Love Blind (27 page)

“Why do you like my eyes so much?” She rubbed her eyes, then sandwiched my hand again.

“Because not everyone gets to see them the way I do.” I'd gotten that much out at least.

She nodded, her eyes darting around my face, and I wondered if my face was a more distorted blob than it had been two years ago, when she'd rested her fingers there to
see
me.

“Kyle.” She leaned in, touching her nose to my cheek, and I could feel my body starting to shake. Small tremors that hit me deep and then moved into the hand she held.

“Hmm.” I couldn't look at her. Instead I focused on the way she held my hand between hers, on the part of Hailey I knew I could have without destroying us both. The only way I knew we could be together, and still like each other in five years. Ten years.

Her lips touched my jaw, and I nearly took her face in my hands and kissed her, hard, but I was smarter than that. Knew better.

“If you don't kiss me now, you're going to be another asshole I have to avoid.” Typical Hailey.

“No. If I
do
kiss you, I will be another asshole. And I can't
be that guy, Hailey. Not for you.” The thought of us falling apart. Of not having her. I couldn't take it. Not ever again.

“Okay, Kyle, but I don't have a label for you anymore. You're More-Than-a-Friend Kyle, and Not-an-Asshole Kyle, and I . . .” She let out a breath, and I hated that I could hear the sadness in her voice, but she didn't know what she was asking.

“Maybe just Kyle.”

She chuckled, but it was nervous, forced. “Spring break's in another week. Tess is coming with me to check a big one off the list.”

I nodded. Because for some reason, the list still had a hold of her too. “Good. Let me know how it goes.”

“Of course. You might not
want me
, want me. But you're stuck with me anyway. Because we've got these lists.”

“The lists.” Was that it? Was our connection to the lists what made her hang on? Seemed almost stupid now.

I hated myself for being scared, and I hated myself for wanting her the way I did.
I'm interested in you, Hailey
. I'd finally said the words, but couldn't do it. Not to her. Not to us.

S
o the weirdest thing happened to me after my
big
convo with Kyle. I came home, pulled out Rox's old acoustic guitar, and played. Maybe it was because of my independent study, or maybe it was me evolving, but the longer my fingers went up and down the neck of the guitar, the more I realized that as much as I loved playing kick-ass rock music, when I finally let myself really play the acoustic guitar, I found home.

I sat on our front porch all day that Sunday with the old, beat-up thing, and I couldn't get enough. It hit my soul in a place I'd been forcing that electric guitar into for years. I'd been slamming the music into me, instead of letting it in to take over. Tess was going to be pissed. First rockabilly and now this.

That whole next week, my week before spring break, it's all I did. I wrote Kyle and told him. I expected him to sound
surprised, but he didn't. He said he was proud of me.
Him
. Proud of
me
. And that it took guts to really let something in like that. When I finished reading his email, I cried a little, grateful he got me. That he knew it was a big deal.

That was the last straw—that letter from Kyle. I finally started caring a little less if I was playing something I'd have called “music for the moms” a couple of years ago. My voice slowed and flowed better. I wrote more than ten songs that week, and made another demo for Berkeley, even though it was probably too late for them to swap it out with my first one. I also, finally, looked into colleges close by. The moms were thrilled, and I didn't feel like I was doing it for Kyle. I felt like I was doing it for me. Before last weekend, if I would have stuck around here, it would have been out of fear of being away, but at that moment, I knew staying closer to home wouldn't be about being afraid, it would be about me both getting
and
doing what I wanted.

And as much as it scared the shit out of me to have a musical breakthrough in such a bizarre way, my world had shifted again and felt firmly underneath my feet for the first time ever.

I was Hailey. Hater of assholes. Player of chick music. Going blind, but slowly. A girl in love with her best friend. And I was okay with all of it. Mostly okay with it.

◊ ◊ ◊

Tess laughed as she held the steering wheel with one hand and her Super Big Gulp with the other.

“What's so funny?”

“I was about to ask if you could drive for a bit because my ass hurts.”

“Yeah. Not such a good idea. Plus, you hate when anyone else drives.”

We drove in silence for a few, our last weekend of spring break and a list of adventures behind us and still in front of us.

“Does it suck? I mean, knowing that driving is something you'll never do?”

Tess and I didn't talk like that. Not really. We joked about me not seeing stop signs, or my missing the more subtle way a guy's nice ass moved by us because I couldn't fully appreciate the
deliciousness
, but not about real stuff.

“I'm scared of the little things. Living in black all the time. Like I've had all this practice using smells and sounds and touch, but not seeing feels like solitary confinement. All the blind people said you get used to it. I even talked to one guy who got his sight back for a while after a surgery, and said it felt so awkward.”

“Oh.”

“I think if you're with people you trust, it wouldn't be so bad.”

“Can't live with the moms forever.”

“And I don't want to.” I laughed. Kyle's face flashed as I closed my eyes. “Damn him.”

“Who?”

And then, even though I knew Tess didn't totally get my relationship with Kyle, I was
finally
starting to. “Kyle.”

She sucked up the final bits of her soda. “I'm officially half-caffeine, half-human. Tell me about Kyle. Everything.”

She knew about him, but we both knew she'd gotten the surface stuff, not the real stuff.

I laid our story out for her. I told Tess about Kyle's mom and the thing with Pavel freshman year, and prom. And how he'd held me while I'd cried over going blind, instead of freaking out, and how we'd missed being with each other over and over. I told her about the Mariah thing and the glasses and how he saw me kissing Annalise, and why we didn't get together a year ago after prom and about how he did the list with me and how we talked, and then I told her about two weekends ago. How Kyle finally said he was interested, but still wouldn't.

“This is all total bullshit.” Tess slammed her hand on the wheel.

“What are you talking about?”

