Love Blind

by C. Desir

  Even in the dim light backstage, I could see Chaz’s face contort.

  “Come on, Hailey.” Tess gave my arm a tug.

  “Shit, Hailey.” He leaned against the wall, annoyance on every feature I could make out. “I wanted time with you. Alone time.”

  “Sorry. I gotta go.” Worry settled into that awful place in my gut as Tess led me to the car. “But soon!” I added.

  “If you can’t spend time with me, then what the fuck are we doing? I got you this gig!” he yelled as he followed us to the back door.

  I climbed into the car, all the tingling excitement now evaporated.

  “Sorry,” I mumbled as Tess threw him a look before sliding the van door closed between us.

  I couldn’t face him as we pulled away. Instead, I sank low into the backseat. He’d been fine, and then frustrated . . . and I got it. He’d thought he was gonna get to spend time with me, and all that had happened was I’d told him I was sixteen and run away.

  Chaz called two minutes after we pulled out of the lot.

  “Hello?” I answered slowly.

  “Sorry,” he said. “I was caught off guard. And now I’m wondering if I’m going to feel responsible for you or something because you’re younger, but God, I wanna see you. I wanna be with you. Shit . . .”

  He was thinking out loud, and I let him.

  “I put my neck on the line to get you that gig. Off hearing your band over the phone. I mean, do you even get that?”

  “I know. I do.”

  “Shit.” He sighed.

  I waited.

  “Shit, Hailey. I like you, okay? That’s why I’m so frustrated. I wanna see you. All of you. It’s not gonna be weeks again, is it?”

  “No.” Because I didn’t know what else to say. A crap ending to what should have been a kick-ass night.

  “Okay, look.” Another sigh. “I’ll call you, okay? But my week’s pretty busy.”

  “Whenever is fine,” I said as my throat swelled up.

  “Later.” And the phone went dead.

  So that kind of sucked, but after considering it for a few seconds, I didn’t think my bouncer was a total lost cause—just horny and maybe a little frustrated and slightly drunk. He definitely was into me, so I figured I’d turn him back to my side. Besides, the more I sat in the back of Mira’s mom’s van, the more determined I was to keep him around. I could definitely add a few items to my fear list for him to help me tackle.

  Chapter Eleven: Kyle

  Friend Kyle.” Hailey’s unmistakable voice. “Start answering your emails.”

  I dropped the headphones I was holding and spun around.

  “What . . . what are you doing here?” The booth off the main recording room was no bigger than a closet. A closet with only me and Hailey in it. Hailey in shorts with long-ass legs and one of those worn-to-the-point-of-see-through T-shirts. Sensory overload.

  Her broken eyes took in the single mic and mini soundboard. “Are you recording yourself?”

  “No. I’m editing prerecorded station IDs.”

  She leaned against the wall and I caught a whiff of her girl sweat. Sweet and a little rank. And there was definitely something wrong with me that it turned me on. I needed to hang out with more girls regularly or I was going to embarrass myself.

  “You know, I’m sixteen now, so it’s almost like I haven’t seen you since last year.”

  “Uh, happy birthday?”

  I ducked my head. Too much. Too too much. All in one little space.

  “Hey, you looked at me for almost twenty seconds. We’ve made headway.”

  Maybe. “Why are you here?”

  “I emailed you and you didn’t respond.”

  “You emailed me?” I asked.

  “After searching for your email for, like, an hour, yeah.” She leaned in and squinted at me. “What happened to your face?”

  Not answering that. “Did you need something?”

  She raised her hand like she was going to touch my cheek, and I flinched. “Seriously. What happened?” she asked again.

  “Nothing.”

  The silence stretched between us for so long that I started to sweat. I was pretty sure Hailey wouldn’t like my smell as much as I liked hers.

  “So . . . you wanna head to my house?”

  That was unexpected. “Um . . .”

  “Yes. You’re coming. Finish up.”

  “What if I have plans?”

  “Ha! He has a spine. Sorry. I was being pushy.” She let out a small breath. “Kyle, will you please do me the honor of coming to my place?”

