Clarity 3 (13 page)

“What is that?” I ask Liam, pointing through the windshield of the car. “It seems like... is it a star?”

“I was hoping you’d be able to see it,” Liam says with a happy smile. “It reaches its peak brightness right before sunrise and right after sunset. It’s the planet Venus, also known as the morning star. It’s brighter than the brightest stars in the sky.”

A shiver of pleasure runs through me at this information. “I can see a planet? I am actually looking at a planet right now.
Liam! How did you do this to me? I never dreamed I’d be able to see so much.”

“I used to be obsessed with stargazing when I was a kid,” Liam says.
“I never wanted to be a doctor—I wanted to be an astronaut. But we were very poor, and that seemed like a stupid and ridiculous dream to my parents. They didn’t consider anything to do with space a
real
career. They wanted me to be reasonable, and reliable, and grow up to be a doctor like my grandfather who died in the war. So they borrowed lots of biology books from the library, and forced me to read them over and over. We couldn’t even afford a telescope, although I asked for one on every birthday and Christmas. It was all I ever wanted... a goddamn telescope.” He laughs at this memory. “I suppose they were right in the end. Being a doctor is a reliable career.”

“And if you weren’t a doctor,” I tell him softly, “I never would have met you.”

“Then I guess it’s a good thing I didn’t follow through with my plan of quitting school and becoming a UFC fighter,” Liam says with a grin.

“Really?” I ask him. “You really considered that?”

“I considered a lot of crazy things. I nearly joined the military once. Owen always talked me out of it, and reminded me that I had really good grades, and actually liked medicine. What I didn’t like was being controlled. But now that I’m here, I really am glad I listened to them. I do love my job.” He pauses for a moment. “I just like looking at the stars a little better.”

“Thanks to your job, I can look at the stars, too,” I tell him. “Well, one star—the sun. Along with the moon and Venus.
But that’s more than I ever would have had without you. Your job might have stolen the stars from you but it did the opposite for me.”

“I’m sure that you’ll be able to see even better soon,” he tells me.
“And it wasn’t really me—almost any ophthalmologist could have done this for you.”

“
It was you,” I tell him with a smile. “You gave me the stars.”

He leans forward across the center console of the car to kiss me
again. His kiss grows deeper, and he slips his hand below my jacket. He stays lip-locked with me for a few minutes before pulling away and clearing his throat. “I don’t want you to miss the sunrise,” he tells me.

I am a little dizzy from his kiss, but I nod and look back to the sky. “Whoa! Did all that happen while we were kissing?”
The horizon has exploded in color. There are little wisps of clouds that have been tinted deep orange. I look down at my paint chips and try flipping through them frantically. I get to the variations of orange, and try to find the words to describe what I’m seeing. Amber, Pumpkin, Coral, Salmon? Nothing seems to fit quite right. It’s a good thing I was born blind. If I could have seen all these divine colors, I might have become a painter instead of a writer.

“I want to step outside to see it better,” I tell Liam as I open the car door.

“It’s really cold out,” he warns me, bu
t he also opens his door and steps out to join me.

I move to the front of the car and lean against it, taking in the breathtaking view. I try to capture the sight in my mind, or paint it with words that I could use in a story, but I find that everything in my mind is completely inadequate compared to the
cosmic proportions of this natural splendor.

It also tears my heart to pieces a little.

“Everyone gets to see this,” I say, fighting back tears. “Every single day. Everyone gets to see the sunrise.” I find myself feeling bitterly jealous of every day that has been stolen from me.

“Winter,” Liam says gently as he moves
to my side. “Most people don’t even look. They don’t have the time, or they’ve seen so many sunrises that they don’t care anymore. They’re desensitized. It happens every day, after all.”

“Like this?” I
demand angrily. “It’s this beautiful every day?”

“
Yes. I mean, it’s different every day. Sometimes when you’re in the city, it’s blocked by huge buildings. Or you’re sleeping through it due to your work hours. We can’t always look at the sunrise.”

“That’s a tragedy,” I
say softly. “Because when I look at this, I feel like it’s the beginning of everything. I feel like my whole life has just disappeared and I’m brand new. I feel like this is going to be the best day I’ve ever lived.”

“See?” he tells me gently, pulling me close and kissing my temple. “It’s not about the col
ors; it’s about what they mean. It’s not about what you see, and seeing clearly. It’s about seeing more deeply beneath and beyond that. That’s true clarity.”

