Not If I See You First(76)

“I know… I’m sorry.”

“I know you are, but just like you had this other Scott in your head that you built up as this guy who’d betray you, I got a Parker in my head who’d throw our entire history and friendship away in an instant, and… and just bail without even a word.”

I start crying. On the inside anyway, tears soaking into my scarf. I struggle to keep my breathing steady. Not to hide; I just don’t want him to stop talking.

“Do I love that Parker? I feel really bad that I hurt her, but for her to just disappear like that… And now you’ve decided the bad Scott in your head isn’t real, so now he’s gone and it’s just back to the real me again… but…”

He doesn’t want to say the rest. Neither do I.

“But that Parker in your head really is me.” I can’t stop my voice from quavering—I struggle to keep it from getting worse. “I did bail on you.”

“Yeah.”

“I… I…”

I was only thirteen!

Oh God, I will not say that. He deserves better. Better than me. And that’s not self-pity, it’s just a fact. A cold, ugly truth. You want the best for those you love.

I manage to hold back the sobs but he must know I’m crying. There’s nothing I can say. I can’t even say I’m sorry again and ask him to forgive me. I wouldn’t want him to forgive anyone else who did this to him.

“So… it’s complicated, yeah?”

I nod and try to stop my shoulders from shuddering.

I hear shuffling.

“But we’re friends. Here, I have something for you. I made it at Marsh, right after it happened. To give you when you came back. Lately I started carrying it around, trying to sort things out, and… here, put out your hand.”

Something light and metallic touches my palm, with a pin. A button.

I don’t trust my voice enough to ask what it says, but then I feel bumps on the front; it’s braille. Like he pounded them into the thin metal with a tiny nail.

Even before I read what it says, I stop breathing. Of all the buttons on my vest, none of them are in braille. I stuck braille labels on the backs so I can tell what they say, but this button is in braille on the front, like the first button for me instead of everyone else.

I run my fingers across it:


seeing

is not

believing



I break.

I sob and cry, not hysterical or afraid, just profoundly sad, like the world is ending and I can’t do anything about it. He takes me in his arms and I bury my face in his neck.

It takes a few minutes to get it all out. Once he tries to stroke my hair but my scarf makes this awkward, so he just holds me. You can read a lot into a hug if you pay attention and there’s nothing guarded about how he’s holding me. He doesn’t fidget, like he could do this forever. I could too. But I have to let him go. I finally do.

My voice comes back. “You can’t trust me because I didn’t trust you. It was the biggest mistake I’ve ever made. I won’t make it again. That’s a promise.”

“Oh, well,” he says with his sad smiling voice. “You say that now…”

“I mean it. I can live with you not wanting to be with me, but I can’t live with you never trusting me again. I want to prove it to you… I just don’t know how.”

“It wouldn’t be trust if you had to prove it.”

“No, that’s how faith works,” I say, my heart pounding hard in my chest and throat over what just popped into my head. “Trust… trust needs proof.”

I take a step back.

“What is it?” he asks.

“Are we alone? I mean completely alone? I want to show you something… something I’ve never shown anyone and I don’t want anyone else to see.”

“No one’s around but I don’t want you to do anything you don’t want—”

“I want to. But are you sure no one can see us? Are you positive?”

“There’s no one else here, I promise, but I—”

“Shhh,” I say.

I slowly reach up with both hands, and with one smooth movement, I pull off my scarf.

“Parker…”

I wipe the tears from my face and lower my arms.

I open my eyes. My dead, empty, useless eyes.

I strain to listen for any hint of how Scott’s reacting. I don’t hear a thing, not even breathing. I think he’s holding his breath. I know I am. I feel like I might never breathe again.

This is the thing I absolutely hate most about being blind.

“They’re blue-green,” he whispers. “Like the sea.”

He’s using his boyfriend voice. I breathe in deeply to take it all inside me.

“I know they used to be.”

“They still are. They’re beautiful.”

I snort. “Yeah right.”

“I’ve never lied to you.”

I can hear him breathing again.

“I thought you’d have more scars.”

“Not on the outside.”

“Well, they’re beautiful. Your eyes, I mean.”

I smile. “They’re my mother’s. Father’s nose, mother’s eyes.”