Every person is good, if someone is willing to look hard enough. No one really seems to do that, though, and they make their judgments and conclusions about a person. What happens in the mind is entirely different from what happens with words and actions.

Looking into their eyes, one will see that a person really isn’t different from them. Eyes are like the sky, always changing and doing something. Eyes can be beautiful; eyes can be deadly.

There are secrets in their depths.

My grandmother believed in the good of people, refusing to judge until she really got to know them. She told me once that people have a beauty about them, and you really see it when you know them more. She could make friends just like that, because they saw the clear way she saw them, and they trusted her.

She also told me seeing people this way was the only way she knew how to see. A hot summer day, her bright blue eyes intent on mine, she warned me, “Lucy, never let your sight cloud, and never forget how to truly see.”

At the time, I was seven, and never really understood what she meant. I thought something was wrong with her eyesight and asked her that, but she simply laughed and said she could see just fine.

It took me years to understand her words, and maybe I finally got it right after she died.

Mom’s eyes were grey and Dad’s were green, while mine were an exact copy of my grandmother’s. My parents didn’t say much about it, but I obsessed over the fact for months, especially during high school. The first few years were as bad as people say, but senior year was it’s special kind of hell. Teenagers did as one would expect, still kids in one way but struggling to be the adults everyone wants us to be.

During one of the parties hosted by the legendary Marci Cooke was when it first happened. It’s hard to say what happened and how, but everything involved was sight and the people present.

I could never really see until then.

I saw light and darkness, good and evil, pleasure and pain. So much. People weren’t simply one-dimensional beings; they are a kaleidoscope of colors, of thoughts and things unsaid.

That was when it started, and in the beginning my sight got a little crazy. From moments when I could only stare to when my head would threaten to explode at what no one could see—of that I was sure. Because with this sight came knowledge, and if I took the time to examine every thread of the tapestry, I would know how to get on that person’s good side, become their friend. My sight was the key to them.

There were no secrets.

Senior year flashed by in one of those fashions where it seemed like something just began and it was too soon for the end. I’d thought, with this sight, I would be able to get through not only school but also whatever came my way easily. I could see, right? But I was wrong. Friends were made, as well as enemies. Relationships formed and broken, with promises of revenge. The week leading up to graduation I spent days with a good friend, a girl named Allison. A girl made of pure light and intentions, a girl who like the sun—bright and warm. A girl who probably did not need my ability to see the world clearly. My ability—in the beginning a gift, now a curse—that only caused more trouble than good.

Never let your sight cloud, and never forget how to truly see.

My grandmother’s words. I understood them, because I saw like she did. Unless I just assumed I did, so caught up with what I could do and others couldn’t. For going on four years I acted superior and caused so much damage. My grandmother hadn’t done that; she did not destroy like I did.
With sight comes clarity, with knowledge comes judgment.

I imagined if things would have been different, if my eyes were green or gray, clouded like everyone else’s. No, people could see clearly. Allison, and so many others. They didn’t need some special ability, no special sight, as they could see just fine and true.

I’d done exactly the opposite of what my grandmother told me.

No, no more. I would use this—this gift, if it can be called that, for not good but right intentions, as my grandmother had. She could see, and I felt sure she’d always been able to, gift or not.

Now it was time for me to have eyes like theirs.

I could see, but I would see the good in people the regular way—try to and succeed. Clear sight, unclouded judgment, and now my eyes would be open.