Love is Blind

by Shayna B

  He leaned in and kissed me softly. “And if I don’t, I’m taking you down with me.”

  I laughed at that. “Gee, thanks for caring so much.”

  He smiled devilishly. “Anytime.”

  Chapter eighteen

  The rest of the week went by fairly quickly. The weather grew colder and I knew that winter was on its way. Blake continued to eat lunch with us and he slowly started talking to David again. Our relationship was going well, and I quickly noticed that Blake was actually very affectionate. He was constantly touching me in some small way and when we were alone he always liked to have me cuddled into him. I think part of it was because he missed having someone to be close to, but I knew the other part of it was that he genuinely cared for me.

  Even though the relationship was going well, we still argued. I had talked to my teachers and now I had permission to be late for all my classes so that I could walk with Blake to all of his. That had caused our first big fight.

  “I don’t want you to have to babysit me,” he snapped. We were standing in his bedroom on Saturday afternoon and I’d just told him about the new arrangements.

  “I’m not babysitting you! I’m just walking with you to all your damn classes. What’s the big deal?”

  “I should be walking you! Not the other way around.”

  I rubbed a hand over my face. “Not this again. Blake, I know that it’s hard for you dealing with being blind. But you have to stop getting irritated with me just because I’m doing things that you stupidly think should be your job.”

  His jaw was tense and his arms were crossed over his chest. “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Are you serious? You’re not the only one in this relationship with problems, you know.”

  He turned his head towards me. “At least you have a normal life!”

  “Normal? You think my life is normal? I have to be confined to a wheelchair sometimes! I wake up every morning praying that my back won’t act up so that I can actually walk.”

  “People don’t talk about you behind your back, though. No one knows about your problem.”

  “So what? You think I should go around and tell everyone that I was in a car accident that killed my parents and put my brother into a coma?” I asked snippily.

  “I didn’t say that!” he shouted.

  “No, but you implied that just because people can’t see my disability, it means my life is so much easier. You always bitch about people being closed minded, and yet you’re worse than a lot of them.” I stalked over to the bedroom door and opened it, pausing to look back over my shoulder. “I don’t tell people about the accident because I don’t want the fake sympathy from everyone when they hear about my family. I had enough of that from my so-called friends at my old school.” With that said I left the room, shutting the door roughly behind me.

  When I got home, I went directly to my room, ignoring Jared and Liam who both seemed surprised to see me home so early. I slammed the door to my room and went over to my bed, flopping down onto it. I was frustrated with Blake, but the conversation had also brought up an old hurt from right after the accident. The few “friends” that had actually come to visit me had only been trying to get all the gossip on everything that had happened. They all pretended to be sympathetic, but the whole time they visited me they were fishing for information.

  It was an hour later that Jared finally came into my room to see what was wrong. He sat on the edge of the bed. “Want to talk about it?”

  I rolled onto my back so I could look at him. “Not really. Blake was just being an ass and it pissed me off this time.”

  Jared frowned. “But he’s always kind of an ass.”

  I cracked a half smile. “I know. But he said some things that made me want to punch him. So I opted to just walk away instead.”

  “Hmm. Well, I’d offer to kick his ass for you, but that probably wouldn’t solve anything.”

  I shook my head and gave him a more genuine smile. “No, it wouldn’t.” I sighed and sat up. “Why aren’t you with Laurel?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “I had plans with her for later, but when I saw how upset you were I called her to cancel them. I told her that my little sister needed me tonight.”

  “You didn’t have to do that,” I told him. My phone rang so I grabbed it and looked at the Caller ID. I saw that it was Blake, but I wasn’t ready to talk to him yet so I ignored it. When I looked at Jared again, he was grinning. “What?”

  “You’re going to make him suffer for this, aren’t you?”

  “No… well maybe just until he apologizes.” I lay down on my back again. “Stupid ass really thinks that his life is so much worse than anyone else’s,” I muttered.

  Jared chuckled. “You’ll show him the error of his ways, don’t worry. I know first- hand just how stubborn you can be.”

  “He knows as well. Hopefully he realizes quickly that I’m not just going to forgive and forget right away.”

  Jared patted my leg and then stood up. “Well, I’m going to go make some popcorn and put on a movie. You want to join me?”

  I nodded. “Sounds like fun,” I said, holding out my hand for him to help me to my feet. Once I was standing, I stretched my arms over my head. “Let’s get this party started.”

  I spent the rest of the night hanging out with Jared and Liam, just goofing around and watching movies. Blake tried calling me a couple of times, but I ignored him. I didn’t want to make him suffer like Jared had said, but I did want him to think about what I’d said.

  The next day, I was playing around on the piano in the morning when a movement to my right caught my eye. I turned in that direction and frowned when I saw Blake standing there. “What are you doing here?” I asked him.

  “You wouldn’t answer my calls, so I figured the only way you’d talk to me would be if I showed up. Liam let me in.”

  “Traitor,” I muttered before standing up. “Come on then, let’s go to my room so we can talk.”

  I walked past him and heard him following me down the hallway to my room. Once we were in there with the door closed, I walked to my bed and sat on the edge, folding my arms over my chest. “Talk,” I said.

