True Love

by Lurlene McDaniel

  Janelle recoiled. “You can’t believe that! God’s not that way. What about all the others who teased her? Did they get cancer and get left scarred?”

  “Not that I know of.” Carley stared hard at her hands as if they might hold some answer. “But why did this happen to me? Why did I have to get left with half a face?”

  Janelle reached over and squeezed Carley’s shoulder. “Nobody has that answer. And trying to come up with one could drive you nuts.”

  “As if I’m not already.”

  Janelle wagged her finger. “Only when it comes to guys.”

  “And guys are the worst. You wouldn’t know because you’ve always had to beat them off with a stick, but they only go after girls who are pretty. Cripes, you’ve had a zillion boyfriends.”

  “A zillion?” Janelle rolled her eyes. “I’ve dated a few, but most of them hardly see me as a person, just someone they can show off to their friends.”

  Carley wasn’t the least bit sympathetic. She said, “I’m sixteen years old and I’ve never had a date.” Old hurts welled up inside her. “Why do you suppose that is? Could it be because I’m not pretty? Why isn’t my wonderful personality taken into consideration?”

  “Now you’re being sarcastic.”

  “No. I’m being realistic. I’m never going to have a date. No guy’s ever going to ask me out or take me anywhere out in public.”

  Janelle sighed heavily. “I know it seems that way now.”

  “You bet it does.”

  “Kyle might just be the one if you’d give him half a chance.”

  “So long as he’s blind and so long as we don’t have to mingle with the rest of the world, Kyle and I can have a thing for each other. But the minute his vision clears, or his friends meet the real Carley, it’ll be over between us. Trust me. I know what I’m talking about.”

  Janelle balled her fist and pounded the steering wheel. “You are so stubborn and bullheaded.”

  Carley quickly brought her fingers up to either side of her head like horns and snorted.

  Janelle shook her head while trying to suppress a smile. “I give up. But someday you’ll find out I’m right. Looks aren’t nearly as important as you think they are.” Janelle pointed toward the hospital. “Go on and keep your PT appointment before we have to fight about this.”

  Carley grasped the car door handle. “What are you going to do? It’s too cold to sit out here in the car.”

  “I’m going into the hospital cafeteria and have a cup of hot chocolate.” She reached into the backseat and grabbed a book. “And study for an American History test.” She made a face.

  “I’ll come there after I finish.”

  As Carley was fishing out her crutches, Janelle asked, “So what did you tell Jon?”

  “About what?”

  “About what to buy me for Valentine’s Day.”

  Now it was Carley who grinned. “I told him to think gold and pricey.”

  Janelle returned a smile and nodded. “Good advice, little sister.”

  Together they walked to the Rehabilitation building, where Janelle took the covered walkway to the hospital and Carley went inside the PT center. When she’d completed her therapy, she ventured over to the hospital, but not to the cafeteria. Instead, she took the elevator up to her former floor, and, with heart thudding, she ambled down the hall to Kyle’s room. The door was ajar and she halted in the doorway.

  In the room she saw Kyle down on all fours, methodically feeling the floor in a circular pattern. Fascinated, she watched, realizing he was searching for something. Under the bed she spied the small foam rubber baffle that fit over the end of an earplug for comfort when wearing a headset, and she knew that’s what he was trying to find. She wanted to shout, “I see it!” She wanted to rush in and pick it up for him. Yet she did nothing but watch him pat the floor and grunt in frustration.

  Pity for him flooded through her. If he didn’t regain his sight, he would spend the remainder of his life learning to adjust to living blind in a seeing world. If he remained sightless, he’d never get to realize his dreams of working for NASA or of flying an airplane.

  Feelings of guilt twisted her insides like a sharp knife. To protect his illusions of her, she’d wanted him never to be able to see her. How unfair! No one deserved to be confined to a world of darkness if it was preventable or correctable. Just because she was limited to a less than normal life was no reason to selfishly wish the same sentence on him. Silently she pleaded to be forgiven for her attitude. Let Kyle get his sight back, she begged with all her heart.

