“Chase, we are so happy for you. This is wonderful.” If he could see clearer, Chase knew his mother’s smile, a memory from so very long ago, would be wide and sincere. God, how he wanted to see that again. And it all seemed within reach now.
If only he could see Kristen, too. Where was she?
* * * *
Later Sunday afternoon, Chase heard Margo’s approach from down the hall long before she entered his hospital room. The quick precise clop clop clop of her heels. She had always walked like her life depended on her getting “there” right this minute.
Breathlessly, before she even made it all the way into the room, Margo began, “She left a note.”
“What? You’re kidding.” Chase sat up straighter and stared in Margo’s direction. So far all he could make out was her form, but his vision was improving by the hour. “Well? What the hell did it say?”
Margo rustled around in her purse before yanking out a piece of paper, which she proceeded to shake through the air, as if to straighten it before beginning. The crisp sound of the fold being shook out increased Chase’s anxiety.
“Margo?”
“Okay, okay. ‘Dear Margo, I’m so sorry to run out like this without talking to you. I have some things I need to take care of out of town and I’ll be gone for a while. Please don’t think this had anything to do with your brother. He’s a gem. I’m sure he’ll make some girl incredibly happy some day. The timing sucks, but there’s nothing I can do about it. Tell Chase how sorry I am and how much I enjoyed our evening. I hope the surgery was a success. He deserves all the best. Hugs and Kisses, Kristen.’”
Chase couldn’t speak. He couldn’t even swallow yet. He was frozen like a statue, soaking up every word as though the meaning of life had been about to be revealed as it pertained to him.
“She’s gone?”
“That’s what it says. I tried her apartment and there was no answer. Her cell just goes to voicemail.” Margo’s voice got perceptibly louder as she walked closer to Chase and then took his hand in hers. “I’m so sorry. I know you really liked her. I’m so confused. I thought we were really good friends. How could she do this?”
Margo kept rambling about her relationship with Kristen, but Chase could barely hear anything else she said. His ears were ringing as if he were under water. She left? For where? Why? So many unanswered questions ran through his head. Within the span of just two minutes, Chase went from worry to anger. Now he was pissed.
Interrupting Margo’s own personal pity party, Chase sputtered out, “Margo… Margo…”
“Yes?” Margo began to squeeze Chase’s arm, probably unaware she was even doing so.
“Please, could I just have some peace and quiet for a while? Could you like…go get some coffee or something?” He wanted her to leave. He wanted to throw things at the wall. Scream. Have a tantrum like a big baby.
“Oh… Yeah, sure. I’ll just…be back in a few.” Clomp clomp clomp, her heels seemed even louder receding from the room than they had arriving moments ago.
How in the hell could he have met the perfect woman for him, and then she just left the next day, with no word? Had he misinterpreted so severely their time together? Think, Chase. No. There had been no hint. The night had been perfect. The best ever. And he was genuinely sure Kristen agreed. Did she have cold feet about how serious they seemed to feel about each other? Did the blindness scare her off?
None of that made sense, considering she said she had planned this for a while. Hadn’t she? Why wouldn’t she tell even her best friend?
Chase grit his teeth and reached for a pair of sleeping pills on the rolling table next to him. Perhaps if he just took a long nap, he would wake up later to find this had all just been a bad dream. A really bad nightmare.
Chapter Five
Kristen walked into Dr. Hanson’s office promptly at six o’clock Monday morning. She waited only minutes in his outer office before a quiet-spoken, sweet, elderly receptionist showed her in.
“Good morning, Ms. Nickels. Are you ready?” Dr. Hanson was not wasting any time.
“As ready as I’ll ever be, I guess.” Kristen sat in the chair across from him. The same one she sat in two weeks ago, making this controversial decision. She looked down at her hands, shaking in her lap.
“I just have some final paperwork for you to sign and then we will get started. Surgery is scheduled for eight.” Dr. Hanson carefully set a small pile of papers in front of Kristen. Did he think she would change he mind if he weren’t gentle? “Just sign in the places I have highlighted and we’ll get started.”
With trembling fingers, Kristen reached for the expensive silver pen the doctor held out to her. She wondered briefly what a pen like that cost. She wondered how many pens he could afford.
As soon as she signed all the papers, Kristen stood and walked over to the window. The tiny office was on the eighteenth floor and she could see the entire city below her. Chicago was bustling about, like nothing was wrong in the universe. How could all those people be hurrying around to start their workweek while her world was about to turn upside down?
* * * *
Chase refused to discuss Kristen for several days, didn’t allow Margo to speak of her. The pain was too sharp, too raw. An aching in his heart he couldn’t deal with.
“Chase?” His mother was by his side every day. Waiting with him. He could feel her loving touch on his arm, the same hands that had always been there for him as a boy. Hands that were growing slimmer with age, rougher. “Honey, I’m worried about you… Margo told me about your friend, Kristen. Are you sure you don’t want to call her? Perhaps—”
“No, Mom. Stay out of this one…please. She made herself clear. Besides, she isn’t answering the phone. I need to move on.” If only it were that simple. If only it didn’t hurt so bad.
