She Is Blind

Chapter Nine: So It Ended

My attention got blown away, and I forgot to walk quietly, making sounds with my feet. Her face turned suddenly in my direction, and her ears pricked up so that I wondered if she was a paraplegic and I had not noticed it before. She had her face twisted like someone trying to remember something and I stood there frozen, not breathing, fearing that she would hear me breathe and not moving, feeling as if she would hear my very heartbeat, that even a statue would have said I played its part better than it did. At least I knew Gift’s senses were sharper than ours, but it was time for me to test if it was true.

Blessing gave me a sour look for ruining her plans, and I offered my apology in response by joining my hands together and saying a soundless sorry.

“I know the sound of those feet, I know it!” Gift’s voice broke the silence, her eyes facing the ceiling. Her face followed with a longing expression, one that a puppy would have given a master that it had not seen for long.

“David is that you?” she asked loudly, standing up and letting her braille book fall on the floor and then trying to walk slowly at first in my direction, gaining momentum every passing second and using her hands to feel the air in front of her, hoping to touch me. She seemed excited, and seemed to have forgotten the position of the center table in front of her. She was about to hit her shin against it when I forgot about being quiet and shouted for her to stop moving and stay put, and told her that I would come to her, but she rather recollected herself and pushed the table aside, still advancing towards me and moving her hands in the air, trying to feel me. That was the moment I realized I really did miss her, because my heart leapt wildly, and I felt weak with regret for ever trying to forget her as a part of my life.

She stumbled her way towards me, and I went towards her too so that we met midway, and then I held her moving hands partly to stop her from hitting me.

“David is this really you?” she asked again, removing her hands from mine and using them to feel my face.

“Yes dear it is me.” I said, my voice laden with emotion. I was surprised with how much I missed her and how evident it was.

Before I could complete my statement she had gripped me tightly in an embrace that felt like it meant the world to her, holding me as if I would fly away the moment she let me go, and I held her head to my chest and looked at Blessing, who looked at us as if she was watching a movie, only that this was not a movie, it was live and she was part of it.

“David I am so sorry for hurting your feelings. Even though I did not mean to I still felt so terrible after I slapped you and I could not just stop regretting it throughout the whole time that I was in school. I know I came to apologize to you for it just because I wanted us to be friends again and have everything back to normal but it took me time and explanation from Blessing and my friends at school to understand that you really loved me and I just took it all for granted and I could not help feeling so guilty about it. I am so sorry David, so sorry” she cried, her tears wetting my shirt.

If my heart was harder than Pharaoh’s in the scriptures, that alone softened it and I hugged her too, intending to offer my own apologies. But her next words were the ones to carry the force and have me quiet.

“I did not understand myself before David, but now I do, and I love you too, more than you love me and too much for words to explain and for me to say right now, but what really matters for me is that I love you, and it is all I care about. Not a thousand forces in the world can change it, and not a million men will change me. I love you David, I love you more than I can say.” she sobbed.

So many times before now I have said I did not know how to feel, and this one numbed my feelings that I froze right there. My eyes diverted from the top of Gift’s head to Blessing at the side, an unnoticed viewer watching two people she loved holding each other, with one professing love for the other, and she stood there, motionless, a tear drop rolling down her cheek. She had wanted to surprise, but had been surprised herself. She soon turned and ran up the stairs to their room, but I was too weak, too powerless to call her back.