Congratulations for earning a spot in the LGBTQ+: Sun-Kissed Anthology! ♥

It is a Tuesday afternoon, and the sun is hot and unforgiving in a cloudless Arizona-sky.

The air has been stagnant from the heat for the past couple of days; walking outside feels like attempting to push through a marshmallow, like everything has that particular texture - thick and chewy and molten. The tiniest movement causes break-outs and beads of sweat collecting on foreheads like miniature constellations.

A fly is buzzing around somewhere inside the cramped little corner shop; Jason has yet to spot it. It is a constant sound in his ears, very much akin to the humming of the decades-old refrigerator. Even with the air con turned up to the max and a moth-eaten towel to fan himself with, Jason feels hot and lazy, like the humid air has found a way inside him, too, filling him from nose to mouth, from ear to ear.

It's not hard to tell that his customers feel the same. There are only four people in today: Stan, the Elementary school's janitor, who is using his newspaper to fan himself rather than reading it; Ellen, the soccer mom, who is busy eating a low-carb salad and rambling into her phone; Stephan, the painter's apprentice, who looks about ready to fall asleep while slurping on a Slushie; and a boy whose name Jason does not know. All of them are hazy from the heat, lizards dozing away their days on stones.

Jason's eyes drift back to the boy, involuntarily. He reckons that he is new to town, because he hasn't seen him around before; he has dark, close-cropped hair, golden-brown skin and a face that looks always half-ready to break out into a smile. He is wearing a bright yellow T-Shirt, sitting in the corner by the open window, sipping on his iced chocolate every now and then.

Aside from Janet, Jason is the only one in today; he reckons it wouldn't make much sense, anyway, to bring in more employees than customers. Janet, as per usual, isn't being much of a help: she's in the back, leaned up against a counter, chewing cinnamon gum and texting her boyfriend.

A single bead of sweat rolls down Jason's temple. A car passes by outside; it is the only sign of life out on the streets. Even the flies are too lazy to move, save for that one annoying specimen that is happily exploring the rack with protein bars right now. The world has been put on pause, muted until this wave of summer heat crashes and breaks its spell.

The clicking of a typewriter fills the heavy silence; it's the boy in the corner, typing away busily. Jason frowns, wondering who the hell even uses a typewriter anymore and what the boy is writing about.

That's when he notices that the boy's eyes aren't fixed on the letters; he is staring into space, almost like he's been hypnotized, hacking away at the machine without having to look. At first Jason assumes that he is so used to his typewriter that he doesn't have to check anymore, but then he notices that his typewriter, too, looks strange - instead of having a normal keyboard, it has one square key reminiscent of the space-key on a laptop in the middle, with three slightly smaller keys on either side of it.

He must be blind.

The realization hits Jason like a train; he immediately feels guilty for staring at someone who won't, can't notice, looking away from him and finding himself feeling stupid and weirdly guilty although he, technically, doesn't have anything to feel guilty for. This boy has had people walk on eggshells around him all his life, probably. I just wonder if-

Determinedly, Jason pushes off the counter, through the swing door and then approaches Janet, who has now added twirling a strand of her hair to her repertoire.

"Janet," he says. She doesn't look up. "That boy in the corner, with the yellow shirt?"

"Mr. Vintage?" she replies, sounding utterly bored. Jason draws his brows in frustration, but attempts to keep his voice light-hearted and friendly; if he pisses her off now, he'll never get the information he needs.

"Yeah, him," he says patiently, trying very hard to suppress a sigh. Janet has always been a little, well, self-centered. It wouldn't be surprising if a zombie apocalypse broke out and she began complaining about getting dirt on her new shoes. "You served him, right?"

"I did. Why? You think he's cute?" Finally, something seems to have caught her interest. She looks up from her phone, mustering Jason. He manages not to squirm under her scrutinizing gaze. "I didn't know he was your type."

Jason ignores her. "Is he blind?"

"What? Hell if I know!" she says, sounding suddenly offended. Jason sighs.

"Please, Janet."

