Love Blind

by C. Desir

  “Sorry.”

  “S’okay. So you were saying?”

  “Oh my God, haven’t I told you about the list? Shit. Of course not. We don’t talk. Well, we’re talking now, but we’re just acquaintances. Only my close friends and the moms know about it.”

  The list. Did I really want to know about the list?

  “But maybe we’ll be good friends now because I puked on your shoes and shit like that brings people closer.”

  I laughed, surprised. “Keep telling yourself that.”

  She grinned at me. “I knew I could get you to laugh. So anyway, the list. It’s this thing I started last year. My moms wanted me to do it. Write down all the things I was afraid of and then start tackling them.”

  “Huh.” Weird. Nothing my mom would ever suggest or, honestly, even care about. Her lists were very specific: buy toilet paper, take out trash, pick up my Xanax . . .

  “Yeah, I know. It’s kinda dumb, but it’s sort of a rush when you actually do something on it.”

  “What have you done?” I blurted out.

  “Well, nothing really great so far. But I sang on the radio. And tonight I had my first tongue kiss.”

  “Yeah. I caught that. Must have tasted outstanding.”

  She chuckled. “I thought you weren’t interested in me.”

  Fuck. “I’m not.”

  “Then why do you give a shit what my first tongue kiss tasted like?”

  I opened and closed my mouth. This was why I didn’t get into friendly conversations. My brain screamed answers at me, but I couldn’t articulate any of them without bumbling the whole thing. Or coming across as too interested. And I couldn’t be into her. Could. Not. There were days when I thought my brain would explode just thinking about the shit Pavel had gone through. And Mom was a time bomb. Two people were enough. Mostly.

  “It was just an observation,” I settled on. “So singing on the radio and tongue-kissing. What else is on the list?”

  She squinted at me. The greenness of her glasses made her eyes sort of sparkle bright green. Either that or the darkness of the night made the blue disappear. Stupid thing to notice, but her messed-up eyes intrigued me. Or maybe the fact that she was the only girl since second grade to be near me, curious about me—maybe that was the intriguing part.

  “Nah,” she said. “I don’t think I’m gonna tell you. I think we should focus on your list.”

  “I don’t have a list.”

  She shoved my shoulder. I gripped the steering wheel tighter.

  “The point is that you need a list. You, of all people, need to start overcoming your fears or you’re gonna have one hell of an effed-up life.”

  “You don’t even know me,” I snapped. Too harsh, but who the hell did this girl think she was to be making any sort of comment on my life? I couldn’t objectively comment on my life, and I’d been stuck with myself for almost seventeen years.

  “True. So tell me something that’d be on your list. If you had one. Something you’re afraid of. Something that maybe no one knows about. Something different from deejaying.”

  “That’s kind of an invasive question.”

  She nodded. “Hey. I puked on your shoes. I think we’ve moved past invasive.”

  I kept my gaze forward. Was I really gonna do this? I was so distracted I ended up blowing a stop sign.

  But Hailey just laughed. Still drunk, then. Which was good. Fine. Safer to say whatever I wanted to. She’d forget.

  “I’m afraid of going away to college.”

  She tilted her head. “Really? Yeah, I can see that. What else?”

  “That’s . . . it.”

  “Okay. Going to college: scary. All right. But, honestly, Kyle. Think about it. It might be good for you. Break you out of your shell or whatever. Okay, stop. Here’s my house.”

  I pulled in front of a yellow house with a massive porch and a small detached garage. The glass front of the garage was a window into a pottery shop—Pottery Rox. I put the car in park but didn’t turn off the ignition.

  “This is it?”

  She nodded and I noticed her hand shaking as she gripped the handle. Not so fearless when it came to her moms, then. Truthfully, I was curious about her moms. What kind of women raised a girl like Hailey? I hadn’t met too many moms in my life. Mine, who was, well . . . yeah. And Pavel’s mostly scolded, huffed, and cooked.

  I considered leaving Hailey on the curb. Let her get out and then drive away. But I couldn’t. I wasn’t that guy. Never had been. Except maybe once.

  “Dammit,” she said. “I’m such an idiot. I’m so fucked.”

