Love Blind

by C. Desir

  “Maybe you like History Girl too much to want to do it with me,” she said when we reached the top of the steps. “Or maybe you’re not sure after everything that happened with Pavel. I get that.”

  I released her hand and turned to her before we entered the kitchen. “Neither. History Girl . . . well, she’s the only one who’s ever said hi to me in class. It’s stupid. But she noticed when I was out sick.”

  Hailey nodded. “Yeah. She’s probably into you. Nice job.”

  I shook my head. “Doubt it. But still, it’d be a big deal to get her number. Maybe even meet her somewhere for coffee.”

  “It would,” Hailey agreed, and started tapping her hands against her cut-off skirt. “Not quite sex, though.”

  It was the weirdest afternoon ever. All the stuff about Pavel and the tears and the list and the sex. God, the sex. I was so close to Hailey I could lean forward and touch my lips to hers. But I’d never even kissed a girl, and Hailey was dating a bouncer who could pummel me into a pea-size stain on the sidewalk. “Hailey. I’m not Chaz. And I couldn’t ever be that for you.”

  She shrugged. “Huh. Well. Whatever. It’s out there if you change your mind.”

  I slipped by her and waved at her moms as I left the kitchen. My feet couldn’t get me out of the front door fast enough. Everything. Every single thing that normally ran through my lonely brain had spilled out of me onto Hailey’s dull tan carpet. And it hadn’t freaked her out. She even wanted to have sex with me. Kind of.

  The thoughts jostled around my mind as I slipped onto my bike and headed home. I had a friend. A real one. And like a complete asshole, I was probably gonna fall in love with her.

  Chapter Sixteen: Hailey

  You know the drill.” Lila smiled over her plate of quinoa. “Give us the scoop on Kyle.”

  Both the moms’ attention was focused entirely on me. Dinner inquisition.

  I didn’t even know how to explain Kyle. He’d sort of come out of nowhere, but he’d gotten the list. We were friends. I mean, he’d done some serious sharing that afternoon, so we had to be friends. And I’d meant it when I told him I’d have sex with him. It was a joke at first, but the longer he stayed, the more I didn’t think it was that much of a joke. Was it crazy that I’d been making out with Chaz and then offered that up? Probably. But Kyle felt different, and he made me curious. Most people weren’t interesting enough to make me curious.

  “We’re friends,” I said.

  “That’s it?” Rox cocked a brow.

  “Yeah.”

  “Because it looked like you two were . . . together on the porch before we came home. And you’re wearing makeup.” She pointed at me with her fork.

  We all knew it was a big deal for me to wear makeup, because I couldn’t do eyeliner or mascara by myself, at least not without making a mess of it. Tess had done it for me right after school because Chaz wanted to see me, and I’d promised to let him come over—especially since he wouldn’t have to deal with meeting the moms if he didn’t stay long.

  “But Kyle said you were dating Chaz,” Rox added.

  Lila sighed. Apparently that part hadn’t been discussed yet.

  How to answer . . . how to answer . . .

  “Tess did my makeup after school for fun because I didn’t feel like playing today. And Chaz is her boyfriend. Kyle must’ve misunderstood. It’s not like he and I really hang out.”

  “You two were sitting under your blanket together.” Rox leaned back and folded her arms. Right.

  I figured I’d give being honest a shot. “We were talking about stuff on the list, and it got personal. That’s all.”

  Rox nodded like she understood. Lila’s small mouth pressed tight, and she stared a little too closely. “Something on the list put you two under your blanket?”

  Crap. I’d finally actually come sort of clean, and she wasn’t buying it.

  “Some guys messed up his friend. And . . .” I released a long breath and stared at my plate. “I thought the list was supposed to be private.”

  “Lila,” Rox whispered.

  And then I knew all I had to do was not smile because Rox had taken my side, and I was off the hook.