"Now that I think about it, he was the only boy I've met who didn't stare at my boobs - so either he's gay, or blind, or both," she states, looking rather befuddled by the thought that someone might not find her attractive. Jason keeps himself from grinning because finally, he's got what he wanted to know.

"I'll take fifteen minutes off, okay?" Without waiting for a reply, Jason swings the dirty towel back over his shoulder, heading out the swing door and towards the table in the corner. Janet protests faintly in the background before burying herself in her text messages again.

The boy doesn't look up until Jason is standing right in front of him, a movement like he is sensing Jason's presence more than anything else. His eyes still stare into nothing.

"Hello?" he asks, tentative. His voice is reluctant and carefully guarded, but not unfriendly.

"Hi," Jason says a little too casually, "Mind if I sit with you?"

"Um... sure, go ahead," the boy says, inclining his head towards the chair opposite of him. Suddenly nervous, Jason takes a seat. The chair is hard wood and rickety legs beneath him, and he has nowhere to wipe his sweaty hands. It feels like he is violating every rule in the book right now.

"My name is Jason," he finally says.

"Oscar," the boy replies. "Oscar DiLaurentis."

"Hold up... DiLaurentis? Is Ellen your sister?" Jason asks, surprised. He recalls faintly the face of a girl, a Sophomore, with honey-colored skin and black hair that match Oscar's.

Oscar smiles very faintly. "Of course you'd know her. You're the Jason, aren't you? Jason Pratt. She talks about you all day. Jason this, Jason that."

Embarrassed, Jason can feel himself blush. "Yeah, that'd be me," he says quietly, looking down at his lap. He remembers a lunch conversation about Ellen's brother, homeschooled due to a condition. He also remembers the shame and guilt in her eyes. Silence ensues, but before it can kill any further conversation between them, Jason speaks up again. "Well, Oscar, what are you working on?"

At this, Oscar looks surprised. Like he isn't used to people showing any interest in him. "Just some ... story. It's nothing, really."

And Jason is back in the game. Relieved, he leans forward, resting his elbows on the tabletop. "Some story, huh? That's perfect, because I thought ... I thought maybe you'd like to read something, with me?"

Oscar blinks. Once, twice. "I'm blind, you know."

It doesn't sound condescending, nor angry. Just like he's stating a simple fact. Jason smiles, relieved. "I know. I thought .... I thought I could read it out loud, for you. And then you read yours. A story for a story."

"A story for a story," Oscar muses, tasting the words, rolling them across his tongue once, twice. Then he nods. "Go ahead. I'm listening,"

Jason can feel his heart thundering in his ears, his wrists, at the bottom of his throat. But he folds open the book to the page he marked earlier and reads:

"The tumult in the heart

keeps asking questions.

And then it stops and undertakes to answer

in the same tone of voice.

No one could tell the difference.

Uninnocent, these conversations start,

and then engage the senses,

only half-meaning to.

And then there is no choice,

and then there is no sense;

until a name

and all its connotations are the same."

Oscar is quiet for so long that Jason fears he has offended him, but then he just says, voice incredulous and awed, "That's brilliant. Is it yours?"

Jason's smile could now replace the Grand Canyon; it's cleaving the world apart just as effectively. "God, no. I wish. It's Elizabeth Bishop's poetry."

"Well, she's really, really good. I liked it," Oscar says.

"You did?" Oscar nods, and Jason feels something warm and golden in his chest. But then he remembers his original request and gestures toward Oscar's typewriter. "Your turn."

Oscar fumbles with the paper for a long moment, then straightens it out before him. The raised little bumps of the braille alphabet are barely distinguishable from here, so Jason just traces the movement of Oscar's hands, the way he places his fingertips on the paper lightly. He skirts them across the first word, then the second, and then he begins to read.

"There once was a boy who had no light in his world.

Unfortunately, he was afraid of the dark; he cried and cried until his mother took him to a psychiatrist. The psychiatrist said it was a positive mindset he was lacking, and so the boy smiled and smiled and yet, the darkness would not cease to be.

