I'll Be Seeing You (10 page)

“You’re out early,” Carley said, switching gears.

“Only fifteen minutes. I thought you were taking the school bus home.”

“I changed my mind.”

“I asked her to ride with us,” Jon explained.

“So, let’s get home.” Carley stood and retrieved her crutches. “I have homework to do.”

“I’ve got your books,” Jon said. “I’ll carry them to the car.”

Quickly he and Carley took off side by side, leaving a befuddled Janelle to tag along behind.

It wasn’t until the next afternoon when Janelle was driving Carley to her PT appointment that Janelle brought up the incident
again. Their mother had categorically refused to allow Carley to drive herself. At least not until she was farther along in her therapy.

Janelle said, “When I came up yesterday, the two of you were totally engrossed in conversation. And when I said hello, you both acted as if I’d intruded on some clandestine meeting.”

“You want to talk about this now?”

“Why not? I think the two of you were up to something and it involved me.”

Carley felt her cheeks color. “Not true. We were just talking.”

“Let’s not argue. Just tell me what you and Jon were talking about.”

Carley thought fast. “Um—Valentine’s Day. He was asking my opinion on what to get you.”

“I know you don’t care for Jon.” Janelle ignored the whole Valentine’s Day story.

“He’s all right.”

“You said that before, but you didn’t mean it.”

“I’ve changed my opinion.”

“Why?”

Carley sighed, and fiddled with the buttons on the radio. “I’ve gotten to know him and there’s more to him than I once thought.”

“Such as.” Janelle repositioned the car’s rearview mirror.

“He’s not a total loser.”

“Thanks for the endorsement.”

“I didn’t mean it that way. I wasn’t sure Jon liked me. It seemed as if he was always avoiding me, and I figured it was because he couldn’t deal with my looks.”

“Jon’s not that way.” Janelle defended him.

“I know that now. I’m just not around guys very much, so sometimes I don’t know what to say. Or how to act.”

“You do all right with Kyle.”

“You know he’s different.”

“Are you going to visit him today after your PT appointment?”

Carley stared out the window. The Tennessee countryside looked brown and stark, making her realize what a long, dreary month January could be. “I’m not sure I should.”

“Why not?”

“Why prolong the agony? Once I left the hospital, I made up my mind to forget about him.”

Janelle pulled into the parking lot adjacent to the physical therapy building attached to the Knoxville hospital. She put the car into park and turned off the engine. “I think you’re making a mistake,” she said quietly.

“How could it be a mistake to keep some guy who thinks I’m beautiful from learning the truth?” Carley leaned her head against the seat headrest and looked up through the windshield into the blustery gray sky. Without the engine to keep the heater going, the car’s interior was chilling fast.

“Because you’ve got a rotten perception of physical beauty and its importance,” Janelle said. “Because, believe me, being pretty isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. In fact sometimes it’s the most awful burden in the world.”

“I
find that really hard to believe,” Carley said after a few minutes had passed in silence. “How can being pretty be a handicap?”

“Because when a person’s pretty, that’s all people expect her to be. She isn’t appreciated for anything except her physical appearance.”

“What’s so horrible about that?” Carley wanted to know. “I think it would be nice to have somebody look at me and say, ‘She’s pretty,’ instead of ‘Look, a freak.’ ”

“Anybody who puts a value on another person just because of his or her physical attractiveness is pitiful.” Janelle’s hazel eyes
fairly crackled with conviction. “I don’t want people hanging around with me because I look good, but because they
like
me.”

“Get a grip,” Carley insisted. “That’s just not the way things are in the real world. All my life I’ve heard kids make fun of other kids because they were different—even before this happened to my face. I remember in the fifth grade there was this fat girl in my class. She wore thick glasses, too, and everybody made fun of her. Sometimes to the point of making her cry.”

Carley dropped her gaze as she spoke, recalling the girl with clarity. “I’m sorry to say I teased her too. In fact after my surgery I wondered if leaving me deformed was God’s way of paying me back for being mean to her.”

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.