  It shouldn’t have taken me so long to work through this dilemma. It shouldn’t have felt like a dilemma in the first place. Hot girl, house invite, seemed like a no-brainer. Only my pits were sweating balls just thinking about it, and my balls . . . well. “Um . . .”

  She looked worried for a second, her forehead crinkling and eyebrows crunching together, which sealed it for me.

  “Yeah. Okay. Let me shut down.”

  She nodded and tucked her thumbs into her shorts’ pockets.

  “Okay, um . . .” I glanced around behind me, even though I knew I was finished. Maybe there was something else to do.

  “Kyle? Are you stalling?”

  Obviously. “Nope. I’m good.”

  “Great.” Hailey clapped her hands once.

  The Latni twins froze and stared as I walked out of the booth with Hailey and her tiny shorts. I hoisted my pack higher on my back, shoved my hands in my pockets, and kept my eyes on the ground.

  “You bike to school, yeah?” Hailey asked when we hit the main hall.

  I nodded.

  She bumped my shoulder, and damn if her touch didn’t almost burn. I seriously needed to spend more time with girls who were not my mom. “Talk, Kyle.”

  “Yes. I have a bike.”

  She smirked. “Cool, so can I ride the handlebars or something? North campus is farther from my house.”

  “A block.” One block farther. Not that I’d calculated the distance to her house from here.

  “Exactly.”

  The only person who had ever tried to ride with me was Pavel, and it had not ended well. Third day of freshman year, both of us getting roughed up by a pack of seniors looking to steal my bike.

  “You don’t have your guitar?”

  “Left it home today. Come on. Are you afraid?” she teased. “Because you could add that to your list, and then cross it off once we get to my house.”

  Her voice was so bright and hopeful, I couldn’t say no. Wanted to. Wanted to avoid disaster, but Hailey didn’t seem like the kind of person to attract disasters. So at least she was different. What the hell was I even doing with this girl?

  “Do you have any friends?” she asked as we walked outside together. She blinked and blinked and swiped at her eyes for a moment.

  “Yeah, uh, sort of.” The ground was full of spidering cracks.

  “Sort of? You strike me as the nerdy computer type. Are all your sort-of friends living in there?” she asked.

  “No. Not computer friends. That’s a lame excuse for people to be someone they’re not. I don’t have the patience for it.”

  “Holy shit, Kyle. That’s a sentence I can’t count in syllables.” She swung her arm out and tagged my shoulder.

  “Are you going to keep doing that? Bugging me about talking?” I asked, stopping next to my bike.

  “Maybe. I like you more when you talk. So if I can get a rise out of you . . .” She lifted her shoulder, which made me look at her boobs. For a second.

  I unlocked my bike, counting down the steps before she’d want to climb on my handlebars. Probably no way out of it at this point. “I hung out with Pavel the other day.”

  “Pavel, huh?” She leaned in, squinting at my bike. “He’s a friend?”

  “Yep.” I slipped the lock in my pack and started pushing my bike around the rack onto the sidewalk.

  “But no online friends.”

  “Too full
of assholery.”

  “Damn, Kyle. That’s a great word. You should talk more often. I’ve said this once or twice before, right?”

  “Ha. You’re hilarious.”

  “I am. And I like Sarcastic Kyle.”

  She liked me. I shifted behind my bike; no sense in making my semi completely obvious to the world.

  “How bad are your eyes?” I asked.

  Hailey barked out a half laugh. “Bad. Pretty soon I’m gonna have to feel people’s faces so I can see them.”

  I’d seen that in movies, but people really did that? “For real?”

  “Yeah. Glaucoma, macular degeneration, and generally really shitty vision, as well as a few other things thrown in for fun. My ophthalmologist says I have old-person eyes.”

  Huh.

  “Stop for a sec,” she said, and stood five feet in front of me. I was hopeful her eyes weren’t that great, particularly if they were focused south.

  She held still and stared at my face. Watching. Almost like she was memorizing the way I looked. My pits sweated even more. The traffic buzzed by. Again and again.

  She slipped her glasses off, tucking them into a backpack pocket.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Come here.” She waved me closer.

  My heart slammed. “What?”