  He sighed and came to sit beside me. “You’re not going to make this easy, are you?”

  “Why should I make it easy?”

  “Because I’m cute?” he offered.

  I struggled not to smile. “Nice try.”

  His shoulders slumped a little and he let his arms dangle loosely between his knees. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled.

  “Why are you sorry?”

  “Damn it, you know I hate apologizing. The least you could do is cut me some slack.”

  “No, the least I could do is not smack you for being a jerk,” I retorted.

  “I guess that’s true.” He tilted his head in my direction. “I’m sorry for being an insensitive jerk. I got frustrated because I can’t treat you the way I want to, and I took it out on you.”

  I smiled. “Was that so hard?”

  “Yes,” he grumbled, but then scooted closer to me. “Am I forgiven?”

  “That depends. Are you going to give me a hard time about walking you to your classes?”

  He slid his arm around my waist. “No, because it means I get to spend more time with you.”

  My heart melted a little. “You can be so sweet sometimes,” I murmured as I put my head on his shoulder. “When you’re not being an ass, that is,” I added.

  He chuckled and pressed a kiss to the side of my head. “Just admit it. You like both sides of my personality.”

  I rolled my eyes. “I suppose, but I could definitely go for you being sweet more often.”

  “I’ll work on it,” he promised. He raised his hand to my cheek and tilted my head so that he could kiss my lips softly. “We okay now?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Good, then do you want to go out and do something?”

  This surprised me a little. He was never the one
to suggest doing something. “Sure. What did you have in mind?”

  He shrugged. “Nothing really. I have Abby here, so we could take her and Tonto out for a walk or something.”

  “Sounds like a good idea to me.” We stood up together and walked out of my room, heading to the front door. Both dogs came around the corner when we called their names and Blake put Abby’s harness before we walked outside.

  Blake took my hand and laced his fingers with mine as we headed down the sidewalk. “Anywhere in particular that you want to walk to?” he asked.

  “Not really. We could go to the park if you want,” I replied.

  He nodded and we walked in a comfortable silence. Once we got to the park, we sat on our bench and I let my head rest on his shoulder. He turned his head and put his cheek against the top of my head.

  “So, I was thinking about something,” I said after a few minutes.

  “Okay?”

  I took his hand and played with his fingers. “Would you come to the hospital with me this afternoon?”

  He laced our fingers together and squeezed my hand. “You want me to?”

  “Yeah. I mean, I know you can’t see him, but it would be nice having you there with me,” I mumbled.

  He raised his head and used his free hand to tilt my face up. “I’ll go with you.” He kissed me gently. “I know it’s still hard for you to go there.”

  I blew out a breath. “Yeah, it is. It’s been almost ten months now. The chances of him waking up decrease every single day,” I said, my voice cracking near the end.

  Blake half picked me up and maneuvered me until I was sitting on his lap with his arms snugly around me. “I can’t imagine how hard this must be for you. You’re so happy all the time that it’s easy to forget that you’ve been through so much.”

  I tucked my head into the crook of his neck and breathed in his scent. “Just like it’s easy to forget that you’re blind because you can get around so easily.”

  He was quiet for a moment. “Do you mean that?”

  I furrowed my brow. “Mean what?”

  “That you forget that I’m blind.”

  I pulled my head back to look at him. “Yeah. You get around better than I can sometimes. I’ve never seen you trip over anything.”

  He pulled my face towards him and kissed me tenderly. “You never cease to amaze me,” he murmured against my lips.

  “Well, I’m an amazing person,” I replied with a smile.

  He chuckled. “You really are.”

  We stayed at the park for another hour, even though it was pretty chilly out. Then we brought the dogs back to my place before heading to the hospital. When we got there, Blake took my hand and we headed inside. We went directly up to Jake’s room and I brought Blake over to the bedside. “Blake, this is my brother Jake.”

  “What does he look like?” Blake asked. This was part of our routine now; I described everything to him when he asked.

  “Well, he has dark hair like I do, but his eyes are gray instead of brown. His hair has gotten a little longer since the accident. He always kept it short and spiky, but now it’s down past his ears.” As I spoke, I reached out to run my fingers through Jake’s hair. “I wish you could actually meet him. I think you’d get along after the initial big brother questioning and intimidation.”

  “What would that include?”

  I smiled softly. “Pretty much what your intentions are with me and he’d threaten you with bodily harm if you were to hurt me.”

  Blake found my hand with his and tugged until I had my back against his chest with his arms around my waist. “So he would’ve kicked my ass for yesterday, huh?”

  I laughed a little. “Yeah, probably. Jared said he’d do it, but that it wouldn’t solve anything. Jake would’ve done it anyways and not cared if it solved anything or not.”

  “He sounds like a good brother.”

  “He is. I miss him so much. It’s harder with him than it was with my parents, because of that slight possibility that he might wake up. At least with my parents there was that sense of finality, as horrible as that is.”

  Blake put his chin on my shoulder. “I can understand what you mean. Your parents are gone, but Jake is still here, even if he isn’t awake.”

  I nodded. “Exactly.” I turned in his arms to give him a hug. “Want to sit down?”