  “You want me to walk you inside?” I said. “Maybe it’ll help distract them . . . ?”

  She blinked at me and swallowed a few times, then whispered, “Thanks.”

  Her moms had the door open before we even got halfway from the car to the porch.

  “You are so grounded,” the blond mom said. Her face was open but held the small creases of mom worry. She had on flannel pj bottoms and a tank top. Thin and kind of muscly. “And who the hell is this? Where are Tess and Mira?”

  “Um.”

  I looked at Hailey. Her fingers twisted in front of her. She’d suddenly lost her power of speech. The girl who’d spent twenty minutes talking nonstop in my car couldn’t pull off anything other than “um.” I wanted to laugh but didn’t think it would help her case much.

  “Hi,” I said. “I’m Kyle,” I added. The moms just stared, like that wasn’t enough. “We know each other from school.”

  Hailey’s dark-haired mom squinted at me, and I looked down. I didn’t suck at talking to adults in the same way I did with people my own age, but it still wasn’t easy.

  The dark-haired mom sighed. I looked up and saw her touch the blonde’s shoulder. Then she said, “Thanks for bringing her home, Kyle. We appreciate it.”

  I nodded and turned back to my car.

  “Kyle,” Hailey’s low voice called out before I got into my car. I glanced back. “Sorry again about the shoes. Size eleven?”

  I glanced at my bare feet. “Ten,” I answered, and then slipped into the driver’s seat. I couldn’t look at her. Didn’t want to know if she was looking at me. Didn’t want to really hope for it.

  All the way home, I ran through my night. I’d been puked on. Babbled at. Almost interrogated by two lesbians. And for a few minutes, it had felt like I had a real friend. I couldn’t trust it. But I wanted to.

  I walked into my lonely house and pulled out the journal I scribbled my overwhelming thoughts into. Lyrics from songs. Lines from poems. Quotes from philosophy I didn’t understand but one day hoped to. Band names, podcast titles, ramblings from my own brain. Pages and pages of it. It was my third journal in eighteen months. I flipped to a new page and rubbed my fingers over the smooth paper. Then, before I could stop myself, I started my own list of fears.

  Chapter Eight: Hailey

  I found Kyle in the sound booth at the radio station. I was right to guess he probably hid there before school. It sucked because the place had crap for lighting, but he was the only one there. Big surprise.

  “Hey, Friend Kyle.” I smiled, wondering if he was still pissed about driving me home this past weekend. But maybe over the past few days, his annoyance had faded.

  Kyle turned and stared. Solidly unreadable.

  I was crap at apologizing, so I sat close enough to see his face better, which was pretty close—knees almost touching—and pulled out the box from my pack. Flipping off the lid with a flourish, I grinned.

  “They’re bright.” He stared at the shoes I held between us, size ten, because I’m good like that and remembered.

  We sat in silence for a moment.

  But he still hadn’t touched the shoes.

  “I know. Green. Awesome, right? It’s for you to remember the night we moved past acquaintances into friendship territory.” I leaned forward on the small chair I’d scooted next to him. “This is good, sentimental stuff, Kyle. You should be more app
reciative.”

  Mostly I wanted him in the damn shoes. They screamed Kyle. That color of green wasn’t easy to find, and I’d had to beg the moms, telling them I was righting a wrong from my horrible night of mistakes and misfortunes, before they let me out of the house. Sadly, it hadn’t been alone.

  “Um . . .” His head still bent forward so far I couldn’t see his eyes.

  “I shopped with two moms for you. My very pissed two moms.” Ungrateful. Seriously. His shoes could have been washed. They didn’t need to be replaced. Why couldn’t he see I was being nice?

  “Oh.”

  “I get your whole blending thing, but maybe now you could sort of cheat and put ‘Wearing bright shoes’ on your fear list, and then you can get the high from crossing it off a minute later. Not every fear needs to be a huge one, you know?” I even waggled my brows for him, trying to get a reaction. And I knew I was probably sitting too close for whatever football-stadium-size comfort zone he had, but still. There was something fascinating about Kyle’s disturbing silence, and I wanted him to talk. Give me clues as to what made him Kyle. “ ’Cause I know you wanna do it with me . . .”