  ◊ ◊ ◊

  After dinner I sat in my room and stared at my blank walls. I put my glasses on. I took them off. The white was still white. There was no difference aside from the edges of my door, or the tiny high-on-the-wall window, being a little blurrier. I was pissed at myself for putting Painting on the list. Who the hell cares what their room looks like? But I had a policy about not crossing items off the list unless I’d done them.

  The whole painting thing started when I was twelve. I’d sat on my bed, and my Buffy the Vampire Slayer poster looked all messed up, but when I put my glasses on and stepped closer, it wasn’t messed up at all. I was.

  I spent all night cleaning my walls of the crap I’d put up since I was a little kid, and begged for white paint.

  For the last four years, I hardly ever had to strain my eyes in my room. The walls were white, and I knew where I kept my stuff. But my room had gone from fun to sterile, and I’d been on the fence about changing it up again.

  The moms had gotten this audio book about ways of coping with blindness, and it all had to do with being organized and knowing what’s in your closet. Putting away clothes from light to dark, leaving clues like rolling up a sleeve of a shirt with print on it, or turning one shoe sideways in a pair that was the same but a different color.

  I’d laughed at that last one, because I had about nine pairs of Converse in different colors, and there weren’t enough combinations of shoes on their sides. I could still see the shoes, so it seemed like a wasted effort anyway.

  It wasn’t like I could pick my wardrobe out for the rest of my life before my eyes failed me. Or that I’d be able to feel Rox’s pottery and know how she’d shaded the blues together. I’d only know how she’d attached the handles to mugs, and get a general idea of the shape she’d used.

  One of the reasons the moms’ optimism made no sense was that they still made me sign up for “Coping with Blindness” clinics once in a while. It felt backward. If they were honestly optimistic about my sight, I shouldn’t need crap like that. But we all knew that there would almost definitely be a day when I’d see nothing but black.

  I had to find more distraction because my big pity party was getting old, even for me.

  ◊ ◊ ◊

  “Okay.” I stepped into the sound booth before school, guessing right that Kyle would be there. “I know last night was intense, so I had to come in here to make sure that you didn’t get all weird and quiet on me again. As I’ve said a hundred times now, I like your voice, and I think you’re cool, and I also think the moms sort of dig you. Tess is totally for getting together after school so you can do the spider thing with me. Maybe next week?”

  “We’re cool. I’m still talking. And you were serious about the spider thing?”

  “Yes.”

  “I guess next week’s okay.” He glanced up from the board of dials.

  “Nice.” I looked around the best I could in the dim light. “So do you just sit in here?”

  “I . . . uh . . . set stuff up for the afternoon show, and organize all the digital files in case someone needs something recorded later . . . you know.” He rubbed his hands up and down his thighs once or twice.

  I nodded. “So will it bother you if I play? I should do my geometry, but playing sounds like more fun.”

  Kyle stared at me with wide eyes.

  “You should show your eyes to History Girl. She’d totally go out with you. So can I play? I mean, it’s cool. My band teacher always lets me use a practice room; it’s that—”

  “Don’t you have to get to south campus?”

  “Yeah. In a little bit. But my first class is health, which is a total joke and everyone rolls into class late. Even Mrs. Beck sometimes.”

  He gave me a nod. “You can play in here.”

  “ ’Kay. Thanks.�
�� I grabbed a stool, sat, and pulled out my guitar. The lighting sucked, but that didn’t matter. I wasn’t reading music today, just playing around to relax before school.

  Kyle stared back at the computer, but his hands were kind of shaking. Obviously shaking, since I could see it. I thought of all that crap he’d let me in on the afternoon before and how he probably still felt exhausted from it. How maybe I should have left him alone today, but once I got to campus, I had to come up here.

  “So Chaz signed me up for this big gig thing. He says I need to do a cover of an old love song and try to make it cool. I mean, he’s into the music thing. It’s a competition they do every year, so if you have any song suggestions over the next month or so, that would be great.” The hard thing was I wanted to do something all me, so it was really a quest for kick-ass lyrics that came with really bad music. Or maybe uncheesing a song that had been sadly stuck in the cheese category, where it didn’t belong.

