“Paige?” I said carefully, quietly, so as not to disturb anyone else. She turned to face me, her eyes opening so calmly that I almost wondered if she’d really been asleep. She wiped away her tears with the back of her arm. She dropped her hand into her lap, where it lay listlessly, like it was dead. I met her gaze, staring deeply into her eyes for the first time. I was surprised to find that her eyes had several flecks of color in them. They were a swirl of blue, green, grey, and brown, glimmering in the dim light of the aircraft.
And they were surprisingly flat. Dead, like the way her arm lay in her lap. The image was disturbingly familiar. I couldn’t remember where I’d seen that look before- that horrible blankness, emptiness.
I looked away, my stomach curling uneasily, as it did sometimes when I was around Paige. And then, with sudden, shocking swiftness, the memory hit me.
I was staring at myself in the mirror- right after I left that hospital the second time after Cynthia ‘died.’ My eyes were flat. Dead.