“I can’t do that.”
Gwen reached out to the coffee table, picking up an invisible handle, and mimicked smacking it on her other hand. She hardly ever reached for the bat. “You know I’ll use it.”
“Oh, I know.” I started to get up, then turned back to her. “Do you really think I’d be good for her?”
She nodded. “I actually think you’re going to make a great couple. If you stop being an ass, and if she lightens up and lets you take care of her a little.”
Then she paused. “If you want to be a little chicken shit about it, you still have to talk to her in person. Running out like that was a dick move, and you know it.”
I nodded, then stood up. She put the bat down, swinging her leg up on the couch as I tucked a pillow under her bad ankle. “Need anything else?”
“Yeah, could you pop down to the store to pick up some sexy lingerie for me so that I can seduce Alex properly after our date?”
I pretended to throw up a bit, then left.
As I walked home, I hated that she was nearly always right. I also hated how genuinely afraid I was of seeing Kayla again. But I had to. There’s a chance that my over the top reaction was just because I’d been so pent up and frustrated from not seeing her eyes. Maybe I could settle down now.
Even if I felt that weird, nearly violent pull to her, and I really didn’t feel like I could control it, I had to tell her in person why we couldn’t be together. I owed her that.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
* Kayla *
I knew my life would change after the surgery, but I was expecting my eyes to ache a bit. Not that my heart would be throbbing so badly I could barely breathe.
Not one moment passed that I didn’t wish Liam was with me. Or at least, in my life so that I could call him, or send him a funny text. I wanted to share my little milestones with him, like when I was able to do the full round of eye exercises without that icky tight feeling. Or finally picking up peppermint ice cream and treating myself.
My cloudy, abstract thoughts of finding a good man someday were gone. I’d found the one. And he didn’t want me.
At first, I’d assumed that he wasn’t attracted to me. That my blue eyes turned him off somehow. For all I knew, maybe he had a horrible ex-girlfriend with eyes like mine, and that would have been too much for him.
But he’d said that he thought I was beautiful. So what was his problem? At the very least, shouldn’t we date for a while and test things out?
I couldn’t stand being in the dark about things, now more than ever.
In some ways, I felt like I’d changed more than I’d expected during my week of blindness. I’d learned to love audiobooks, and now enjoyed them while I was stretching, cleaning the apartment, and taking a bath.
My sense of hearing was still slightly elevated, so I was re-listening to my favorite albums, noticing new things.
But the main thing was that I’d relaxed my rigid independence just by a hair. Having Liam care for me didn’t make me feel like a burden. It made me feel… loved. Precious. Like I was someone worth caring for.
It was such a new feeling that it didn’t quite have words that matched it. The sensation floated around me in an amorphous blob of newness.
I’d begged Gwen not to say anything to Liam, even knowing that it might get him in trouble with her. I was very careful to imply that nothing intimate happened beyond the way he held my hand, but she seemed to know things. I’d have paid anything to overhear their conversation when they talked about me.
If Liam’s mind was made up, there would be nothing Gwen could do. But if he was just waffling about something minor, hopefully she could at least get him to talk to me.
I was thrilled when I finally got a text from him, after not seeing him for a few days.
“Hey, would you like to meet up for a little fresh air and a chat?”
It sounded oddly formal, but I’d take it.
He asked if it was cloudy enough to meet me in a park near my apartment at six pm. The sun would be low enough, but it wouldn’t be so late that he’d worry about me being out alone. I was surprised that he wouldn’t come pick me up at my apartment.
The only thing that I could think was that he wasn’t attracted to me at all, and wanted to let me down easy. Everyone had a slew of weird reasons for feeling the way they did, and maybe his reasons were not my business. Maybe I looked like the girl he saved from that knife-wielding crazy guy who slashed him. Maybe he didn’t want to be reminded of that night every time he saw me.
It could be anything, but it was still hard not to take it personally.