He cried out of fear and he cried out of despair, and so his mother, concerned as much as she was confused, took him to a doctor. The doctor claimed that sitting out in the sun every day for an hour, eating oranges and lemons and all kinds of fruit that smelled like summer, would be the remedy to his curse. The mother thanked him and made sure that the son sat in the sun for an hour each day, and made him eat two oranges and two lemons for breakfast and for dinner. The darkness, however, did not lighten; and the boy cried, frightened and lonely in a world without light.

Desperate, the mother took him to see a surgeon; the surgeon explained that it wasn't the boy's thoughts, or the boy's vitamin levels, but the boy's eyes that were at fault: he had been born with eyes that could only see darkness, and nothing more. But the surgeon promised to help the mother; she was grateful for his kindness and told her son that soon, he too would see the light. The surgeon put the son through a long process of complicated methods, until the son fell into a sleep without dreams; and when he woke, he woke to darkness, for the surgeon had not been able to restore the light that had been taken from him.

The boy began crying again, and this time, the mother cried, too; the son was beyond saving. When she laid her boy to sleep that night, she kissed his forehead with care, hiding the tears that ran down her face. The boy, however, felt one of his mother's tears as it fell into his hair, running through the thick strands and tickling his scalp; he felt horrible for having caused such terrible grief. It took him a long while to fall asleep.

As soon as he had, though, a strange golden bird landed on his window sill; the boy could not see it, but from the rustling of his soft feathers he could tell that the magnificent animal was of a respectable size, and from its lovely singing voice he knew that the bird must be golden, for all golden birds sing like treasure come to life.

"Oh, magnificent bird," the boy said, "I wish for my mother to stop being so sad; I wish to see the light so she will smile." And he began to cry.

The bird, however, was really a wizard in an animal's body; so he listened to the boy, and he understood his sorrow. Gently, he soared over to the boy's bed, landing on his sheets to tuck his head against the boy's palm, a gesture that offered him comfort.

"Do not cry," the bird advised the little boy, "For you can see, and the light is deep within you." "But I cannot see!" the boy weeped, crying all the harder, "I have no eyes to see with! They are broken, they only show me the darkness and not the light."

"Ah, but you have other senses," the wizard explained, "You have ears that tell you the shape of the sounds, and a nose that smells secret glances, and a tongue that tastes colors. You have hands that can feel the texture of the world, and, most importantly, you have a heart that stays true to your emotions. In order to see the light, young boy, you must not look outwards; see with your heart, and you will see the light."

The boy listened closely, but he did not think he understood what, exactly, the bird was talking about; the wizard, however, had other children to attend to, and he knew that his work with the boy was done, so he silently flew out the window again, leaving the boy by himself.

It was only when dawn broke and the boy's mother came into his room that he understood what the bird, who had truly been no bird at all, but a wizard, had meant, and the boy leapt from his bed in joy and hugged his mother tight, who was surprised but relieved to see the darkness fall off her son's shoulders like a cloak.

"Mama," he cried, dancing around her happily, "I see the light! For it is really not a light, but it is love; and love lives in all of us, and you can smell and hear and taste and feel it, and finally, finally I see the light!"

The mother laughed, and then she held her son and wept, but this time, she cried tears of joy, for her son would never again have to live in the terrible, lonely darkness."

When Oscar finishes reading, the silence that follows is reverent, a palpable thing that Jason can feel coursing between them. He swallows once, twice, and blinks away the tears that have gathered in the corners of his eyes. His voice is raw and vulnerable as he speaks. "Wow. That was ... wow. I - I have no words."

"Thank you," Oscars replies; his cheeks are flushed a delicate pink, and now Jason can feel himself blush, too. He feels like he's intruding on a very intimate moment, like he has just glimpsed a piece of Oscar that he doesn't show many people very often.

"Hey, Oscar," he says, breaking the silence eventually, "My shift ends in twenty minutes. Would you like to hang out?"

"Yes," Oscar replies, looking soft and blurred around the edges like a photograph in sepia in the light of the late afternoon sun, "Yes, I would very much like that."