  All at once Kyle reared up and sat stock-still. “Who’s there?” he asked.

  Caught off guard, Carley pressed her back to the door frame. She should speak up. But she didn’t.

  “Hey, I know somebody’s in the room with me. Tell me who.” Still she kept quiet.

  “You’re being rude, you know. I can’t see you, but I know you’re there. Why don’t you say something?” His brow furrowed and his voice sounded angry.

  Why don’t I say something? Carley couldn’t believe she was behaving this way. Couldn’t understand why she was provoking him. But her vocal cords refused to respond. It was as if they’d been cut; she was helpless to reveal herself.

  “Talk to me!” Kyle shouted.

  She backed out of the room, desperate to be gone. One crutch caught on a corner of the door and she almost went sprawling, but she managed to regain her balance without making any noise. She spun and barreled down the hall toward the elevator. Tears almost blinded her, and her breath came in rapid gasps, half sobs.

  Behind her she could hear Kyle calling, “Whoever you are, you’re a stinking coward! You have no right to sneak up on a blind person, then run away. Do you hear me?”

  Carley jabbed frantically at the elevator button, terrified that a nurse would hear Kyle and discover her trying to escape. The elevator came and she flung herself through the opening doors. Mercifully it was empty and she sagged against the side, heaving great breaths of air. Her hands shook and her knees wobbled, but she’d escaped without him knowing who’d been in his room.

  She finger-combed her hair and tried to regain her composure during the ride to ground level, where Janelle was waiting in the cafeteria. “You must be seriously deranged,” she told herself shakily under her breath. Kyle was right, only a coward would have refused to face him. Why hadn’t she greeted him? Stayed for a visit? Why had she gone up in the first place when she’d told Janelle she wasn’t going to? When she had sworn to herself she would never see him again?

  “You’re horrible, Carley Mattea,” she muttered to herself. You upset Kyle and ran off. You were mean and hateful.

  Janelle called out to her, gathered up her book, and hurried over. “What took you so long? Hey, are you okay?” She squinted at Carley. “You look discombobulated.” The expression was a longtime favorite of their Southern grandmother.

  “I’m all right.” She clenched her hands hard around the grips of her crutches. “Tell me, what does ‘combobulated’ look like?”

  Janelle ignored Carley’s attempt to divert the conversation. “Did your physical therapy hurt?” Automatic sympathy flooded her pretty features.

  “A little,” she lied.

  “They overworked your leg, didn’t they?”

  “As Jon says, ‘no pain, no gain.’ ”

  “Well, I’m glad I’m driving so that you can relax.”

  Carley didn’t want to relax; she wanted to forget she’d ever met Kyle Westin and experienced what it was like to be thought pretty and normal. Whoever said “ignorance is bliss” was correct. Before, she could only speculate what it would be like. Now that she knew, she hated it. The feeling was painful and sad. Like a taste of some wonderful fruit that a person could savor only once and then never forget.

  In the car she reclined the seat and closed her eyes, hoping that Janelle would get the message that she didn’t want to talk. Because there was no way she could ever explain that it wasn’
t her leg that hurt. It was her heart.

  Fourteen

  Two days later Carley still hadn’t figured out why she’d behaved so foolishly at the hospital Deciding that she had to get it off her mind, she called the hospital, dialed Kyle’s extension, and heard the voice of a stranger. Kyle had checked out and returned home. She hung up, glad he’d been released, but disappointed that she hadn’t been able to talk to him.

  She told herself it was for the best. No contact was the best thing. Now she could get on with her life, and he could get on with his.

  Her mother took off from the bookstore to drive Carley to her appointment with her orthopedist, Dr. Olson. “If he says it’s all right for me to drive, will you let me?” Carley asked.

  “If he agrees, yes,” her mother answered.

