blind - owen teague | ✔️

7. ...And He Shall Appear

The voice echoed in my ears and my heart dropped. He was here. Owen was here. My heart was in shambled, scattered pieces and he had shown up, far later than expected.

Recoiling, my heart shut down, my emotions cold and blunt. But I had no right to be mad at him. He didn't have to come here. He had no obligation to see me and I had no right to see him. There was no explicit rule stating that.

And that hurt.

My hand came back to my chest and I felt the flimsy, paperish material beneath my fingers. This hurt and I didn't know what to say.

"Nothing." Finally the words came from my throat, the initial shock ebbing away. He had shown up, finally.

"You're looking a little pale." He commented and I could still hear the soft suckling of him from the juice box, a low hum from the straw very audible to me. It was strange because I'd never paid attention to it.

Maybe when you have your sight, you take other senses for granted.

There was a reverberating hole in my chest, an empty loss of security that was pressed into me, branded into me, hurt and empty. It was ripped from me.

I hadn't noticed how I'd fallen into a false trap of security. I needed to sharpen up. Owen made it all foggy and I didn't even know what he looked like.

"I... Just... I feel a little sick." I fibbed, straight through those teeth of mine. It came easier when you knew the person couldn't see through you, through the windows to your soul. You also couldn't see who you were lying to.

There was a scraping sound and I felt my head cock to the side, all other senses peaking up to attempt to figure out what that sound was in the bleak blackness. It was like plastic against tile. Linoleum.

"There's a trash can by your bed." Plunk, rustling of a bag. "You probably couldn't ring it anyway." Fuck you, it's probably true. "I can put the plastic bin in your bed."

"No, don't worry about it." My voice had fallen paper thin, like my confidence. This whole ordeal made my head spin.

"You sure?" A weight went into that recliner by me and I didn't bother pulling the blanket back when it was pulled from my body, instead just pulling that starchy hospital blanket up, not even bothering to get comfortable when I felt some of the warm, velvet blanket return.

"Yeah." I heard faint tapping and I concluded he must have been on his phone. I turned over where the velvet wasn't on my skin anymore and the silence finally echoed. It was absolutely deafening.

It was slowly clicking that I was falling in a trap of what ifs, of what could be, of why I wasn't realizing this was a game to him, of why I felt too much. I needed to crawl out of it but it was hard when nothing was in my control.

I felt a cold object, smooth, near my ear and shivered, moving away. I knew it was headphones but I didn't want another piece of him to grow attached to. It was hard enough being this helpless to his voice.

"No music?"

I shook my head. I couldn't. Not now. "Kinda liking the silence." Liar. "Where were you today?"

"Friends invited me out to the Keys. Didn't think you'd notice." Ah, the Florida Keys. His voice sounded so plain, so casual, so... Brisk.

I was nothing to him. Not a friend. I was his mom's patient and he just needed somewhere to do his homework. I was a placement to get away from sick people.

My heart felt like a paper ball that was slowly becoming more crumpled and this was just another fold on the thing.

I did. I noticed. How couldn't I? I had no human contact other than him and Anisa, and thinking of that, I realized I was falling into not a trap, but an inevitable situation and I was only going to get hurt.

"What high school do you go to?" I asked.

"Blake High."

No wonder I hadn't known him. I go to a nearby one, and I sighed, realizing I wanted to know him. This was feeling like a tug of war between my heart and head.

Should I follow my head or follow my heart?

"Did you have fun?" I ignored his other statement, hearing his fingers pad again on the touch screen. Texting? Playing a game? Changing his music? God, this was getting old.

"Yeah. Ever been to the Keys?"

"No."

"I can take you there. You won't make it back."

"Why not?"

"You won't want to."

"I can't swim. I'll probably drown."

That made him go quiet, the silence returning in a cold snap, and I figured I should have kept my mouth shut. This was incredibly isolating. My heart sulked in on itself.

I was internally screaming at myself. I felt displaced. I wanted to go home. I wanted my sight back. I wanted to know Owen. I didn't know which I wanted most but there was definitely a magnetic pull somewhere.

I sighed and pulled the hospital blanket higher, before I heard, "I'm sorry, what did you say?"

He had ignored me. Maybe it was a text, maybe it was his music. Either way, the paper ball just squeezed tight.

This was too much. A trap to get hurt. He ignored me. This was my wakeup call.

I was realizing how it was so easy for him to trap me. I couldn't see the threat coming. I couldn't. I was attached to his voice.

"Nothing important, Owen, sorry."