  “What?” He blushed. A bright-pink-cheeks-on-pale-skin kind of blush that made me realize I’d just innuendoed him.

  I grinned. “The list, Kyle. Do the list.”

  I’d never convinced Tess or Mira, but at least they knew about my list. Kyle had to be desperate enough for friends that he’d join me. Or maybe he was a more hard-core loner than I’d given him credit for, which was fascinating in its own way.

  “Kyle! I bought you new frickin’ shoes. You drove me home, for shit’s sake! I told you about my list! Like it or not, we’re friends. Put on the damn shoes, and I’ll see you later.” I shoved them onto his lap and took off.

  I sucked at finding non-annoying friends.

  ◊ ◊ ◊

  “Hailey! What the hell? I called you all weekend.” Tess walked toward me, boots clomping, mouth in a scowl, and I knew I was screwed. Her short black hair stuck out on all sides today. Probably on purpose, but it was hard to tell with her. She had no problems rolling out of bed, putting on black, adding to the one- or three-day-old eyeliner, and coming to school.

  In the whole Kyle/puke/shoe/car mess, I forgot to call. Or text. And the moms actually laughed when I asked if I could keep my phone.

  “I got busted, and if you hadn’t taken off under the arm of that random guy, you would have known where I was.” Arguing back was better than telling her I screwed up and should have called.

  “I did know where you were. You were grinding with the bouncer guy, who was way hot. . . .” A small smile escaped before she found her pissed face again. Tess didn’t just dress emo. She was emo. “And then you bailed!”

  “You know I can’t see well when it’s dark like that. I had to be home at eleven, and when I found the bathroom, it was already after curfew. I didn’t have time to find you. If you didn’t need to wear black all the time, I might have been able to pick you out of the crowd.” I knew that harassing her about her clothes was probably not the thing to do, but once I was on a roll, I kept on running. One of the perks/hazards of being me.

  “You didn’t have time to not find me. How the hell did you get home?” Tess’s irritated voice always cracked me up, because she might dress like a bitch, but there was nothing she could do about her kitten voice. Mad Tess usually made me laugh, and that didn’t always end well.

  “I puked on Kyle’s shoes, and he took me home.” That was the easy version, anyway.

  “Shit. I bet your moms were pissed.” Tess sat back, hopefully a bit less angry.

  “That doesn’t even come close. Aside from school and a possible national emergency, I’m not allowed out of the house.” The whole thing sucked, but as soon as I’d missed curfew, I’d known they’d freak. My being wasted and smelling like alcohol vomit also hadn’t helped.

  She leaned in. “So Kyle’s the bouncer you hooked up with?”

  “No. Kyle is the silent guy who does the engineering at the radio station here. He’s cool.” I adjusted the guitar on my back, knowing she probably wouldn’t get my fascination with him. Hell, I was still figuring out why I hadn’t left the guy alone already. Even if he did need to have those shoes.

  Tess crossed her arms. “Really?”

  “No. Not really.” I laughed. “But he has potential.”

  And this is the great thing about Tess. She’d stomped up to me ready to be pissed, but once she’d found out I’d gotten home and that I was okay and in trouble, she wasn’t pissed anymore.

  This is an excellent trait to have in a friend.

  “So what about bouncer guy?” She nudged my arm, and we started to walk toward class together.

  “Chaz. Short for Charles.” I knew I grinned like an idiot, but I was fifteen, and he was legal to get beer. Conquest.

  Tess shook her head and laughed. “If you could see, you’d know how gorgeous you are, and you wouldn’t be all that surprised.”

  What? That was maybe the only compliment I’d ever gotten from Tess outside of our band.

  “I know what I look like.” And I was surprised. And flattered. Hot bouncer and a sophomore in high school?

  “So. We need to practice.” She smacked her gum a few times. If she was in different clothes, with long brown hair, she’d have looked like one of the Barbie twins.

  “Right. So I’m grounded hard-core for two weeks, ‘at which point we’ll reappraise’—so the moms say.”

  Tess released a way overdramatic sigh.

  I opened my mouth to tell her to spare me another lecture, but she cut me off.