  Dr. Olson had his technician take X rays of Carley’s leg, and once the film was developed, he put the various views up on a light-board and studied them while Carley and her mom looked on. “Your bone looks good. The pins are holding fine and the infection is entirely cleared up. I know you didn’t want to be in the hospital for ten days, but it was the best course of treatment for you. The IV antibiotic really did the job.”

  There was no way to tell him just how much of an impact the hospitalization had had on her life, so Carley simply asked, “How much longer will I have to wear this thing?”

  He looked at her chart. “Let’s see—surgery was three weeks ago, at the beginning of January. It takes six to eight weeks for a bone to knit, so maybe as early as mid-February.”

  “She would have been out of the cast sooner if it hadn’t been for the infection,” Carley’s mother observed, making it sound as if the doctor was somehow at fault.

  “Osteomyelitis isn’t common, but it can happen.” Dr. Olson said good-naturedly. “The important thing is that Carley’s well on the road to recovery now.”

  “Time flies when you’re having fun,” Carley interjected. She saw no reason for her mother to blame the doctor for something that was nobody’s fault.

  “And what about her tendons? You told us that she may have to have further surgery on them.”

  “Let’s see how she does with PT once the cast is off. Maybe further surgery is avoidable. In the meantime if you want to hang up your crutches, you can.”

  “I can manage without them,” Carley said.

  “But,” her mother said doggedly, “her infection had nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that she once had cancer, does it?”

  “Absolutely nothing,” Dr. Olson assured her. “The infection could have happened to anyone.”

  Carley saw her mother look relieved, and until then she hadn’t realized the cancer issue had been weighing on her mind. It certainly hadn’t weighed on hers. Later, when they were driving home, Carley said, “Mom, my cancer was four years ago, and the oncologist only sees me once a year. He told you I was cured. If the doctors aren’t worried about it, why are you?”

  “I’m not worried,” her mother contended. “I believe you’re cured. I just don’t want us to be blindsided like that again. I mean, who expected headaches to turn into a cancerous tumor?”

  “And who expected the ‘fix’ to leave my face like this?” Carley finished quietly.

  “It was the only way to save your life.” Her mother glanced over at her. “We never talk about it. You seem so well adjusted and all. You crack jokes. You forge ahead with life. And when I look at you, I don’t see it anymore.”

  “How could you not see it? My face is deformed!”

  “Not to me. To me I see my beautiful little daughter who’s alive.”

  Carley sighed. “Well, the rest of the world sees a girl with a messed-up face.”

  “Do you tell people what happened? Do you let them know how you got this way?”

  “Oh, sure, Mom, right! Just what I want to do—deliver my life story to everyone who stares at me.”

  Her mother fiddled with the heater controls, partly out of being flustered, Carley figured, because the car was plenty warm. “Well, people like that are insensitive and callow. People can’t help the way they look, just the way they act.”

  Her mother’s view of the world seemed simplistic to Carley. And naive. But perhaps a person needed to live with something before she understood it. “I’ve made up my mind that everybody would be better off if people wore paper bags over their heads. You know, with little cutouts for eyes and mouths. That way we’d all be on equal footing when it comes to a social life.”

  Her mom smiled. “It seems you’ve been giving everything a whole lot more thought these days. Don’t think I haven’t noticed the way you’ve moped around the house ever since you came home from the hospital. Care to tell me why?”

  “No reason,” she said, turning to gaze out the window. She couldn’t tell her mother about Kyle and the emotions he’d stirred up in her. Emotions that might have never surfaced if he could have seen her face. She caught sight of her face in the side mirror and purposefully turned so that she didn’t have to look at her own reflection.

  “Maybe I’ve forgotten how traumatic high school can be,” her mother mused, half aloud, watching Carley from the corner of her eye. “I think it’s time we started making the rounds to plastic surgeons again.”

  Carley shrugged listlessly. “We did that, remember? They told us there was nothing they could do to fix me.”

  “But things change in medicine every day. There are new technologies, new breakthroughs. They do things now they couldn’t do a few years ago. I think we should check it out again.”