Each day brought new improvements in his sight. People and large items came into focus first, and then gradually, more distinct smaller objects.
Chase went home three days after the surgery. A home he’d never seen. It seemed boring all of the sudden. Too…ordinary. Bland. He wanted to fix it up, buy new furniture. Paint. No. He wanted Kristen to help him. He needed to talk to her. Needed to know why. Needed answers. A few short hours with the woman and she had imbedded herself in his soul.
Margo dragged his “sorry ass” all over town, reintroducing him to places and people they had known, but he’d never seen. Whereas the colors should have been vibrant, the world his oyster, Chase felt a looming grayness, and knew if he didn’t get Kristen back, even if he had to shake the sense right into her, life wouldn’t be quite worth it. He didn’t care much what he saw, as long as her glorious sexy body, a body he intimately remembered, was included in the mix.
By the end of two weeks, he was seeing twenty-forty Dr. Russell said, and it hadn’t changed in several days. This was probably the best he was going to get. No one was complaining.
It was time to buck up and beg Margo to help him find Kristen. She had more resources. The two had been friends for a long time. He couldn’t rest until he had closure, regardless of the outcome.
Margo stared at Chase across from the lunch they were sharing at a small deli near his apartment. He would still be off work for another six weeks to adjust before he had to return to the real world. He hoped it would be enough time to locate Kristen and get some resolution.
“I’m already on it,” she began. “She was my best friend, you know. You only knew her one night. I miss her.” Margo looked down at her food, hiding her eyes from his gaze.
“You’re hurt. I know. But that one night… I can’t explain it… We were…made for each other. Or so I thought.” Chase willed Margo’s face to turn up so he could meet her gaze again. Her gorgeous blue eyes that he hadn’t remembered from childhood were sad, her brow furrowed in a worried line.
Margo reached into her purse and pulled out a bulging envelope. “I thought you might want these.”
Reaching forward, his fingers brushed he
r trembling ones as he grasped the small package. When he pulled it open, he sucked in a breath. Pictures of Kristen. He knew they had to be her. Kristen, out on a girl’s night with Margo. Kristen and Margo at Six Flags, screaming through a ride. Kristen modeling the gown she had worn to some formal event. Precious pictures of the woman Chase knew he was in love with.
Chase hugged the cherished cargo to his chest and sat back. He thought about what he did know. Kristen had really and truly left town. Margo had gone to her office where Kristen’s boss told her Kristen had given notice two weeks prior. Two weeks? What did that mean? It couldn’t have had anything to do with Chase. They hadn’t even met two weeks prior to their blind date. This only created more questions.
“What else have you found out?”
“Promise you won’t wig out on me? I was waiting until I had more info to tell you anything.” Margo bit her bottom lip and scrunched up her eyes. It amazed Chase how much more you could know about a person by seeing their expressions. It hadn’t occurred to him how much of language relied on body language. So much he had missed out on.
“Did you find something out? Please, Margo, just spit it out.”
“Well, not a lot. But I know she’s in Chicago. I kind of tricked the postman into giving me that information.” A smug smile spread across Margo’s face as she prided herself on her incredible investigatory skills.
“Chicago? Why?”
“Now, if I knew that, we wouldn’t be sitting here, would we?” Margo chuckled.
“Wait. How did you get that from the postman?”
“He’s forwarding the mail. I sort of pretended to have gotten a piece of hers by mistake and ‘accidentally’ caught him in the hall filling the boxes.” She sat up straight and tipped her head up, as though she had really participated in quite the spy adventure.
“And?”
“He’s been coming to our building forever. He knows us by name, and more importantly, he knows Kristen and I are very close. So, when I presented him with mail that needed to be forwarded, I just held my breath and prayed. Sure enough, chatty postal guy never even knew what he’d done when he asked me how Kristen was fairing in Chicago.”
“Lord, you’re good.” Chase was impressed.
“So, what do we do now? Chicago is a big place.”
“Easy peasy. The postman is going to bring me a few of those yellow stickers they put on forwarded mail, just in case it happens again. Saves him the added effort of having to chase the darn lost letters all over the place.” Her smile widened.
“Genius.” Chase couldn’t believe their luck. “Perfect. When do we leave for Chicago?”
“I thought you’d say that. How about Saturday morning? I’ll let you go though. You don’t need your sister tagging along while you chase after your soul mate. Just promise me you’ll get some answers, okay?”
Chapter Six
Chase stood in the busy airport, his gaze bouncing around the room, trying to grow accustom to all the commotion. With glasses, he could see as well as anyone. He could even learn to drive.
All the things he wanted to do in his life, dreams that had been unattainable up to now, were flitting rapidly through his mind. None of them mattered if Kristen refused to walk the path with him. As he waited for his luggage to roll around the corner on the long conveyer belt, he noticed the incongruent juxtaposition of excited faces greeting loved ones against the backdrop of the drab gray carpet, the boring concrete walls. Was that what separated the colorful world? A constant shifting of contrast between bland and bright?
So many people. So many emotions in the room. Hundreds. The movement was overwhelming his senses and he closed his eyes for just a moment to relax them, to give his mind a break from all the clutter clouding his vision. His palms were sweating.
