“What do you mean?” It was hard to view Chris as the enemy, particularly when he was opening up to me about something so personal and painful.
“I don’t blame them at all,” Chris said. “I was a nightmare to be around. In the beginning they were with me every step of the way, but all I did was take my anger out on them. And was I ever pissed, as though I somehow thought I was entitled to perfect vision and a perfect life. It wasn’t fair, the way I treated them. I wish I could take it all back.”
“So does that mean they…don’t visit you anymore?” I was appalled to think Chris had just been abandoned – and it made me wonder just how badly he’d really treated his family.
“My sister got knocked up, had a shotgun wedding and moved away. She’s on bed rest right now. She calls me once a week. The calls used to be literally thirty seconds long – she was just calling out of obligation. But now we actually talk. I’m trying to make up for all the years I was a massive douchebag of a little brother. I think we’re getting there,” he said hopefully.
“What about your mother?” I asked. “I mean, you mentioned once that you live with her now, right? Why haven’t I ever seen her here visiting you?”
“She has health problems of her own,” he explained. “On the bad days she’s basically housebound. She’s going through a nasty bout with her fibromyalgia and arthritis right now, so it’s been a while since she’s been able to come to visit me.”
“Do you get along with her? I live with my mom too but she’s always working so it’s not like we ever have to interact.”
“Yeah, it’s alright. I mean, moving back in with my mother after having a taste of independence at college wasn’t the easiest thing ever, but we manage to co-exist. I’m hoping that one day soon I’ll be able to get a guide dog so I can be more independent. I’d love to live on my own again someday.”
“Oh.” I was warming up to Chris again, albeit cautiously. After all, he’d just shared some pretty personal and undoubtedly painful information with me. Already, I was having trouble thinking of him as One of Them. To me, I realized with a great deal of relief, he was just Chris.
“You don’t seem like an asshole,” I observed.
“Well I like to think I’m not anymore!”
“What changed?”
He shrugged. “I guess I sort of had an epiphany. One day I realized I wasn’t miserable because of the vision loss. I mean, on the surface that’s what it was about but honestly? I was miserable because I was holding onto so much anger and sadness that it was consuming me. And I was dragging everyone around me down with all my negativity. So I just kind of…stopped.”
I raised an eyebrow and then remembered Chris couldn’t see my reaction. “That seems strange.”
“Maybe it is,” he agreed. “But I don’t know how else to describe it. I sort of just…let everything go. And little by little, I changed. If it wasn’t for my accident I’d probably still be the same selfish asshole I used to be. I mean yeah, I still wish every day that none of it had happened, but maybe there was a reason for it, you know?”
“You probably weren’t that much of an asshole to begin with,” I reasoned.
“That’s sweet of you to say,” Chris replied. “But trust me, I was.”
“What’s the meanest thing you’ve ever done?” I demanded.
Chris thought about this for a moment. I half-expected him to answer with another joke, but when he finally spoke, he was completely serious. “I’m not proud of this, but I was kind of a…user.”
I was puzzled. “Are you talking about drugs?” I’d never even so much as tasted alcohol before, mostly because I’d never had the opportunity. My mom didn’t keep any in the house and I certainly wasn’t one to get invited to parties.
Chris shook his head. “No. I mean yeah, I smoked weed with my buddies sometimes but that’s not what I meant. I…hmm, how do I put this? Well let’s put it this way: my nickname in high school was Playboy.”
I considered the implication. “So you were what, a slut?”
He chuckled. “You have a real way with words, you know that?” Then he grew serious again. “I treated all the girls I dated like they were disposable. I was…on a conquest, I guess. It sounds horrible now when I say it, but at the time my only priority was myself. I didn’t care if I hurt them. I had no qualms about dumping them as soon as I got what I wanted…I was a jerk.”
“I don’t believe you,” I replied immediately.
“Why’s that?”
“You don’t seem like the type to do that.”
“Yeah well I’m not now. But back then…”
“You’re probably just one of those guys who exaggerate about sex,” I insisted.
I said it like I was some sort of authority on the subject when really all I knew came from romance novels and the raunchy talk shows I used to watch when I was home alone after school. The irony of what I was saying wasn’t lost on me. After all, I’d never even had a boyfriend!
Chris snorted and brushed his hair back from his forehead. It had grown since I’d first met him. In some ways it seemed absurd to think it had been that long since I’d wandered into his hospital room for the first time. But in another sense, it felt like I’d met Chris a million year ago, like I’d known him all my life and maybe even in previous lives.
“So just to be clear,” he said, “You don’t think people are capable of changing?”
“No.”
He leaned toward me as if to hear me better, looking intrigued. “You really think that, Michelle?” he asked, almost as though he couldn’t quite believe it. I could see a mixture of wonder and sadness on his handsome face.
“Well…maybe they can,” I relented with some reluctance. “But I think it’s rare – very rare.”
“Fair enough,” he conceded, fiddling with his sunglasses absentmindedly. “So what’s the deal with you? Why don’t you have a boyfriend?”
