself over to sit next to Matt, Matt had told him to buzz off and take his icicle toes with him. But Foggy conveniently forgot about the fact that boundaries were a thing until three nights later when Matt finally relented.
More like gave up, but at least he didn’t disturb Matt’s studying. Foggy always brought with him a book to read or work of his own to keep him occupied, so really, Matt couldn’t complain too much. And it was kind of nice.
At some point, Matt started to become so comfortable around Foggy, he started to forgo wearing his glasses around him. Though Matt would not be able to tell you exactly when that was.
It was something he never did around the other kids at the orphanage. Which surprised him. He didn’t expect to feel this comfortable around anyone. Especially someone who seemed to be made of ice cubes and only wanted Matt around so he could leech body heat off of him.
In all seriousness though, Foggy was right when he described himself as living up to that old cliche of having cold hands (and all the rest of him to be honest) and a warm heart.
And as it turned out, Foggy was the warmest person Matt knew.
*
“What are you doing for Thanksgiving,” Foggy casually said one night after late-night fatigue started to set in and Matt found himself having to untangle Foggy’s chilly legs from Matt’s own warm ones so he could wrap up and put his stuff up for the night.
Matt groaned through a stretch and his thin sweater must have ridden up a little because Foggy’s icicle-hand landed right on Matt’s bare stomach. Matt squawked in surprise and elbowed Foggy in the side in retaliation.
“Thanksgiving,” Foggy repeated once they both stopped laughing and Matt used that very moment to nudge Foggy off the bed with his sock-covered foot. Pushed his big toe right into a tender spot in his side as a hint to go and freeze out his own bed.
Thankfully Foggy took the hint and extricated himself from the warmth of Matt’s bed and his body heat, and Matt was in equal parts grateful and disappointed at Foggy’s departure.
During the holidays, the older kids at St. Agnes were expected to volunteer some of their time at the church-run soup kitchen feeding the hungry. And while Matt was no longer obligated to donate his time now that he had officially aged out, spending the holiday there helping others was what he knew. He hadn’t made any official plans, but he felt fairly confident that an extra pair of hands would be more than welcomed.
Instead of explaining all of this to Foggy, Matt simply said, “I’ll figure something out.” Then almost as an afterthought, he added, “I don’t expect to be around.”
“Oh,” Foggy said. He genuinely sounded surprised and maybe a little disappointed to hear that.
Matt was grateful Foggy didn’t press the subject.
*
Sometimes, Matt and Foggy would end up hanging out at the butcher shop. The dining area there provided a nice change of pace for studying and Foggy’s family would ply them with fresh deli sandwiches whenever they were there. Which was fantastic if you were a poor college kid like he was, and besides, Matt was raised by nuns. He knew it was impolite to turn down someone else’s kindness and hospitality.
This particular day was a rainy Saturday when Foggy’s brother Theo, who had been working behind the deli counter at the front of the store, decided to flag Foggy down just as he and Matt were making good progress on a paper they both had due on Monday.
Foggy threw his hands up dramatically and his sigh of annoyance was loud and obviously exaggerated for Matt’s benefit. “Be back in a sec,” Foggy grumbled and Matt had never heard Foggy sound so put-upon.
Matt acknowledged his friend’s departure with a sigh of his own and a small nod. He then began stuffing his laptop bag with his Braille terminal and everything else he’d been using to do his work. He and Foggy weren’t going to get any more studying in for the day. Which was just as well. A lot was going on at the store today for some reason.
Foggy and his brother disappeared into the walk-in freezer to have their conversation. Matt completely lost track of them once they entered the freezer. In Matt’s experience, most people would stand out to him against a chilly environment such as a walk-in cooler, but for some reason, all the Nelsons ran unusually cold. It was just as well that Matt could no longer sense them from behind the cold freezer door, because as the brothers walked toward it, Matt had to actively tune out their hushed and whispered conversation the moment he heard his name and the words ‘blind’ and ‘taking advantage of’ all in the same sentence.
Foggy’s dad Edward chose that exact moment to sit down across from Matt. “So, Matt,” Foggy’s dad began.
“Mr. Nelson,” Matt greeted. It was odd sitting across from a man-sized heat sink. He still wasn’t entirely used to it with Foggy, and Matt was around Foggy all the time seeing as they shared a room and all.
"How’s school going.”
Ah, yes. How’s school going. Now that was a safe question if Matt ever heard one. It was the kind of question adults you were only vaguely acquainted with would ask you when they wanted to engage with you but didn't want to accidentally step on any boundaries.