Fifteen minutes later, Chase had retrieved his bags and was speeding away from the airport in a yellow cab driven by a maniac.
“Where to?” The dark-haired man glanced back at Chase. He couldn’t readily identify his nationality. Maybe middle eastern. But he sure wished the guy would keep his eyes on the road. It seemed like he glided between cars, back and forth, leaving barely inches to spare on both sides in his attempt to exit the airport terminal area.
“The medical center.”
It took nearly thirty minutes for the cab to arrive at the address Chase handed the driver. Twenty-eight minutes, to be precise. Twenty-eight long minutes spent holding his breath, praying he wouldn’t have to be admitted to the hospital himself, after the collision they were sure to have on the way, with Evil Knievel behind the wheel.
When he arrived, he breathed a sigh of relief and headed toward the elevator. If the yellow forwarding address were correct, Kristen was currently residing on the fourteenth floor of this hospital. Chase had been beside himself with worry ever since he had received this information yesterday. He’d already booked his flight to Chicago. Thank God, because the suspense was killing him.
Was she sick? Did she have cancer? Some sort of disease she didn’t want anyone to know about? And why? Whatever he found in room fourteen twelve, he knew in his heart he was going to beg and plead with her to let him help her through this…this whatever it was. He needed her like he needed water, and he wasn’t going to take no for an answer.
As he arrived at the door that matched the address on the little yellow sticker, he clenched his fist around the paper and paused for only a moment. The door was ajar just a few inches—all that separated him from answers. The dry erase board next to the door read “Nickels”. He definitely had the right room. No one was around. Nurses were bustling about down the hall, but no one paid any attention to his arrival. That was a relief.
With a deep breath, Chase pushed open the door and entered the dimly lit room. His lungs contracted when he saw her. She was lying on the bed, bandages wrapped all around her head, leaving only a slit for her face, just enough to breathe and see, but it didn’t appear she would be doing any such thing in the near future. A breathing tube extended from her mouth and drugs kept her sedated.
Oh, Kristen. Why? Why did you decide to go through this alone? He felt instantly miserable for the strong brave woman who would not tell even her best friend she was leaving town to have some awful medical procedure that still eluded him.
Chase inched toward the bed with a heavy heart. Whatever conversation he had hoped for wasn’t going to happen any time soon. But he could wait. Forever if need be.
*
“Chase?” Kristen stood in the door, blinking, unable to believe what she was seeing. Was Chase Edwards standing at her sister’s bedside? It sure looked like him from the back.
The startled guest whipped around to face her. Her hand flew to her mouth. Tears threatened to spill down her cheeks. She’d been so alone for so long. She couldn’t imagine why she had ever thought it would be best to break all ties and weather this out alone. Sometime during the last few weeks she had begun to feel like a fool. She missed her best friend. She missed her best friend’s brother. Terribly.
“Kristen? But…” Chase turned to look at Laura and then back at her.
“She’s my sister.”
“Oh, God. Kristen.” Chase flew across the room and grabbed Kristen in a hug that squeezed the life out of her.
The tears ran freely now. She choked on a sob.
“Why?” It was a small word he barely mumbled, but she got the meaning behind it.
“I don’t know. I can’t remember now. It just seemed so…important at the time. Important to keep my private life private. I guess I didn’t want people to pity me. I didn’t want to talk about it every day. Discuss my sister’s situation with everyone at the office. I guess what I really did was…feel sorry for myself. I gave up my life to be here with her.” Kristen pulled away, her senses returning. She tucked her face to hide her emotions.
“Kristen, people care about you. They want to help. That’s how humans are. Margo would want to help. I want to help.” Chase didn’t release her h
ands, which he held grasped in his own, but he did step back to give her some room to breathe.
“I may never get to go back. You don’t understand. This is a huge commitment. Don’t get me wrong. I would never ever regret it, but I have to face the facts. The life I knew is over. My sister needs me now.”
“Can we go get coffee or something? Maybe sit down somewhere?”
She didn’t look up at him yet, but he squeezed her hands even tighter. What could she do? He was here now. It wasn’t like she could send him away without answers.
“Sure.”
A silent walk down the hall and into the elevator gave her time to gather her thoughts. Chase never let go of her hand and his warmth not only soothed her, but also reminded her of his touch, and how much she’d enjoyed—no that wasn’t the right word—craved his skin against hers every hour of every day since she’d left.
She turned her face up to him finally in the elevator and his smile melted a piece of her resolve.
“It’s going to be okay now. I promise.” He pulled her closer.
He had no idea that it was never going to be okay again.
Chase led Kristen to a table in the busy cafeteria, pulled out a chair, and sat her down like the true gentleman she remembered.
“Be right back. Coffee?”
“Please.” Oh, to be cherished like this every day.
Moments later, he returned with two steaming cups in his hands. He took the seat across from her and looked up. “Tell me.”
Those two simple words opened a floodgate Kristen had held back for two long weeks. She sobbed and sobbed while Chase just waited, patiently handing her a napkin from the dispenser on the table. And then another when that one proved to be insufficient.
Blind with Love Page 7
