I floated alone in a colorless void, no tangible ground beneath me. At first a single pair of irises stared back. Then, as if responding to their loneliness, they multiplied. All at once, gleaming orbs of sapphire, emerald, and onyx filled the boundaryless night glowing and growing. My pounding heart woke me up. 

Before masks became commonplace, I never dreamt of eyes. In fact, I rarely noticed them. If I had paid attention, perhaps I might have looked beyond my mother’s perpetual smile and noted the anguish in her eyes as she scanned my family’s house in Alabama for the last time. But as we prepared to move to Atlanta, I was focused on my own anxieties. I feared that all the sacrifices that came with moving—leaving friends, experiencing homesickness—would ultimately amount to nothing. At the same time, I hoped that a new school would mean new opportunities for friendships with people from more diverse backgrounds than I had encountered in Alabama, where girls returning from the beach routinely commented, “We are the same color, now!” I envisioned more culturally-sensitive peers in Atlanta, and I hoped that life at a better school might pave a path to a better college. 

When I arrived at my new school, however, America was still in the midst of the pandemic. At first, it seemed that in addition to the terrible consequences it was wreaking on the rest of the world, COVID was also going to thwart all my plans. As I walked into my new school, instead of welcoming me with eager embraces and sizzling high-fives, my friends-to-be hid behind masks and kept their distance, throwing me off balance. Only my classmates’ eyes gleamed, peeking above their cocooned expressions. Without the symphony of curved mouths, rising cheeks, and flared nostrils, the eyes became soloists, leaving me to decipher their meaning.

But soon I found that ironically, masks actually provided a sense of reassurance. They served as a source of protection. When I raised my hand for the first time in English class to share my thoughts, I was met with nods of silent agreement. For once, wearing a mask made me feel like all that mattered was what I had to say—not my race, color, or ethnicity. The mask allowed me to be heard without the prejudices that often come with visible identity. And being unable to read people enabled me to assume the best about them. 

Then, I learned to read eyes. 

Later that first day, I glanced around to find everyone leaving their classrooms and walking toward the plaza, an outdoor space located at the heart of the campus for socializing during the break. As I walked through massive halls with high ceilings, the light shining in seemed like a symbol of hope. Searching the crowd, my eyes locked with those of another quiet, thoughtful South Asian girl. Taking a deep breath, I mustered the courage to walk towards her and her friend. The muffled words behind her mask sounded polite enough, and I was certain that her mouth had widened into an apparently welcoming smile, but her brown eyes flashed a frigid warning that stopped me immediately. She looked me up and down, and her slightly raised eyebrows expressed annoyance and impatience, as if asking, “Are you really talking to me?” Confused and hurt, I stepped away and into the beehive of swarming students. 

I had assumed that masks conceal our vulnerabilities, but that day, I realized that it was quite the opposite. We can normally hide behind polite expressions. Lips can curve, crows feet can widen, and the countenance can be orchestrated to radiate camaraderie. Masks remove that camouflage and focus us on the eyes, allowing us to register the emotions piercing through. 

As I gathered myself before the next period, the halls had now dimmed. I kept my head bowed while maneuvering through the walkways. Stepping into the art classroom, I chose a seat at a long table near the front. As I settled, my attention shifted to a figure entering swiftly through the double doors. Once again, her mask hid her face, but this only focused my attention more clearly on her behavior: her head lowered as if she were trying to duck below everyone else’s field of vision, her steps gliding across the floor as if she were a ghost trying not to be seen. She sat across from me, her eyes lowered defensively. I recognized someone else who erected walls around them as a source of protection to avoid rejection. 

Her eyes glanced up at mine, and I saw her take in my own posture: the guarded way in which I had crossed my arms, the curiosity in my eyes as I looked at hers. Once again, my own mask focused her attention and encouraged a silent understanding that blossomed between us. As we walked out of that classroom, our steps seemed to synchronize. “Oh, you go first,” we chimed simultaneously. The initial awkwardness between us melted away, replaced by shared laughter. 

Six months later, our masks gradually came off. Walking down the halls, I saw my classmates’ faces for the first time. Many smiled at me in the hallway, and I smiled back, but my discovery stuck with me. Though our physical masks were gone, I had realized that it was in fact people's faces that were the real masks. The South Asian girl I had encountered was harder to read now. She would toss me a soft smile when passing by, and I might have been fooled into thinking she was being friendly if I hadn’t noticed the same disdain in her eyes I saw when we first met. On the other hand, I laughed when I realized that the student from art class, who had become my closest companion, had a naturally unfriendly expression that might have driven me away if I hadn’t recognized the camaraderie in her eyes.

I’ve heard that the eyes are windows to one’s soul. I’m grateful that masks have taught me to step up to those windows and look through to see the people within for who they truly are.