I had an opportunity to tell him the truth but I was too much of a coward to take it. Instead, I stared at my hands and mumbled some noncommittal, cliché answer about not having met the right person yet. It was a cop out if there ever was one.
Chris, however, seemed to buy it hook, line and sinker. Why wouldn’t he? After all, he had no reason to suspect I’d be concealing the ugly truth from him. It wasn’t that I’d lied on purpose – and technically I hadn’t lied at all. But I’d left out key details about my life, probably because they were painful admissions I didn’t want to get into.
I preferred to just forget about those details when I was with Chris.
“You’ve gotten awfully quiet,” Chris observed with concern. “Did I touch a nerve?”
“Nah,” I assured him, forcing myself to sound chipper.
“I can just imagine all the guys whose hearts you’ve broken,” he teased. “I bet they fall for you only to realize you’re far too good for them. Do you let them down easy, at least?” he asked, giving me a playful nudge. “I bet you do…you may act all sarcastic and cynical but underneath it all you’re too nice to be cruel about it.”
“I’ve never broken up with anyone in my life,” I replied truthfully. What I didn’t say was that at nineteen years old I’d never had a boyfriend before, either.
Chris must have assumed that meant I was the one who always got dumped. “Don’t worry about it,” he said reassuringly, a notable tenderness in his voice. “It’s their loss. Now,” he said, sitting back, lacing his hands behind his head and giving me an impish grin, “Where should we go on our second date?”
“It wasn’t a date!” I hissed, feeling my face redden.
Chris just laughed.
Chapter 04
The next day when I stopped by Chris’s hospital room after I’d finished my candy striping, he wasn’t there. Not only wasn’t he there, but a new patient was in his bed! I raced to the nurse’s station at the end of the hall.
“What happened to Chris in Room 403?” I demanded somewhat shrilly, feeling alarmed.
“He went home?” I repeated, feeling simultaneously happy for him and sad for myself. “That’s it? He’s just gone? What about his eyes? He was supposed to have a procedure done…”
The disinterested receptionist shrugged and then squirted a giant gob of hand lotion into her cupped palm. She rubbed it into her skin slowly and ritualistically, her body language letting me know that she was done talking to me.
With an exasperated sigh, I tracked down the head nurse on the unit. I’d learned early on that she could be a bit of an ogre if you caught her on a bad day. Usually I tried to steer clear of her but today I marched right up to her as she refilled her coffee cup.
“There was a guy named Chris in Room 403,” I told her, offering my most charming smile. “I noticed he’s been discharged…”
The nurse looked at the candy striper hat tucked discreetly under my arm. “Aren’t you finished your shift?” she asked me, making it clear that she knew I wasn’t a relative and the status of patients was none of my business.
“Yes, but…” I sighed again. “Okay. Thank you.”
Dejectedly, I turned around and slowly began to walk toward the elevators at the far end of the hall. So that was it. Just like that, Chris was out of my life.
I felt deflated. I didn’t make friends easily and, despite my misgivings about Chris’s past, I cared about him a lot. Perhaps foolishly, I’d simply assumed that all that time we spent together meant something. I hadn’t ever really thought about what would happen once he left the hospital, but I guess I’d taken for granted that we’d remain in contact.
I kicked myself for never thinking to get his contact information. But then again, he’d never asked for mine either. Maybe our friendship meant more to me than it had to him. To think that he could just exit my life without so much as a goodbye stung.
“Hey,” the nurse called out to me as I neared the stairwell at the end of the hall.
I turned. “Yes?”
“You’re Michelle, right?”
“Yes.”
“I almost forgot,” she said, pulling a piece of paper out of her uniform pocket and holding it out to me. “The patient in 403 left this for you.”
I opened the crumpled piece of paper like it was fabricated from delicate silk. Scribbled on it were a phone number and a sloppily drawn cartoon face beneath it. The left eye of the happy face overlapped the last digit of the phone number, which was the sole clue that the person who’d written the note hadn’t been able to see what he was doing.
I had to run out to the street to catch my bus home, but as soon as I was seated, I called the number. I was annoyed with myself when I noticed my hands were shaking a little. Why was I letting myself get so worked up?
“About time you called, Michelle!” Chris’s familiar voice said as soon as he picked up.
“How did you know it was me?” I asked, feeling my heart skip a beat.
“It’s not Wednesday so it isn’t my sister calling,” he reasoned. “I live with my mother who happens to be asleep in the next room, so it isn’t her. And, sad to say, no one else calls me these days. Plus,” he added cheerfully, “I’m sure part of it was just wishful thinking.”
He always had a way of making me feel special.
“So you were discharged, huh?”
“Sure was – apparently I’m in good enough shape to be treated on an outpatient basis now.”
“That’s great! You must be thrilled to finally be out of there.”
“Yes and no. I won’t miss the hospital food but I’ll really miss you visiting me every day. But talking about hospital food isn’t the reason I called – uh, made you call, I mean. What I wanted to talk to you about was our second date.”
I rolled my eyes. It seemed Chris was determined to call our cheesecake outing a date just to get under my skin. I decided to play along since obviously my protests were just fuelling the fire. “What about it?”