  Kyle froze his knob twisting. “Chaz wants you to sing him a love song?”

  “Don’t be an asshole.” The Chaz thing was going to be a problem, because Kyle claimed not to be interested, but he got pissy when Chaz was brought into the convo. Was that a guy thing? Or a Kyle thing?

  Kyle raised his eyebrows but didn’t say anything. Of course.

  “So will you think on it?” I asked. “You strike me as someone who’s into music from whenever, so that would help. I mean, I play Bob Dylan because his lyrics are amazing, but aside from that, I know stuff from now.”

  Kyle nodded and turned, his fingers now ticking on the keys of the computer keyboard.

  “Thanks.” Maybe I’d play Dylan now instead of the Yellowcard song I was going to work on.

  I relaxed onto the stool and played, and I meant to sing quietly, but there was no way to play Bob Dylan and not really sing his brilliant lyrics, so I decided I didn’t care what Kyle thought. I was gonna sing for a bit. And having someone to sit and be silent while I played, someone who wasn’t my moms, and didn’t want anything from me, was a whole new level of awesome. But there was no way to explain this to Kyle, and he’d probably get red and maybe not understand anyway. Another time.

  I let my eyes fall closed, my fingers move faster up the neck of the guitar. Definitely worth the walk to north campus.

  Chapter Seventeen: Kyle

  She sang Bob Dylan. Bob Dylan how it was meant to be sung. The poetry of his words coming out of her mouth with that amazing voice. The perfect low tremble, raspy and beautiful and sexy and unique . . . “It is not he or she or them or it that you belong to . . .” She sang Bob Dylan.

  And all I could say when she finished was “Your voice is cool.” As if I were one of the Barbie twins. As if I were Chaz, who wanted her to serenade him. Contest for a love song, my ass. He wanted her to go in front of people and sing to him. The dick-shifting a-hole.

  The whole rest of the day, I walked through the halls with her voice in my head. And somehow, everything felt easier. I thought about the thing I’d added to my list last night, about being a good friend to Hailey. Every time I thought I’d made a step in the right direction, she turned me inside out and I was reminded yet again that I was the lucky one. I could walk away from Hailey and she’d shrug and go back to her life. But if Hailey walked away from me, I’d be gutted. I didn’t want us to be like that. I’d resisted the inevitable unbalance between us, but every time I was with her, something changed.

  And the offer to have sex still stood.

  Even as I recognized being with Hailey was a terrible idea, one of the speeding thoughts in my head grabbed hold of that and ran. Me and Hailey in her room. On her tan carpet. Beneath her blanket. Her making me laugh at the awkwardness of it all and then kissing me and touching me. And me getting her to make sex noises with that low, low voice.

  And maybe, if I could just get closer, if it didn’t feel like such a huge leap from not even having a first kiss to actually having sex, I could do it. Maybe if I could keep from thinking of Chaz’s hands all over her, I could wrap my mind around my hands getting to feel her skin, my mouth getting to lick her. Maybe if I could conquer my list . . . maybe then I’d deserve her.

  ◊ ◊ ◊

  Pavel hadn’t returned my calls, so I went to the library after engineering the afternoon show. I’d written him a pathetically long email when I got home from Hailey’s last night. Mostly, it was an apology for being unable to stop anything. For his having to leave school. For basically being a crap friend. I told him to call me. But he didn’t. Hard to say what was going through his head. It was Pavel.

  The town library was less than two blocks from school. I loved that because I never had to go out of my way to avoid home, but I didn’t really have to deal with anyone from school either. Studying at the town library was arguably the best excuse for any kid to avoid interaction.

  Mariah came out of the library when I was locking my bike out front. Mariah. History Girl. The list. It would be a perfect opportunity. After the Pavel dump, I felt like I could probably say anything to anyone. Hailey was right. The list made me feel like I had some control. Even for me.

  “Hey, Kyle. I was wondering if you were going to be here.”

  “Hey.”

