PROLOGUE
* Kayla *
Life was never fair for anyone. It was one of those hard truths that I understood, but couldn’t stand.
For years I’d set up my life so that I didn’t need help from anyone. Independence was of utmost importance. It was comfortable.
Digging through my closet, I flung old clothing into a clear garbage bag so that I could donate them. Trying to think of my space clearing as making room for new opportunities, I knew I wasn’t in the right mental place for change, but had no choice.
I realized I didn’t even know where my aversion to being cared for came from. I guess I was just born this way. Since I had never seen eye to eye with my parents or older sister, moving to a new city to go to school had been easy. Working a random selection of part-time jobs to pay for university, and my tiny apartment felt good. I’d been so worried about needing help that I’d actually saved six months’ worth of expenses, just in case.
Living cheaply, studying, and occasionally visiting with a few acquaintances made me feel centered. In control. My version of happiness.
But as soon as I had felt genuinely stable in my new world, life had to kick down the door, barge in and turn something upside down.
My right eye, which had been operated on three years ago, had started drifting outward again. It was bad enough that it made people look at me strangely, but it made both of my eyes light-sensitive and exhausted from my constant reading.
Studying became harder and harder, until I finally had to go back to the doctor to see what we could do to fix it. I detested his solution. Surgery on both eyes at once, causing me to be bandaged for a week.
Muddling through with just one eye had been obnoxious enough for three days after the first operation. Being completely blind, even temporarily, was a thought that made my blood run cold.
The pain, the possible dizzy spells, the possible headaches, and ongoing light sensitivity could all be handled. Sure, whatever. Lots of people had health problems. I would find a way to cope.
Requiring help for a week? Needing someone to come into my home and take care of me? What a vile concept.
When I was tiny, needing help made me feel like a burden. When I was in university, asking for help made me feel stupid and weak. Maybe I looked too frail, or people thought my crooked eye was a symptom of a bigger issue. Maybe people thought I was a freak.
Proving myself, my worth, my intelligence and independence was a mission that I took on every single day. I didn’t want to need anyone for anything. I wanted to be fierce, and left alone.
Yet there was nothing I could do about the frailty of suddenly having no sight for a while. Feeling helpless would drive me crazy. Slipping in the shower or burning the building down would be much worse.
The logical and emotional side of my brain had an outright war for about two days before I found a home nursing service to discuss my options.
It happened fast. The date for the surgery was set. A nurse was ready to take care of me. I would be under someone else’s control for a week while trying to deal with my complete lack of sight.
Now that I was cleaning my closet to make way for clearing every room to make things trip-proof, the reality of what was about to happen was far too real.
I knew that some people had much bigger hardships, so I didn’t feel that I had the right to complain. The right to feel uncomfortable and awkward? Definitely.
The strangest thing of all was that this entire planning situation had made me feel lonely for the first time ever. This feeling was not familiar. I didn’t know what to do with it. I wanted to lock it in a corner or sweep it under something. But it kept crawling out, waking me up in the dead of night in the days leading up to my operation.
I was alone to the point where I had to hire someone to help me, and that fact made me feel like something was wrong. I was an island – that was the way I had always wanted it. No nearby family and no giant circle of friends was usually very convenient. Angie, my only close friend, now lived across an ocean.
Now that I knew I was going to be helpless, I felt a strange sense of longing for a partner.
All through high school and university, I’d been too busy to date. Wasting my time with guys who didn’t seem to have their lives together seemed pointless. I’d never felt strongly about anyone.