  “Sure.”

  I guided him to the chair and he sat down, pulling me with him onto his lap. I put one arm around his neck and let my other hand rest lightly on his chest. “Thanks for coming with me.”

  “You don’t have to thank me, Hailey. I’m more than happy to come with you.”

  “I’m glad you came.”

  “Me too.” He pressed a kiss to my hair. “Why don’t you tell me a story about you and Jake?”

  I furrowed my brow. “What kind of story?”

  He shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. Maybe something he did that made you happy.”

  I thought about it for a moment. “Oh, I’ve got a good one. It was my ninth birthday and he had gone out to get me my present. He was secretive about it, but I knew that that’s what he was off to do. He was gone for about an hour and he came back with a big box, which he put into his room. He said I wasn’t allowed to open it until the party later.

  “Well, by the time I was ready to open presents, I was almost dying of curiosity. He went to get the box and I was bouncing in excitement. But when he came back a moment later, he was empty-handed and had this weird look on his face. When I asked him what was wrong, he gave me this sheepish look. ‘Well Hailey,’ he said, ‘I bought you a rabbit for your birthday but it seems to have gotten out of the box and I don’t know where it went’.

  “I was so excited about having a bunny that it took me a moment to realize that it was currently loose in the house somewhere. Jake had left his bedroom door open, so no one knew where it was. Everyone split up and started looking for it. After half an hour, we finally found it hiding underneath the couch in the living room. Unfortunately, it didn’t want to get caught and we spent another half an hour chasing that damn thing around the house until we finally cornered it.”

  Blake was laughing at this point. “I feel bad for the poor bunny. Having a herd of people chasing it around the house must have traumatized it.”

  I grinned. “Yeah, I think it might have. But I had that thing four years. I named him Houdini since he was apparently such an escape artist.”

  “Sounds like that was an exciting birthday.”

  “It really was. Jake was always really good to me. He didn’t mind having me tag along with him, and Jared was always the same. I spent a lot of time with the two of them until they both went off to university.”

  Blake asked me to tell him some more stories, so we spent the next hour just talking. By the time we were ready to leave, I felt a little lighter. Blake slung an arm over my shoulder as we left the room and I let myself lean into him. “You know, you’re pretty amazing yourself,” I told him.

  He tilted his head a little. “Not that I don’t agree, but what makes you say that?”

  I smiled at his cockiness. “Because you seem to know exactly what I need to keep me from dwelling on things too much.”

  He shrugged. “It’s mainly just dumb luck.”

  We had reached the car by this time, so I turned to face him, placing my hands on his cheeks. “No it’s not. It’s because you’re a genuinely good person who just got a little off track for a while.”

  “I wouldn’t exactly say I’m on track now,” he replied.

  “Maybe not all the time, but you’re working on it. Stick with me and you’ll get there eventually.”

  He smiled and bent down to kiss the tip of my nose. “I guess I can do that.”

  “Don’t sound so enthusiastic,” I said dryly.

  He chuckled and wrapped his arms around me tightly. “Don’t worry Hales. You’re stuck with me now.”

  I heaved a sigh as I put my arms around him. “I guess I can ha
ndle that.”

  Chapter nineteen

  On Friday morning, Blake and I walked into our Biology class and took our seats. Mr. White wasn’t there yet, so I scooted my chair closer to Blake and laced my fingers with his, talking quietly with him. When the bell rang and the teacher still wasn’t there the class started murmuring, wondering where he was.

  The door opened, and an older man that I didn’t recognize came in. He had white hair and a slightly wrinkled face that was set in a frown. “Settle down, class,” he called out. “Mr. White is ill today, so I will be teaching. My name is Mr. Grant and I will not tolerate any nonsense.”

  I moved away from Blake with a quiet sigh. “This class is going to be a barrel of fun,” I muttered.

  Blake snorted but otherwise didn’t reply. Mr. Grant went up to the blackboard and wrote a few questions down. “Read these and answer them quietly. When you are done, occupy yourselves without speaking.”

  I rolled my eyes and took out some paper and a pencil. Blake scooted his chair a little closer to mine so I could read the questions to him and he could help me answer them. It was the system we had come up with over the past couple of weeks and Mr. White was more than happy to let us work together.

  Apparently, Mr. Grant wasn’t quite as happy with the arrangement. He came up to our table as I was reading the second question to Blake. “What part of quietly did you not understand?” he snapped.

  I looked up in surprise. “Blake and I always do our work together. Mr. White has no problem with it.”

  “Well, I am not Mr. White and I will not tolerate you talking. Move away from each other and do your work silently.”

  “But sir-”

  “I don’t want to hear your excuses,” he interrupted. “And you, take those sunglasses off immediately.”

  “But-” I tried to speak again.

  “Quiet!” he snapped. “If you refuse to listen, I will send you down to the office. I don’t have the patience to deal with hormone-riddled teenagers who want to canoodle during class. And I told you to take those sunglasses off!”

  My cheeks flamed with embarrassment, but Blake got angry. “Don’t talk to her like that!” he snarled. “And I’m not taking my sunglasses off, you ignorant dickhead.”