  “Well, could you quit the attitude with the moms for those two weeks and let Rox do braids in your hair so we can play again?”

  “Maybe.” Perfect. Two moms and a sort-of best friend riding me. That’s exactly what I needed. Though Rox sometimes let me off early if I was really, really cooperative. So the braids were probably a good idea.

  The next two weeks would be filled with arranging pots on the shop’s shelves, braided hair, and an occasional yoga class for quality time.

  My girls better appreciate the sacrifices I made for the band.

  ◊ ◊ ◊

  Walking home was always thinking time. Running over songs in my head. Songs from my band, songs I loved. I needed my ears as much as my eyes for the mile walk—too many street crossings—so the iPod wasn’t an option until I got close to home. By then, I rarely bothered.

  A rhythm that Tess had been playing with flowed through my head as I hit my street, and I tapped my thumbs on my jeans while walking. Then I closed my eyes because I knew this street well. Twenty steps to the Tanners’ house, then a bump in the sidewalk. The Masons had a big yard, so it was twenty-five steps to pass their house, and their driveway had a bit of an odd curve to it. All things that I’d thought were fun to practice in middle school, but had started to become a reality when my eyesight took another big leap down and my pressure-relieving surgery hadn’t helped as much as the doctors thought it would.

  I hated it when my brain spanned away from something I wanted to think about, so I focused on Tess’s rhythm again.

  When I heard bike tires behind me, I nearly jumped off the sidewalk. I don’t mess with bikes because they blend into trees and basically anything upright, and bikers are generally assholes.

  Rox stood waiting on the porch for me, arms crossed, leaning against one of the posts. Exactly like she said she’d be doing for at least the next two weeks. Special torture treatment after my weekend.

  Frickin’ brilliant.

  The bike slowed just past me, and I smelled citrus. Then a flash of green caught my eye as he stopped in the driveway in front of Rox’s pottery shop.

  “Kyle! The shoes!” He was actually wearing them. After that morning, I’d sort of thought he might not, and honestly it would have really pissed me off. It wasn’t the easiest job to go in search of the perfect Kyle shoes—especially because I didn
’t know him all that well with the whole barely talking thing he had going on. And they’d pretty much wiped this month’s allowance.

  “Yeah. Uh.” He turned to face me.

  “Now you need to scuff the shit out of them, okay? Otherwise you’ll look like a total poseur.” Even I could see how bright the rubber was. Not good.

  His eyes almost, almost met mine, but he stared down again.

  “So, you like ’em?”

  He started to scuff, a black mark from our driveway marring the pristine rubber. “They’re the color of your glasses from that night.”

  I grinned. A whole sentence. Aces. “Yeah. Funny. These seemed like good Kyle shoes. They’re one of those limited-edition Converse colors.”

  “Huh.” Silence. Painful, awkward silence.

  “You’ve got some serious issues, Kyle. I’m cool with this. People with issues are good. I need to surround myself with people crazier than me. You’re totally a safe bet.” I reached out and punched his arm.

  He didn’t react.

  Unfortunately, Tess and Mira only dressed like they had issues—most of their act was bullshit, but they could both play, so I let it slide. Kyle seemed to be pretty seriously messed up.

  We definitely had to be friends. Even quiet, he wasn’t boring.

  “Wait.” I looked up and down the street. “You don’t normally go home this way, do you?”

  His eyes widened a bit before he stared at the ground again, and his head shook once.

  WORDS. I had to get the guy to use some words.

  Rox cleared her throat. “No friends, Hailey.” And she even used her authority voice.

  Hell.

  “This is Acquaintance Kyle, but I think maybe almost Friend Kyle. You don’t need to worry about him. He’s, like, one of the good guys. I mean . . .” I narrowed my eyes at him and leaned in ’cause I knew it made him uncomfortable. “There could be an ax murderer in there somewhere, but he did leave the awesomeness of Portugal. The Man early when I couldn’t find Tess.”

  That comment, and the shoes, were about as much thank-you as he was going to get from me, so I figured a bit of flattery couldn’t hurt. I also knew I made him uncomfortable. I wasn’t blind enough not to see that. Probably I shouldn’t have enjoyed making him squirm.