  “Come. Here.” I took a few steps forward.

  Hailey’s eyes looked different from other people’s. Only not really. Maybe it was because I knew they were broken, so I could see something interesting in them. Maybe I wanted them, her, to be different from other people. “Your eyes look cool without your glasses.”

  “Really? ’Cause everyone says they move around weird, but I’m trying to keep them still. It’s really frickin’ disorienting.” Her mouth twitched downward.

  “Sorry.”

  “Don’t be. Pity sucks. Let me feel your face.”

  “What?” I leaned back. We stood on a busy sidewalk next to our school with traffic running four lanes wide next to us.

  “One day I won’t be able to see, so let me feel your face, so I know how to see people when I’m blind. This is a perfectly reasonable request. Tess won’t let me because she doesn’t want me smearing her makeup, and I’ve done the moms a million times. They always wear those horrid pity smiles. Let me do you.”

  Let me do you. Jesus.

  “But are you . . . are you really going blind?” I blinked. Blinked again. Breathed through my nose in case my breath smelled like fish tacos. We were so close.

  “Yep. That’s what macular degeneration is. Going blind, in the long run. My moms don’t think it’ll happen, but they’re full of optimism in pretty much every way.”

  “Uh . . . sorry.” Weak response, but Christ.

  “I said I don’t want your pity, and you should stop saying that.”

  “Saying what?”

  “Uh . . .”

  “That doesn’t make me self-conscious.”

  “Sarcasm again.” Hailey grinned. “I’m proud.”

  “Thanks.” I grabbed the handles on my bike until my knuckles whitened.

  “Okay. Now relax. We’re doing this. I want to see how much of my bullshit you’ll take.”

  “I—”

  “I’m serious.” She reached toward me.

  “I don’t . . .” But what was I going to do? Run away? Tell her no? Not likely.

  “Look. I’m closing my eyes to make the experience more authentic.” Eyes shut didn’t make it much better, because the sun through her shirt outlined her shape and she was still way too close for me not to think about the skin that made those shadows.

  She was going to touch me, and my whole body was a puddle of sweat. “Wait. How well can you see?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Open your eyes. How much of me can you see? Up close like this.”

  Hailey’s hands dropped and her eyes opened. “Without my glasses, you’re a blurry mess of flesh-colored, egg-shaped blob with something dark on the top.”

  “That’s it?” I couldn’t even imagine. Squinted my eyes a little to see the world more blurry, but my head ached after only a couple seconds of trying to decipher the images.

  “That’s it.”

  “And with your glasses?”

  “A little better. I mean, I know you have nice eyes.” She smiled and then her hands were on my face.

  Her calluses from playing guitar made her fingertips smooth but hard. Her fingers ran up the side of my face and touched my hairline, twisting some of the hairs.

  Oh, God. My throat swelled. My balls twitched. My pits sweated. And everything got way hot.

  She ran her thumbs over my eyebrows, around my eyes, moving more slowly over my swollen cheek and then down my nose. “This is sort of fascinating, and I can’t believe you’re still standing here.”

  I wasn’t planning on moving a muscle until Hailey gave me permission. Completely frozen was probably the only way to keep from melting into a pool of sweat or cum. Her fingers moved around my lips. I wanted her to touch me there. Wanted to be the kind of guy who could kiss her fingers, suck on the tips of them, and take in all her flavor. But that was a million kinds of douchey and only for pervy movie guys.

  Her fingers paused on my chin. “I think you have a little zit right here. Want me to get it for you?”

  I pushed her hands away.

  “What?” Hailey laughed. “I’m trying to be helpful.”

  “No, you’re not. You’re teasing me. Do blind people even do that?” My hands tightened on my bike again, and I stepped back.

  “Not really.”

  “Hailey.” Why would she put me through that?

  “Your sulking voice doesn’t suit you, and I don’t mean to tease.”

  “Of course you do.”

  “Sor-ry.”

  “Don’t apologize when you don’t mean it.” I guess the touching thing didn’t really mean anything to her. Maybe a thing on her list. Stupid, stupid Kyle.

  “I was trying to lighten the mood.” She slipped her glasses back on.