"It’s going well,” Matt politely responded. Matt was very much aware of the fact that Foggy’s dad was making a valiant effort at distracting Matt from whatever underlying tension was happening there in the butcher shop. And Matt wasn’t sure what to make of it.
“And I hope Franklin isn’t too much trouble,” Foggy’s dad said. He enunciated each word carefully as if he were gauging Matt’s response. Which he found a little strange, but Matt didn’t really want to examine why he found it so strange.
“Yeah, no, we get along just fine.” Matt smiled reassuringly. Then, just to break the ice a little bit, Matt leaned in a little conspiratorially, and said in an overly dramatic whisper, “Don’t tell Foggy I said anything, but he could stand to do a better job picking up after himself.” Then from his seat, Matt jerked his body forward a little and gasped a small, “oh,” as if he’d just unexpectedly tripped over something. Mr. Nelson chucked at Matt’s demonstration, which was very generous of him. Then Matt added, “I’m kidding. Foggy’s great.”
“Hey, glad to hear it,” Mr. Nelson said. He was still laughing a little, which Matt appreciated. “Let me tell ya, though. That boy could not keep a tidy bedroom if his life depended on it.”
“Whatever my dad’s telling you, it’s all lies,” Foggy said, and Matt was genuinely surprised he didn’t notice him sooner.
Matt greeted Foggy and his brother Theo with a nod as Theo pulled out a chair and sat next to Matt.
Mr. Nelson rose from his own seat. “I’m gonna go and help your mom up front,” he said.
“‘Kay, Dad,” the brothers said in unison.
Mr. Nelson greeted his wife and joined her behind the deli counter. In a low, soft voice, he commented that his brother Tim wouldn’t be stopping by the store until after closing time because he “couldn’t be bothered to put on his outside clothes today.” And “he doesn’t want to scare away the customers with his... ‘beer gut.’”
Matt’s abilities to hear outside the normal human range was a curse, he was sure of it. Well, fortunately at this point in his life, he was fairly adept at tuning out unwanted sounds and voices.
“I just think it’s bullshit, that’s all,” Theo was loudly saying and Matt was beginning to wonder what he missed.
Or maybe it was best he didn’t, because Foggy then kicked his brother under the table.
“Holy shit! Theo,” Foggy warned through clenched teeth. “Not now!”
“No, Foggy. You’re taking advantage and I don’t think it’s right.”
“I'm taking advantage! Me? You’re the one who’s--Holy shit! Outside clothes! Right the fuck now.”
"There's nobody here!"
"Theo!"
“Fine.”
“Okay. Better,” Foggy said. He sounded incredibly relieved.
“What’s happening?” Matt asked.
“Nothing,” Foggy said. But he was lying. Matt could tell when people were lying and Foggy was lying. “My brother doesn’t seem to understand what ‘taking advantage of’ means.”
'Um. Sure?”
Outside clothes. What did outside clothes mean? Matt heard Foggy’s dad say it, and Foggy said it just now. Matt didn’t--
“Oh,” Matt said. “Oh.”
Were the… Were the Nelsons nudists?
“What, ‘oh,’” Foggy asked, sounding like he was trying to stave off a panic attack.
“People make a lot of assumptions,” Matt began. “Not just about my blindness, but that too.”
“Matt.”
“They know I was raised by nuns, and maybe they’ll think that means I’d be prudish or not very accepting of… of people’s lifestyles or--”
“Matt!”
“But my dad was a boxer. And I saw a lot of fights. So I know what the human body is capable of. It’s an incredibly powerful machine, the best one we have. And it’s beautiful and there’s… there’s no need to be ashamed of it. I know I’m not.”
There.
He said it.
Foggy and Theo both sat there, stunned. Maybe people didn’t usually react this way once they realized. Maybe they've historically reacted with disgust or disappointment or guilt or shame. Well, turned out Matt wasn’t most people.
“So if you want to... You know. Be yourself. In the dorm room, well,” and Matt gave a small depreciative laugh as he gestured toward his glasses. “It’s not like I could tell.”
(He could, but not the same way sighted people could. And it’s not like he cared. He grew up in an orphanage. With other teenage boys. Nudity was not a foreign concept to him.)
Theo’s chair scraped across the floor as he stood. He clapped his brother on the shoulder and said, sounding incredulous, “Foggy, the human body.”
“I know,” Foggy said. He sounded miserable. And defeated. Matt was completely baffled.
“Matt,” Theo said instead of ‘goodbye,’ or ‘see ya later,’ or whatever.
Matt tipped up his chin in Theo’s direction. “Theo.”
“Well,” Foggy said, once his brother was out of earshot. “That could have gone better.”