"I thought we could go see a movie," Jason says as he unwinds his apron, handing it to a pouting Janet, who has now moved behind the counter. Oscar is standing next to him, the case he carries his typewriter in in one hand, his red-tipped cane in the other.

"Oh, ha ha," he replies drily, waiting for Jason to finish. "You're very funny, Jason Pratt, very funny indeed."

Jason's ears burn, but he wants to get his point across regardless. "No, just let me explain - we go watch the movie, but we both watch it b- like you. I'll keep my eyes closed, too, and then we can have guesses at what they're doing."

"You can say blind, Jason. It's not a filthy word." Oscar sounds patient, and Jason mumbles an apology.

"I've never been on a date with a blind person before, is all," he mutters, knowing damn well that that isn't an excuse.

Oscar's smile is fiendish as he asks, "Oh, it's a date now, is it?"

Jason, suddenly insecure, holds open the door for him. "Isn't it?"

Oscar steps through, unfolding his cane. "I was hoping it would be."

"Me, too," Jason admits, and then they make their way through the dead streets to the movie theatre, Jason's hands in his pockets, Oscar moving his cane in front of him gingerly.

The theatre, like every other place in town, seems utterly deserted, save for the clerk behind the front desk. It's a guy from school who looks bored out of his mind. "Two tickets to whatever is on right now," Jason says, fumbling for his wallet.

The clerk stares. "Dude, seriously? He's blind."

"I don't see how that's any of your fucking business," Jason replies pleasantly, then takes the tickets from the boy who looks rather startled. He doesn't wait for a reply, just grabs Oscar's hand and drags him along to the popcorn machine.

Oscar is shaking with silent laughter as he tries to keep up with Jason's long, angry strides. "Poor guy," he says, "You didn't go easy on him."

"He didn't need to be such a - a dick," Jason says, utterly frustrated. He begins pumping butter onto their popcorn like the machine is responsible for the clerk's insensitive comment.

"Relax, Jason. No need to kill the popcorn machine," Oscar says, reaching out a hand until he finds Jason's arm. "Besides, I can't see the haters anyway."

Jason is still laughing when they enter the theatre to find their seats, and then Oscar's hand finds his and the movie doesn't really matter all that much, after all.

After, they exit the theatre into the smudgy gray lighting of dusk; it's still as hot as it was before, but the world looks softer, less on edge now. Neither Jason nor Oscar could've said what happened in the movie: all their senses were too busy going into overdrive thanks to their fingers, intertwined.

Oscar has decided to leave his cane in his bag, and is instead holding on to Jason's upper arm; they are walking along the street, talking and laughing.

A girl from a stall on the side of the street catches Jason's attention by waving. "Someone wants to talk to us," he informs Oscar, and so they stop in front of her little makeshift-shop. The table is covered with bracelets, pins and flags in rainbow colors.

"Hey," she says, smiling at them broadly, "It's Pride Month this month, and I was wondering if you would maybe like to buy a badge?"

Jason just stares at her, confused. He doesn't know what she's talking about. "Pride Month?"

"Yeah," she explains, "For the LGBT community. I just thought - since you two were together-"

"Oh," Jason interrupts her, finally catching on. "We're not - I mean, we are - but not like that - um-"

"Can I get a bracelet, please?" Oscar asks quietly. Jason notices only now that he has been examining the girl's products on the table with his fingers, carefully letting them wander from item to item.

"Of course," the girl says, smiling at him broadly. Oscar begins digging out his wallet, but Jason just grabs his hand lightly.

"Make that two, please."

"Can I show you something?" Oscar's voice is soft and surreal in the stifling silence of the summer heat; he looks like a polaroid photo come to life, sitting cross-legged on the grass of Stein's Park.

"Sure," Jason says, fastening the bracelet around Oscar's wrist. He is sitting opposite him, and suddenly he wishes that they would talk about what they are, if they are anything, and if Oscar does kissing on the first date.

"Close your eyes," Oscar commands, "Really close them, and don't peek, okay?" Jason obeys. "Now listen. Listen very closely."