  “Yeah, I got that.” My shoulders tensed.

  “You’re pissed? Was I being a bitch?”

  “You don’t know me, Hailey, and . . .” I let out a breath. “You weren’t being a bitch.”

  She laughed. “I know. You were being sensitive.”

  My phone vibrated in my pocket.

  Not now, not now, not now . . .

  Vibrated again.

  I shifted away from Hailey, back to a more comfortable distance. “Just a sec.”

  Mom: Kyle. Please tell me you didn’t forget to pick up my meds.

  Mom: You know my dose was changed, right? New scrips, and I’m out of that hand cream that keeps my hands from getting chapped after washing them all day. You know the brand, right?

  Oh. I knew.

  “What’s up?” Hailey asked.

  “I have to go.”

  “Are you serious?” she asked.

  I nodded once.

  Hailey shrugged. “Well, okay, then. This was . . . interesting, Kyle. I’m not letting you off the hook, though. You promised to do the list. Pick something. Report. I’ll report to you too, okay? Or maybe I’m covered since I told you about the tongue kiss? I don’t know.”

  Yeah, ’cause I wanted to think about that again. “That’s still on, then? With that guy?”

  “Yep.”

  Great. “Look. I’m sorry I’ve got to go.”

  “You’re also partially relieved. It’s okay. You’ve put up with a lot from me today. We’re good.”

  “I should walk you home or something?”

  Hailey waved me off. “Nah. It’s good. I could use the walk to work through a song I wanna make playable for our next gig.”

  “Okay.” I stared at the phone, wishing I had the guts to throw it somewhere in the middle of the four lanes of traffic.

  “This was weird. We for sure have to do it again.” And with that, Hailey shifted her pack and started back in th
e opposite direction to campus. Back to where I couldn’t follow her with my bike. And as abruptly as it had started, our afternoon was over.

  Next time.

  There would be a next time.

  Next time I wasn’t going to be so pathetic.

  No. I probably would be. I had to go check my email.

  I stepped onto my bike and pedaled so fast my calves cramped almost immediately.

  I could still feel Hailey’s hands on my face. And the fantasy of what could’ve happened slammed into my brain. Me moving toward her without any kind of hesitation. And kissing her like it was nothing, and then her hands all over me. Jesus Christ, I was not going to be able to make it home with this kind of wood. I needed to think of something else.

  Her tongue kiss. With another dude. My junk started to go soft and I made it all the way to the pharmacy wondering what the hell she saw in a beefy bouncer. She didn’t really seem like that kind of girl.

  I stepped into the pharmacy. The whole place smelled like Icy Hot and ass, but the change of scene and the cool air completely squelched the memory of Hailey’s fingers. Maybe Mom’s increased Xanax dosage would mean a long nap for her on the couch so I could pick apart the details of this afternoon and jerk off in peace.

  I shook my head. Not sure what about Hailey kept bringing out the sleaze factor in me. Maybe it was the idea of a real girl in my life. Maybe it was that her issues didn’t seem to be my fault. Maybe I was fucking lonely.

  She didn’t want my pity, and I wasn’t good about giving it to her in a way that could help. But the thought that she might not see one day left me feeling empty and out of sorts. Nothing I could do about it, but that was pretty much all of my life.

  I waited in line for Mom’s prescription, ignoring the judgy look from the pharmacist, grabbed the special Vaseline Intensive Care moisturizer, checked out, tucked everything in my backpack, and climbed back on my bike.

  Hailey had a thing with the bouncer, so I was gonna need to try for friendship. Which shouldn’t have scared the shit out of me but totally did. I had no idea why she wanted to hang out with me. But I wanted to be worthy of that. In a way that I hadn’t been able to be for my mom or Pavel. My thoughts went back to Hailey’s list. Maybe that was the key to feeling like I had something to offer.

  The second I got home, I dropped Mom’s things on the kitchen counter, ran to my room, and pulled out my most recent journal. I jotted a new item on my list. One that Hailey had first suggested. DJ. A weird rush hit me with those two letters. Because for the first time, I’d written something down that maybe I could do. Maybe.