Who was that?!

A guy with a coif of dark blond hair and perfect lips walked into my dad's bookstore. He was wearing a pair of designer sunglasses and I found it odd that he didn't take them off. From the angle that I was looking from, it took me a moment to notice the cane.

Oh, wow. He was blind.

"Hello," he said, probing the room for a presence.

"Hi," I said, loudly. "How can I help?"

"I heard you have a brail section," he said, equally loud. Those beautiful lips curled into a cheeky smile.

Why had I spoken as if he was hard of hearing?

"Anything, in particular, you're looking for?" I asked, deliberately lowering my voice.

"The DMV driving license handbook," he said with a perfectly straight face.

"You want to drive? But you're..."

"I'm just messing with you," he said with a chuckle. "You should have seen the look on your face."

"But..."

"Gotcha again!" he said, laughing to himself.

"How can I help?" I repeated, not wanting to say the wrong thing.

"I've heard that you're the only place in town that sells brail versions of H.P. Lovecraft's books."

Holy shit! This beautiful creature liked Lovecraft? I'd convinced my dad to carry all of his published works.

"Yes, we do," I said with renewed enthusiasm. "Any book in particular?"

"All of them!" he said, his voice lowering two octaves.

I'd watch in fascination as his fingers glided over the page as he "read" the first few paragraphs.

He'd shown up every week around the same time to buy a book in the order they were written.

Despite his blindness, he seemed to be perfectly aware of my presence. He would turn his head in my direction and ask me questions.

"Did you know that Lovecraft was a white supremacist?" he asked, letting the weight of the question hang in the air.

"A book should not be judged by the flaws of its author any more than it should be judged by its cover," I said, impressed with my own spur-of-the-moment eloquence.

"Well said," he remarked, as he walked towards the cash register. I'd been giving him fat discounts on all of his purchases, I would surely get in trouble with my dad.

"I've been meaning to ask..." he said, hesitantly. "Would you maybe... want to read me some Lovecraft, sometime?"

Holy shit! Was he for real?!

"I'd like that," I said, as casually as possible. "We can meet at 'The Corner' if you like, I hear they have great milkshakes."

"Is it alright if you come to my place? My mom is giving me a hard time for not having friends over anymore."

"Ok," I breathed. He wasn't the only one with a shortage of friendship. I was the cliche that kept books for company.

His room had been completely adapted to accommodate his blindness, yet he moved around the space as if he knew exactly where everything was.

The book he handed me looked well-read, did it belong to one of his parents? Is that where his love for the author came from?

"Shall I just start from the beginning?" I asked. Maybe he had left off somewhere in his brail version.

"Honestly? I just really like the sound of your voice. You could read me IKEA instructions and I'd gladly listen," he said with a coy grin.

Was he... flirting with me?

"So, why am I really here?" I asked, wanting a straight answer.

"Did you know that I write poetry?" he asked, fumbling for his phone.

"And by write, you mean...?" I asked, unsure of where things were going now.

"Sorry. Habit, I guess," he said, managing to unlock his phone with a thumbprint. "I use the Assistant to open the voice recorder and then express what I see in my mind's eye."

I didn't think that a blind person could do that. How could you see things in your mind, if you've never seen them in real life?

He apparently found what he was looking for and pressed play. His quiet voice melodically recited the poem...

A face, a book, a smile,
One day, two day, three.
Will he ever look up,
Look up and know it's me?
Chaos, pain, now darkness,
Will I ever again see...
That face, that book, that smile,
That once had set me free.

"Is this about... me?" I asked, in surprise.

"I wasn't always blind," he said with a sigh. "I would often walk past your bookstore and see you with your nose buried in a Lovecraft book."

I heard myself swallow.

"So many times I wished that you would look up and see me too."

He had caught me completely off guard and I didn't immediately know what to say. I was sure that I had never seen him before the day he first walked into the shop.

"So, do you have like a crush on me?" I asked, stupidly.

"Given the evidence so far, what do you think?"

"How do you know that I'm even interested in guys?" I said, continuing the stupidity. Of course, I was interested but how did he know that?

He raised an eyebrow and said, "I was told that you were outed against your will by your best friend."

Shit! Even people outside of my school knew that?

"Oh," I said.

"My blindness taught me that I'd rather live with taking a chance than missing one," he said plainly. "I liked you from afar and now even more from up close. I needed to tell you, although I'm kinda scared of what you're going to say."

I thought about my situation and said, "Will you write another poem after I do this?"

Then, I lightly kissed his perfect lips.

His face burst into a wide grin. "Hmmm, I think I'll need to do that a couple more times for inspiration."

"Is that so?" I asked, before kissing him again.

"Technically what you made me do can be considered necromancy," Chronos said matter-of-factly.

"No, you reversed time long enough for me to prevent the boy's death, although I could not prevent the blindness. There's no word for it because it has never been done before," Sam replied quietly.

"Do you think the grand design will attempt to undo it?" Father Time asked, pointing at the two teenagers wrapped in each other's arms.

"Thus far they have not interceded in my... new way of doing things," Death said with a crooked smile.

"I have upheld my part of our arrangement..."

"Here," Sam said, handing his brother a sickle-shaped instrument. "As promised, the ability to send anyone into the great beyond, no questions asked."

"I am sorry, brother," Chronos said. "This is the only way to stop your madness."

Time slashed Death's throat in a quick and decisive move. He did not know how to envision a God's demise but it certainly wasn't this.

"Did you truly think that I would be that naive?" Sam asked, taking two steps closer. The wound beneath his chin was a chasm of darkness.

"Can Death... never die?" Time whispered in shocked awe.

"You know the penalty of deicide," Sam said, his eyes glowing black.

"But you're still alive," Chronos spluttered, trying not to feel intimidated by his younger brother.

"With your power and mine combined, I will reshape the world. Love will finally conquer all."

"This was your plan all alo..." Time tried to say before being absorbed into Death's warm embrace.