RUSH (City Lights, #3)(41)

Noah’s expression suddenly hardened and his voice became scratchy and tense. “Why did you tell me all that?”

I blinked. “I seem to recall you asking.”

He gave me a look. I don’t know how—he’s blind, after all—but he did, and I felt a blush sting my cheeks.

“I don’t know. You’re a good listener.”

He scoffed. “So I got that going for me.”

“You have a lot of things going for you,” I said gently. “Your turn. Why don’t you want to learn to cope with your blindness?”

“If I learn braille or carry a damn cane, then it means I accept that this is my life now. It’s stupid, I know. I’m blind no matter if I accept it or not, but I can’t give in. If I do that…then my old life is really gone.” His voice lost its edge at the end, like a frayed rope. “I don’t want to let go.”

I bit my lip, hesitant. “But…don’t you think that’s why you’re so angry? If you let it go, then maybe—”

“Then my life will magically improve? That I’ll get back a fraction of what I lost and be satisfied?” He shook his head. “Impossible. I want it all back. All of it. Not just my sight but everything that went with it.”

“You can’t have it back,” I said as gently as I could. “But there has to be ways to make this new life easier for you. There are technologies you could try, right?”

“No, Charlotte. My life, my career…none of it survived that cliff dive.”

“You could have a new career,” I ventured. “Maybe there’s something you haven’t discovered yet that you’d like to do.”

“Maybe. But how the hell would I find it when my old life still feels like it’s right there. Like it’s on the other side of this f*cking black curtain, and if the curtain would just lift…”

He scrubbed his hands over his face and then rested his elbows on his knees, his sightless gaze cast down.

“I loved my job, you know? I loved writing and taking photographs, and visiting every corner of the world, and losing all that…” He swallowed hard, a jagged lump of pain. “Losing all that is bad enough. But I lost something else, something I craved and lived off of, almost as much as I did air and food and water.”

“What’s that?”

“The rush. The adrenaline. The thrill of walking the edge of life and death, like a tightrope. I didn’t have a death wish, but I loved taunting it. When I was throwing myself out of planes, or skiing down triple black diamonds…that’s when I felt that amazing fear. That chest-tightening, ball-shriveling fear that you’re right there, about to lose it all. Because only when you’re about to lose it all, do you realize how much you have.”

Noah fell silent, and I watched the bitter anger seep into his face again, edging it with hard lines. But his eyes held a deep melancholy that was more potent than anything else. I remembered reading about the five stages of grief once, how anger eventually gives way to sadness. Maybe what I was seeing in him was progress. Like eating breakfast with me, or agreeing to take a walk. My hand itched to take his.

“I know that feeling,” I said. “The rush. Not the same way as you felt it, but…before Chris’s death, I felt it when I played. An immersion so strong, it was like I was outside myself, watching, while the rest of me just…lived the music. Some people call it being in the zone.” I plucked at as stray thread on the seam of my dress. “I miss that.”

Noah turned my direction, his gaze landing on my chin as it always did. “I’m sorry I told you that you were wasting your time. I had no right.”

“It’s okay,” I said softly. “It’s true. I can’t let go, either.”

He turned to me then, and the brusque demeanor slipped even as he tried to hold on to it. His brows furrowed as if were willing his eyes to work. To see me.

“Charlotte…what do you look like?”

I brought my head up sharply. “I told you what I look like.”

“You told me with words and words aren’t always enough.”

Does he want to touch my face? I felt my pulse quicken and I glanced at his hands in his lap. Nice hands. Masculine. Long fingers. “Well, I guess I wouldn’t mind. If you think it would help…or something.” I coughed.

Noah shook his head. “Never mind. Forget I brought it up. It’s stupid. I can’t see shit with my hands.”

“Have you ever tried?”

“No. That’s just a dumb cliché in even dumber movies.”

“How do you know?”

“I know because nothing will ever compare to just being able to see. Ever.”

“It seems to me that if the rest of your senses are heightened, your touch might be too.”

Noah shifted on the bench toward me. “Are you desperate for me to put my hands all over your face, Charlotte? Do you have a gnarly wart on the end of your nose that you’ve been dying to spring on me?”

I laughed nervously. “Now you’ve ruined the surprise.”

“Liar.”

“See for yourself,” I said, hoping my voice sounded as light as I tried to make it.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” I said. How the hell had I become so nervous? Or why? He was so close, I could practically count the gold flecks in his eyes.