  “Do you think they can make me look normal?”

  “I think we should go ask. Do you want me to set up an appointment? Do you want to think about it for a while?”

  Carley didn’t have to think about it. She wanted it more than anything. She wasn’t being unrealistic; she knew she might never be pretty no matter what they did to her face. But she had to look better than this. Otherwise, what kind of future did she have other than joining the circus as a sideshow exhibit?

  “Sure, Mom. Let’s do it. Let’s see if all the smart doctors can put Carley together again.”

  On Saturday Carley went to work in the bookstore, her first day of work since before her accident. She arrived with Janelle before the start of the business day, and while her sister set up the register and readied the counter area for customers, Carley walked along the aisles, inspecting the shelves.

  “Boy, Mom sure has the place junked up,” she said over her shoulder.

  “She’s a sucker for Cupid,” Janelle said. “Every time a publisher offers a new display, she makes room for it.”

  Carley leaned over to examine one lavish cardboard unit colored with vivid red hearts, nosegays of violets, and embossed ribbons of white Victorian lace. She stuck out her tongue.

  “That’s not nice,” Janelle said, coming up beside her.

  Carley blushed, but pretended she wasn’t embarrassed about her childish antics. “Sorry, but I think Valentine’s Day is a waste.”

  “Hush. You’ll hurt Cupid’s feelings.”

  “Let the little dirtbag suffer.”

  Janelle giggled. “Does this mean you’re not going to send anybody special a card?”

  “Who would I send a card to?”

  Janelle crossed her arms and tapped her toe and waited patiently for Carley to figure it out.

  “Kyle?” Carley squealed. “Are you implying I should send one to Kyle?”

  “And why not?”

  “He’s blind. He couldn’t see it anyway.”

  “That’s rude, Carley.”

  Instantly she felt ashamed. “I … um … just don’t think I should send him one. It’s a dumb thing for a girl to do. Guys are supposed to send cards, not girls.”

  “What rock did you crawl out from under? If you like somebody, you should let him know. What could it hurt to send the guy a little Valentine? It might even make him feel good.”

  Carley started to list all the reasons why not,
when the phone rang. Janelle hurried to the front desk and answered it. She cupped her hand over the mouthpiece and held it out to Carley. “It’s for you.”

  “Me? No one ever calls me here. Who is it?”

  “Your personal Cupid.”

  “Kyle?” Carley felt her mouth go dry. “Tell him I’m busy. Tell him I’m not working today.” Her heart began to thud with panic.

  “She’s on her way to the phone,” Janelle said sweetly into the receiver. “Give her a minute to get here.”

  Carley shot her a threatening look, but she came forward and took the receiver. She pretended it was Janelle’s neck and squeezed it extra hard.

  “I’ll be in the back,” Janelle said, breezing away.

  Carley took a deep breath and said hello.

  “Hello yourself. Remember me? Your friendly next-door hospital neighbor?”

  “Of course. How goes it?”

  “I thought you were going to call me.”

  “I did, but you’d checked out.”

  He was quiet for a moment. “I left my phone number with the nurses. In case you asked.”

  “I—I didn’t think of asking.”

  “I asked them for yours, but they said it was against hospital policy to give out the information. Then I remembered about your parents’ bookstore.”

  “So, here I am.” She forced herself to sound perky.

  “I was going to call you last week, but I wanted to wait until after my checkup on Friday.”

  Her heart hammered harder and she half dreaded, half hoped for what she knew he was about to tell her. “How did it go?”

  “I can see, Carley. I’m going to be all right.”

  Fifteen

  “That’s wonderful, Kyle.” Carley tried to control the tremor in her voice.

  “Oh, my vision’s not perfect. I’ve still got a long way to go.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, I’m real sensitive to light. But when he took my bandages off, I could see shapes. Everything was really blurry and my eyes watered like crazy, but things are looking clearer and sharper every day.”