I stare for a few more minutes, ignoring the cold wind that is nipping at us. I still do wish I could dissect each color and find a way to capture this moment forever. But even as I stare, each color changes and each shape evolves, teasing me with their ethereal
nature. Liam is right. It’s more than any mere mortal can understand.

When I finally see the little ball of fire peeking over the horizon, my eyes widen. It’s unreal that anything could be that beautiful. It’s unlike any color on the paint chips.
It’s a combination of marigold, tangerine, flamingo pink, and so much more... and the fiery glowing quality could never be replicated on paper.

I toss aside all my paint chips, letting them scatter on the beach. “
Screw it,” I mumble. “These are useless. Nothing can describe this. There aren’t words in the English language. Or any language.”

Liam
laughs, and his breath tickles my neck. “I figured you might feel that way.”

“You’re amazing,” I tell him, turning to gaze at his face. I can see more of him now, and he seems to be almost glowing in the light of dawn.
“I’m completely in love with you.”

He seems taken aback by my words. “Are you sure? I think you might be under the influence of the sunrise.”

“The UV rays are loosening my inhibitions and my tongue, but what I feel is real. I think I’ve felt this way for a while.” I look down shyly, feeling suddenly very vulnerable. “I love you, and I’ve never been this happy.”

Of course, as soon as the words leave my mouth, I feel absolutely sure that something is going to go terribly wrong.
Liam reaches out to pull me close until my body is pressed against his. He leans down to kiss my lips. Even though he is holding me tightly and reciprocating my affection, I can’t shake the feeling that I have just cursed myself and ruined everything.

“We should go
back inside,” he tells me. “It’s getting really cold out here. Do you want to get into the backseat and cuddle a little while we watch the end of the sunrise?”

“Sure,” I tell him with a mischievous smile. “We can ‘cuddle.’”

“My first sunrise ever,” I say teasingly as I re-arrange my clothing, “and you had to distract me.”

“I think I enhanced the experience,” he tells me with a grin.
“You really seemed to like it. You made so much noise that you woke up all the seagulls!”

I laugh as a flock of birds actually does fly quite close to the car. “I’m sure they were wa
king up anyway.”

“Let’s move back to the front seats,” he tells me as he
buttons up his shirt. “We should try to get home before the traffic gets really heavy.”

“
Wait,” I say as he opens the door. “Liam?” An idea suddenly strikes me as I stare at the empty beach. It’s not only extremely early on a cold winter morning, but it’s a weekday. It’s perfect. “You know what would be even more amazing than having sex on the beach in the sunrise?”

“What?” he asks.

“If you taught me how to drive.”

He looks at me in surprise. “But your eyes—and you don’t have a permit.”

“I can see quite well now that the sun is up. There’s no one around for miles. I should be able to get a permit soon. Come on, please?”

“I’m not sure,” he says, hesitating.

“Pleaseeee,” I beg him, tugging on his sleeve. “I’ll do anything.”

“Anything?”
he asks slyly.

“Well,” I say nervously. “Almost anything. You’re not going to ask for something Owen-y, are you? Because I really don’t think I’m a back-door kind of girl.”

“I can assure you that I’m much more sophisticated than that,” he tells me. Then he grins at me. “Plus, I wouldn’t use my one wish to ask for something that I’m pretty sure I could convince you to try under normal circumstances, anyway.”

“Aren’t you confident?” I say with a smirk. However, I’m pretty sure that he
could
convince me to do just about anything. Sometimes, I get so swept up in being with him that I could swear I’ve lost my mind.

“I will teach you to drive if you cash your dad’s check and try to re-establish ties with him,” Liam says. “Deal?”

I pause and wrinkle up my nose. “Just my dad? Not Carmen? And can I just do phone calls? I don’t have do actually go to the house?”

“Just your dad, and phone calls are fine,”
Liam responds, “for now. But you have to think about visiting him sometime soon.”

“Why do you want me to do this?”
I ask him curiously. “What’s in it for you?”

“
Family is important, and I want what’s best for you. I know you’d be happier if you reached out to him. Your dad never did anything wrong, and you can’t let him suffer because of things that Grayson did.”

“
Fine,” I say, climbing forward in the car to sit in the front seat. “I’ll do it. Now, teach me how to drive!”

Four weeks later...

My eyes scan over the pages as I viciously hit the ‘down’ arrow to read through my document. There are only three more chapters left in
my book, and they are the most important chapters of all. I find myself anxiously wasting hours reading and rereading the beginning of the book to make sure I haven’t missed anything or left any loose ends. I’ve never cared so much about making every single part of the story so perfect—I used to write only for myself, and mostly ignore the comments of others, but now, for the first time, I really want to hear what my readers have to say. I’m not so scared of disappointing them that I can’t face them. And even if they hate the book and rip me apart, at least I have Liam to lean on for emotional support.