“There are fireworks tonight,” he informed me. “We’re going to go to the park and watch them.”
“But…”
“What?”
I hesitated. “Will that really be fun for you?” I asked carefully, not wanting to come out and state the obvious.
Chris, of course, immediately recognized what I was getting at. “What, you think I can’t enjoy fireworks just because I can’t see them?” he asked. I could practically imagine his devilish grin as he said the words.
Sometimes it seemed he was uncomfortably blunt about his condition on purpose. But then, I supposed it made sense. His willingness to talk and joke about something so serious had a way of disarming people. It had certainly disarmed me.
“Well…yeah,” I admitted. “That’s exactly what I was thinking.”
“It will be fun for you,” he explained patiently, “which, in turn, will be fun for me. You do like fireworks, don’t you?”
“Sure, they’re okay.”
“Your enthusiasm is underwhelming.”
“OH MY GOODNESS I THINK I PEED A LITTLE I AM SO EXCITED!” I squealed in an exaggerated preteen-at-a-boy-band-concert tone. Then I remembered I was on a public bus and there were other people around. I immediately slunk down in my seat and tried to hide.
On the other end of the phone, Chris was laughing. “That’s much better,” he said approvingly. “Do you mind picking me up? I think it will be easiest that way.”
“Sure, it’s no problem.”
“Got a pen? I’ll give you the address.”
“Hang on.”
Making plans with a friend shouldn’t have been a big deal, but I felt a little burst of energy as I rummaged through my purse for a pen. I scolded myself for being lame. After all, it was pretty pathetic that I went out with a non-related person my own age so rarely that I was excited for this.
Or maybe I was just looking forward to seeing Chris. I had, it seemed, reached that clingy obsessive stage where going for an entire day without seeing him was painful. So, while I’ll have you know that I didn’t actually pee, I guess I was actually pretty excited.
Chapter 05
The taxi dropped Chris and me off near the biggest park in the city. I linked my arm through his and began to lead him across the street and through the park’s stately wrought iron metal gates. People were milling around with lawn chairs and blankets, all trying to get good spots for the firework display.
“Wait,” he said, stopping and cocking his head to the side as though trying to stir up an old memory. “The fountain’s over there,” he said aloud, as though trying to get his bearings. He pulled me in the direction of the trickling water.
“Chris,” I said as we walked past the fountain where a few kids were splashing and giggling. “We’re going the wrong way.” He was walking with such certainty that I almost hated to correct him. Part of me just wanted to let him lead me and see where we ended up.
“I know,” he assured me. “But there should be a dirt bike path up ahead, just to the left of the footpath. Can you see it?”
The light was beginning to fade, but I could faintly make it out. “Yeah, it’s there.”
“Okay. We’re going to follow it until we come to a hill,” he said, marching along with purpose.
Sure enough, just as Chris said, we arrived at the bottom of a grass covered hill. We climbed up to the top just as the first firework went off. I turned around and looked up at the sky just in time to see it exploding in a brilliant rainbow of gold and crimson.
“Is this a good spot?” Chris asked.
“It’s perfect!” I exclaimed. “How did you know about this place? I’ve been to this park tons of times and had no idea this hill was back here. By the looks of it, not too many other people know about it, either.” I could see a few people off in the
distance but for the most part, Chris and I were alone.
Chris sat down in the lush green grass with a self-satisfied smile on his face. “I found this place when I was a kid playing hide and seek with my sister. After that she and I came here every year to watch the fireworks,” he said. “Back before I decided I was ‘too cool’ to hang out with her, that is.” I could hear the regret in his voice.
“It sounds like you two were close.”
“We were.”
Above us, the sky erupted with colorful bursts of blue, silver and fuchsia.
“That sounded like a good one,” Chris said after the pops of the fireworks had died down.
“It was beautiful,” I breathed, leaning back on my hands so I could gaze up at the darkened sky. “I wish…”
“What?”
“I wish you could see it,” I said sadly.
Chris wrapped his arm around my shoulders and gave me a squeeze. “Don’t be sad,” he murmured in my ear, his voice quiet and authoritative. “I want to hear you smiling – I can hear it in your voice, you know. If you don’t smile for me, I’ll have no choice but to tickle you.”
“Oh is that so?” I asked, smiling despite myself.
“You’re not smiling hard enough.”
“I’m not?”
“Nope, sorry…must tickle now!”
Chris still had his arm around me. He tightened it, holding me in place. He slid his other hand up my arm and then began to tickle me. I laughed and struggled in vain to get away, kicking off one of my sandals in the process.
Since I couldn’t get away, I did the only other reasonable thing possible: I tickled him back.
Pretty soon Chris and I were both laughing hard. My stomach hurt and I could barely catch my breath. He was doubled over and I could see tears streaming down his face each time a firework went off, illuminating everything around us in bursts of gold and silver.
“Ok, ok,” Chris finally relented, letting go of me and holding his hands up in surrender. “I think I might pee myself if you keep tickling me and that would be super embarrassing, so…truce?”
Love Is Blind Page 4