  She did the weird lip-nibble thing that girls do when they’re nervous or maybe when they’re teasing guys. Enough girls do it to make me think they can’t all be nervous that often. But it wasn’t like they got pointers in health class on how to make us think about their mouths. They just all somehow understood that lip biting made us go there. Maybe they got it from Cosmo. Maybe Pavel had the right idea.

  “So have you decided what you’re gonna do for the history final presentation?”

  “No. Have you?”

  I was having a conversation. With Mariah. The girl on my list. A girl who shouldn’t even be here, but maybe was looking for me? I wished Hailey could’ve seen it. Which then made me feel like a huge dirtbag because I wanted Hailey to be there to watch me ask another girl out. Only I knew I couldn’t ask Mariah out because I was still thinking about Hailey singing Bob Dylan and telling me the offer to have sex with her was still open. I wasn’t stupid enough to get involved with someone else when I hadn’t resolved anything on the Hailey front.

  “No. Mr. Connor said we could do it with partners if we also did an oral presentation.” She smiled and tucked the hair behind her ear. What the hell was that?

  “So are you going to do it with someone?”

  She blushed. Then I realized what I’d just said and I blushed. And it was horrible and awkward and I wanted her to go.

  “The presentation? Well, I’m not sure. . . .”

  This was the point where most guys would have realized a giant anvil of possibility was hitting them over the head and they’d have stepped in to partner with her. Even if a guy wasn’t interested in a girl, he knew enough to accept an offer to partner with one because girls always did most of the work. And girls generally were way better at oral presentations than guys.

  But the fact of the matter was, the entire thing pissed me off. It was like Mariah didn’t know me at all. First, I would never do an oral presentation if I could avoid it, partner or no. Second, I spent most of my time reading, so doing any kind of report wasn’t that hard for me. And it was frankly way easier than having to interact with someone for an indeterminate amount of time.

  “Huh. Well, I’ll see you.”

  Mariah sort of sputtered in this weird way. But if she’d known me better, she wouldn’t have been surprised. Hailey wouldn’t have been surprised. She probably just would have talked me into doing the oral presentation anyway by telling me to write it on my list.

  I nodded good-bye, then took the elevator to the third floor and moved to where the public computers were located.

  Be a good friend to Hailey.

  I’d written it on my list. And I was committed to it, even if I wasn’t sure how I could get there. The computer hummed to life when I started to punch in my library car
d number. I wanted to plan a playlist of songs for Hailey. Songs her voice would sound amazing on, songs that meant something to me because the words actually held some poetic weight instead of just bubblegum pop. A playlist starting with Bob Dylan.

  Chapter Eighteen: Hailey

  There was something about plugging my amp in on the front porch that made every afternoon better. The list Kyle had written up of song suggestions was pretty great, but I hadn’t even heard of all the songs. I was right. Guy really knew his music. I’d played through about four so far. Played each of them enough that I didn’t really need the chords or tabs anymore.

  Clutching my iPad, I found the tabs for “In Your Eyes,” a song that Kyle had marked for me to revive from cheese-land. I’d listened to the song a few times and figured that even with someone else’s half-assed attempts at finding the chords, I could figure the rest out.

  Making the tabs as big on my iPad as I could, I strummed down the chords. Fairly basic, but I had to add something. Probably the “something” would come as I played.

  Starting at the beginning, my fingers slipped, and I dipped my voice higher and lower, trying to find the right pitch. I slid my capo three frets up, started the song again, and a new riff fell perfectly into place. There wasn’t a single song Kyle had picked that I hadn’t loved.

  “Whatcha playin’?” Tess asked.

  My gaze snapped toward her, standing on the porch resting against one of the beams like she’d been watching awhile.

  “Trying to come up with something for that competition.”

  “Without us, huh?” she asked. “Should I be worried? You quitting the band? Negating our awesome existence with your intrinsic drive to explore other options for personal growth?”

  I snorted. “Nope. Didn’t want to subject you and Mira to a night of love songs.”

  “And I thank you for it.” Tess walked across the porch and flopped into one of the old wicker chairs. “And Mira would, if she were still going to be living here.”