I continue reading rapidly, hardly closing my eyes to blink.

My vision goes a little blurry for a second, and the words all seem to melt together on the page and drip down into a little pool of ink. I press both of my hands over my eyes and wait for a moment to allow them to rest. Sometimes, after serious writing marathons of sitting at the computer for twenty-four hours or more, my vision will begin to grow dim and falter. Wearing my glasses or contact lenses doesn’t seem to help. I haven’t told Liam yet, although I’m sure he could fix it quite quickly. Frankly, I’m exhausted with having my eyes poked and prodded, and I just want to use them to do what I love. I don’t have time to waste sitting in a hospital chair.

A ringing sound temporarily distracts me from my fuzzy vision. I reach out to
pick up the phone, smiling at Liam’s name on the display. I no longer find myself jumping out of my own skin whenever I receive a phone call. On top of that, my nightmares have stopped. Sleeping beside Liam every night has given me a lot of comfort and security, and I don’t feel like the whole world is out to get me anymore. At least, not all the time. I have even grown to love the city again, and sometimes I can even muster the courage to go for walks by myself and do some light shopping. I feel like now that I have the ability to see, I am on more of an equal playing field with everyone else. I am less of a target. Keeping up with martial arts now and then has also bolstered my confidence.

“H
i doctor,” I say into the phone upon answering. “How’s work?”

“It’s hectic as hell today,” Liam says in
an exhausted way. “I wanted to hear your voice and some good news. How’s your book coming along?”

“Slowly,” I tell him with a frown. “I feel like it’s taking forever. I’ve re-written three chapters from scratch, and it still doesn’t feel good enough.”

“You just need to adjust to the new computer,” he tells me. “Your typing speed has gone up a lot since you stopped writing your stories on your notetaker and started using a QWERTY keyboard. I’m sure that once you get used to it, you’ll be writing many more books in far less time.”

“I hope so,”
I tell him, but I don’t feel like the problem is with my equipment.

“Winter,” he says tiredly, “if you get a chance,
can you check the mailbox to see if there’s a letter about my research grant? Or about my publication in the journal?”

“Sure,” I tell him, closing my laptop. “
I need to check for my new driver’s license anyway!”

“I hope you get it,” he says. “Can you also c
all that guy about the retail space we looked at the other day, and tell him we can’t afford it? Owen’s loan fell through—he has too many other debts.”

“Sure thing,” I
tell him, “but you know I offered to help you guys out with the money. Most of my check is still sitting there.”

“I
would prefer not to take any of your money,” Liam says quietly. “That’s yours.”

“I don’t mind investing some of it in you,” I tell him with a smile. “Interest free.”

“I’ll think about it,” he tells me, “if everything else falls to pieces. Now onto more important subjects. Did you remember to call your dad?”

“Yes. We’re going to go out for coffee once I finish this book.”

“Great. And how’s Snowball?”

I glance down under the table at the ball of fur curled up around my feet. “She’s napping
for once, and not bouncing all over the place.”

Liam laughs. “I still think we should have called her Spring.
It would have been so clever. I could have introduced people to my girls, Winter and Spring Rose.”

“But she
loves
the name Snowball, and it suits her perfectly. Now you can introduce people to Winter and Snowball. It’s just as clever.” I gently stroke her fur with my toes as she naps.

Two weeks ago, Liam bought me a puppy.
I can still remember the conversation like it was yesterday, when he first came home and pressed the little creature into my arms.

“
I know that you never liked the idea of a guide dog,”
he’d said.
“You’re far too self-sufficient for that—but this little puppy is a rebel, just like you. She flunked out of guide dog school because she refused to follow instructions for any amount of treats. She was also incredibly antisocial and wouldn’t get along with any of the other dogs. Naturally, I felt that you two belonged together.”

“Liam, is our relationship really ready for a puppy? We only just started dating.”
Of course, I had already fallen in love with the lively bundle of fur from the moment I first held her, but I had to protest.

“You need someone to keep you company all day while you write!
It’s not healthy to be alone so much. I think we should call her Spring.”

“
Why?”
I asked curiously, setting the puppy down and watching her run all around us in energetic circles.

“Fo
r a few reasons,”
Liam said, moving close to me and slipping his fingers under the straps of my dress.
“She is obviously bouncy like a little spring, but it is also the season after winter. She’s like a warmer, more cuddly version of you.”