From that point on, Matt took it upon himself to pointedly ask, “You decent?” whenever he entered their shared dorm. Sometimes he'd make a comment about smelling patchouli or maybe some other substance.
Foggy didn’t find any of that very funny but Matt sure as hell did, and really, that was all that mattered.
Foggy tolerated it for about a week and a half before apparently deciding he'd had enough.
"Come, sit down," Foggy said, and Matt entered the room tentatively.
"I wanna show you something," Foggy continued, and Matt was curious enough to keep the obvious blind joke to himself.
He folded his cane, slipped off his shoes, and sat primly on the edge of his bed.
He expected Foggy to join him there like he usually did. But he didn't. Matt absently rubbed at the warm spot under his thigh where Foggy's ice-cold toes would often go.
"You remember when we met?"
"Yeah, of course," Matt said. He folded his hands in his lap and he wasn't sure why, but he felt like he was in trouble for something. Like he was sitting in the principal's office, unsure of what he'd done wrong. (Fighting. It was usually fighting.)
"Remember how I said I had one rule? The no secrets rule?" Matt's fingers wouldn't stop fidgeting against his jeans.
Foggy knew. Somehow Foggy found out about Matt and all the lies and secrets he'd been holding and--
"Well, turns out I broke my own rule. I wasn't being entirely honest with you."
Wait. What.
"What."
Matt could tell when people were lying to him. If Foggy had been lying about something that day, Matt would have known. His ability to detect lies had never failed him. Not once. Not a single time.
Foggy sighed and got up from his own bed and sat down next to Matt.
He didn't tuck his toes under Matt's leg, though.
"I wish you could see me," Foggy said. He sounded sad and regretful and maybe even a little afraid.
Matt took in a fortifying breath. He was going to do it. Despite every instinct screaming at him to keep his secrets to himself, Matt was going to do it. He was going to tell Foggy the truth about himself. About what he is. About what he can do.
"I. I can... In a manner of speaking."
"No offense, pal, but if that were true, you'd be freaking the fuck out right now."
"Why, are you naked or something," Matt said, trying to break the tension a little bit. It fell completely flat, though. Foggy just huffed through his nose.
"The Nelsons aren't a bunch of hippies. My dad and my brother both think it's hilarious you have that impression and my mom is mostly mortified--not that she has anything against hippies--but that isn't what's going on."
"You wear sideburns and keep your hair too long," Matt pointed out as evidence of Foggy's said hippyness.
"Sometimes," Foggy said and Matt had no idea what that meant.
"I don't know what that means."
"Sometimes. It's a word that means occasionally. Not all the time."
Matt refused to dignify that with a response.
"Here. I'll show you," Foggy said. Then he set his frozen icicle hands on top of Matt's warm ones and moved them up so that Matt was touching Foggy's face.
Foggy was cool and a little clammy, but that wasn't a surprise. That was just how he was.
Matt's fingers brushed over strange, hard ridges before moving up and over Foggy's scalp. There was no hair there. None whatsoever.
Matt tried to jerk his hands away, but Foggy pressed them in place.
Matt licked his lips. He didn't understand what he was experiencing.
"I don't--"
Matt pulled his hands away.
Usually, Matt heard everything. But all he could hear was his and Foggy's breathing.
"Matt." Foggy sounded scared.
"Can I?" Matt asked. He lifted his hands toward his friend's face again.
"Yeah."
The ridges were gone and Foggy had a full head of long, soft hair. He had fluffy sideburns and a silly little patch on his chin and if Matt wanted to pretend he simply imagined things, then he could do just that.
But he didn't want to.
"So not nudists," Matt said.
Foggy's laugh was a little wet.
"Refugees, actually," and Foggy went on to explain how his family came to New York. How they didn't exactly come through Ellis Island, because Ellis Island wasn't still a thing when Foggy was a kid. The family had only been here in New York since the early nineties which, oddly enough, was the part Matt found the most shocking about this entire reveal.
"You are taking this surprisingly well," Foggy said after he finished explaining to Matt that aliens were real and could blend into human society and that there were probably a whole lot more of them walking around than maybe people realized.
"It doesn't matter," Matt said. "Everyone deserves to have a home and to make a life for themselves and it doesn't matter where they come from."
Foggy's hand was cold in his, but Matt didn't mind.
"I should have asked you if you were born in Hell's Kitchen." That way, Matt would have for sure known if Foggy had been lying.
"Well, now you know."
"I do," Matt agreed. Then: "I have something I should tell you, too." Matt ran his fingers through Foggy’s hair, then over his cool, bare scalp, and confessed everything.
-the end-