“You! You're being totally chickenshit over this.”

“He said
no
.”

“And that's your roadblock? Really? What the fuck? I mean, you're completely butt-crazy in love with this guy and you're not
fighting
for it? You're totally mental.”

“I'm not mental.” I crossed my arms.

“Hailey, seriously. This is something you actually want, not just another bullshit item on your list. This is something real, that's got nothing to do with your eyes and everything to do with your heart. I can't believe you're wimping out here. You're
in love with this guy. And from everything you've said, he's in love with you too. Why wouldn't you go all in for that?” She stared at me for a moment before returning her gaze to the road.

I hugged myself tighter. “He. Said. No.”

“Nuh-uh. He said
not now
. And that's
his
fear. Isn't the whole reason you talked him into doing the list with you in the first place because you could tell he needed it?”

“Shit.” I slumped in the seat. “Why is it different? Why can I jump around onstage and sing my guts out, and hold a spider, and sink to the bottom of the pool, but then let Kyle tell me
the timing's still off
? That's pathetic. I'm pathetic.”

“Pathetic.”

All of my history with Kyle swam in my head. All my thoughts about my life, guys, music, and my sight pinged around my brain in a whirling messy mass of color and shape. I blinked once, twice, let my eyes stay closed for a full minute. And then it was as if those thoughts pulled themselves together in this perfect mosaic. All the fears on my list became nothing because my world was no longer swirling, and there was somewhere for all the pieces of me to go. My hands shook as I pulled out my iPad, enlarged the screen to nearly 350 percent, and started a note.

Kyle
—

On my long drive to our final spring break destination, I've had far too much caffeine and thinking time. The
first thing I need to say is that I'm sick of the coward bullshit. If you're interested in me, then we're doing something about it. I'm not taking no for an answer. I have plans this summer, Kyle, and you're going to be a part of them, because being in love with my best friend is a combination of the scariest and most awesome things I can imagine.

I'm crossing off a major thing over my last few days of spring break, which I will share with you when I get back. And we're going to have that conversation again. The one where you say you're interested in me. And this time we're getting past the coward BS. You've been warned. Miss you.

Hailey

PS: Going blind wouldn't be as scary if I was doing it with you.

“Feel better?” Tess asked when I leaned back and sighed.

“Yeah. Much.” I closed my eyes.

“Good. Because, you know . . .”

I opened my eyes and turned to Tess, but my eyes locked in front of us. It was so fast. Everything was so fast. “Tess—”

G
oing blind wouldn't be as scary if I was doing it with you.

Her words shredded me. My body shook with need for her. I wanted to hop on my bike and find her. Go to her. Bring her everything: my list, my heart, everything.

But that wasn't my life. I didn't get to win. Ever. And even as my pulse skipped at the possibility of her note, I knew it would be taken away. I shoved things into my bag, felt the ticking of the clock in my gut, but the whole time it was like an anvil over my head. The phone buzzing in my hand confirmed it.

“She's in the hospital, Kyle,” Rox said. “It was a bad accident, but she and Tess are going to be okay. They're both lucid. Broken bones and lots of bruising. Tess is in worse shape. . . .” Rox paused and I steeled myself. “She was driving. Swerved to avoid hitting a deer. She feels totally responsible.”

“How's Hailey?”

“Kyle . . .”

Oh, God.
“I need to see her. Please. I need to see Hailey.”

Rox choked on a sob. “Not yet. It's her eyes. The trauma. She's in surgery. It doesn't look good.”

I dropped to the ground then. I honestly didn't know how I'd managed to stay standing in the first place. “Rox,” I whispered.

“I'll call you. When she's out. I'll call you.”

She clicked off before I could say anything else.

◊ ◊ ◊

I couldn't have made it through the summer without Pavel. Hailey went dark. Literally and figuratively. I called Rox and Lila constantly. They said she was rehabbing, doing better, but completely blind now. I begged to talk to her, but she wouldn't come to the phone. I showed up at the house, and Rox and Lila sent me away. She wasn't ready. She was still figuring things out.

Pavel kept me company. We started a lawn-mowing business together, him slathering himself with SPF 100 sunscreen as he talked on and on about all his different dates. Apparently Tinder was a bottomless source of women for Pavel. Two months in, though, and I was at my wits' end.

“Enough, for Christ's sake, Pavel. I don't fucking care what base you got to or how many dates you have this week.”

Pavel stopped bagging grass and looked at me. “I was trying to distract you.”

I pulled my shirt up and wiped the sweat from my forehead. “I know. I get it. But it's not working. Don't you see? She's all I think about. All I want. And it's like it's all been taken from me. She won't even talk to me.”

“Always with the sprint, never with the marathon.” He sat cross-legged and stared up at me. “Don't you think it's maybe meant to be this way? Like this is your test. The journey to get the prize. And it will be all that much sweeter now.”

“No. I don't think that. I'm done with that. I've had enough of a journey. I want Hailey. I'm tired of all these character-building life lessons.”

Pavel shrugged. “Then talk her into you. Surely my friend Kyle can talk one girl into him.”

I shook my head and stared at the sweat stains on my shirt. “I don't know how. It's like she's seen everything. I don't know what else I have to offer.”

Pavel rolled his eyes like a tween and popped up. “You have patience. That is all. And if you exercise it, give it as much of a workout as you've given your heart, it will be enough.”

“Jesus,” I mumbled, “I can't believe you're still on the Zig Ziglar.” But even as I said it, the kernel took hold. For the first time in weeks, I grabbed on to a spark of hope.

T
iming was always off with us. Maybe it always would be. I wasn't ready. Wasn't ready to sit in the same room as him and not be able to see his shape. His smile. The way his hair always swooped over his eyes.

I couldn't do that. Couldn't be so close to something I was desperate to see and not see it.