“Spring?”
I asked, testing the sound on my tongue as I lifted my hands to undo Liam’s tie. “
Wouldn’t it be prettier to call her Summer or Autumn?”

“
But someday,”
Liam said, slipping my dress off my shoulders and letting it slide to the ground, “
if we have daughters, we could name
them
Summer and Autumn. I’d love to collect the whole set.”

I
must have stood there for a full minute, staring at him speechlessly. Finally, I managed to clear my throat and think of a witty response.
“What if we have sons?”

I’ve never been in a real, adult relationship where everything goes perfectly smoothly
all the time. All I’ve ever known is how to run away. I’m very skilled at finding a man’s greatest flaws, and blowing them out of proportion until he’s forever tainted in my mind. I can mentally cling to these flaws as the reason that things could never work.

But with Liam, I can’t even find a flaw. Trust me, I’ve been looking.

Sometimes he works a little too hard, and he is out for long hours. While this might bother most women, I barely notice, and capitalize on the time to write. I’m glad that he doesn’t require more attention. I find his work ethic endearing and admirable.

When he is wi
th me, he is with me completely; he treats our time together as precious.

Sometimes, when
he jokes about marriage and kids, I can see a grain of truth behind his eyes. I think that’s the most powerful aspect of my new vision. I can now look into a man’s eyes and see what he’s feeling; whether he’s honest or insincere. I can’t think of a single reason why a future with him wouldn’t be a good idea. I find myself daydreaming about it very often. I think he’d make an excellent father.

After all, he always remembers to feed our puppy.

“Winter, did you hear my question? Are you still here?”

“What?” I say in surprise, realizing that he is still on the phone with me. “Sorry, I was distracted. Can you repeat that?”

“What do you feel like having for dinner?” he asks me. “Should I grab something on the way home, or do you want to go out?”

“I could try to cook for a change,” I offer. “I’m getting the hang of how to use things in the kitchen.”

“No wasting time until you finish that book,” he orders me. “I’ll bring home our usual Chinese.”

“T
hat works, too. Thanks, Liam. I hope your day gets better.”

“I hope you can get that perfect ending to your book. Text me if there’s something good in the mailbox.
See you later, Winter.”

“
Bye.” I carefully slip my feet out from underneath Snowball, and get up from my chair. Picking my purse off the counter, I sling it over my shoulder and drop my phone into it before heading for the door. I am pretty sure that my hair is a mess, but I don’t really care. As soon as I turn the doorknob, Snowball wakes up with a start, and begins yipping with delight. Eager to accompany me, and afraid of being left behind, she manages to go sliding across the hardwood floors and diving headfirst into the door before it is even opened.

“Okay, sure,” I tell her with a laugh. “You can come along.”

I retrieve her leash and clip it onto her collar. She stares up at me with happy eyes as though she is sure that we are going to do something incredibly fun.

“We’re just going to check the mailbox, Snowball.
Nothing amazing. Fine, maybe a tiny walk around the block, but then I have to get back to work!” I lead her through the door with me, and she begins eagerly pulling me down the hallway. I begin moving along with her, but the sound of a door opening behind me causes me to turn around.

“Hey
, blind bitch! I thought you said you wasn’t the doctor’s girlfriend.”

I am so stunned by the woman’s appearance that I immediately bre
ak into a smile of pity. I am in much too great of a mood to allow her rude salutation to bother me.

“I guess I was wrong,” I say to her, trying not to stare at her extremely eclectic fashion. She looks like she has stepped out of the 70s, with
hot pink pants that cling to her generous thighs. She is also wearing a tie-dyed flowery shirt, a small neon yellow band in her very frizzy hair, and large hoop earrings. For a moment, I swear that her outfit is so blindingly bright that I’m going to lose my vision again.

“So, how is he?
” she asks, chewing loudly on her gum. “If you’re going to keep him all to yourself, at least share the deets.”

Snowball barks at the woman, annoyed that she has interrupted
our little adventure.

My smile grows larger.
“He’s amazing,” I tell the woman. “So amazing. He blows my mind.” I turn to leave, but as I’m walking away, I swivel and look back at her. “By the way! I’m not blind anymore.”

“Well, ain’t that lucky for you!”
she shouts down the hallway.

I try hard not to laugh as I take Snowball toward the elevators with me. I think I’ll have the image of that woman seared into my brain for a long time. It’s always a little surprising the first time I see someone I’ve met before and get to match their face and body to their voice. I always thought that voices told the whole story, but I never realized how much information I was actually missing.