Eyes Wide Open

one

"I am afraid. Not of life, or death, or nothingness, but of wasting it as if I had never been."
— Daniel Keyes, Flowers for Algernon

The summer before my senior year of high school began, just a couple of weeks before I turned 18, I received what was possibly the worst news in the history of bad news: I'm going blind.

The first signs had been subtle—trouble seeing in dim light, a narrowing field of vision. I thought I just needed a new prescription for my glasses.

Turns out, I had retinitis pigmentosa, a genetic disorder that would slowly rob me of my sight, bit by bit, until there was nothing left but darkness. They estimated that I had five, maybe ten years before my vision would be gone completely.

Before my diagnosis, I was the epitome of good girl perfection. I had straight As, never got into trouble, and followed the rules to a fault. My 4.0 GPA was my pride and joy, and I was on track to be valedictorian. I planned to attend Stanford. I was captain of the debate team and a state qualifier in the 1500-meter race in track & field.

But despite all these accomplishments, I felt a gaping hole inside me. I never got invited to parties. People probably assumed I wouldn't go because I was the "good girl." I had never skipped class, never gotten drunk, never even dated anyone. The predictability of my life was suffocating me.

With my diagnosis, the girl who always played it safe had an expiration date on her ability to see the world. The fear of what I would miss, what I would never get to experience, was paralyzing.

The idea of living cautiously suddenly felt like a tragic waste. I wanted to do something, anything, to disrupt my perfect little life.

Now, as I sat in AP Calculus, listening to Mrs. Thompson's lecture on differential equations, my usually diligent note taking had faltered. Though I wasn't particularly interested in mathematics, I always paid attention and got As on tests.

My mind drifted away from the monotonous drone of her voice. I thought, for a moment, about just getting up out of my seat and walking out the door. I thought about running away, setting off to see the world before I couldn't see anything at all.

I had never been out of the country. I wanted to go to the top of the Eiffel Tower, see the castles in Prague, ride a gondola in Venice. I wanted to do something crazy and fall in love and have my heart broken and then do it all over again.

But then the bell rang, and I just got up and walked to my next class.

***

"What time is debate practice?"

I looked up from my lunch to see my best friend, Callie, staring at me with her dark brown eyes.

Callie was vice captain of the debate team. She was very academically driven, like me. She was also an eternal optimist, which had been driving me crazy the past couple of months.

Callie and I usually sat with our other friend, Beth, at lunch, but she had an orthodontist appointment. Beth was basically as nerdy and high-strung as we were. Our friend group wasn't the most popular at school, but we weren't necessarily unpopular. More like invisible.

Callie and Beth were the only students at school who knew about my condition. My parents, against my wishes, had let the administration know in case I needed help at some point. I didn't want anyone at school to know. I'd end up being known as the girl who was going blind, with everyone pitying me.

I shrugged in response to Callie's question. "I don't know."

She kept staring at me, her brown eyes peering into mine. "You're captain. You set the meeting. How do you not know—"

"I don't know, Cal!" I huffed. Who cared about stupid debate practice? My life was currently coming undone at the seams, but everyone in my life continued to act like everything was fine, that nothing had changed. It made me furious.

Callie's face contorted into a hurt expression. "Jeez, sorry. It's Monday, so I figured we'd have practice today. My bad."

I knew it wasn't fair of me to take out my frustration on Callie. I had also been taking it out on my parents, who kept pushing me to excel in school. "You need to stay on the same track to get into Stanford," they'd tell me. "You need to stay focused to get into Stanford. Don't you still want to go to Stanford?"

"I think I'll just take my chances on the street," I told them once when I was fed up with them acting like I hadn't gotten the worst news of my life. "Sell my body and get hooked on drugs. That's what happens when you don't get into Stanford, right?"

They didn't know what to do with that. I never talked back to them, never got sarcastic with them. This was going to be a year of firsts.

"I'm sorry," I finally told Callie. "I'm just...I'm tired. Let's just reschedule for later this week."

"Okay." I knew she wanted to say something else, but she stopped herself.

The fluorescent lights of the cafeteria started giving me a headache, so I reached into my backpack to put on my Avulux migraine glasses. In addition to frequent headaches, night blindness, and my diminishing peripheral vision, I also had visual snow syndrome, which basically meant I saw flickering dots across my vision that looked sort of like snow. It mostly affected me outdoors.

I rubbed my temples as my gaze flickered towards the window next to our table. That was when I saw him—Dash Wolfe. He stood outside, leaning casually against the school fence. I wondered why he hadn't gotten yelled at yet, but then realized he probably wouldn't care if he did.

He was a senior like me and had a reputation for being a "bad boy." I didn't know whether the rumors about him were true, but he certainly didn't try to stop them.

Dash was basically everything I wasn't: reckless, daring, unapologetic.

He was the kind of guy who turned heads wherever he went. He was over six feet tall, with dark, tousled hair that was always just slightly out of place and piercing green eyes.

I found my eyes traveling to his bicep, which flexed as he leaned against the fence. He wore a t-shirt with some band on it I didn't recognize.

I wanted to walk outside and march right up to him and...yell at him? Kiss him? Feel his arm muscles, put my hands through his hair...

Jesus, Blake. Get yourself together.

Before I could pull my eyes from him, he turned his head so that it appeared he was looking straight at me. His mouth curled up into a smirk. Wait, he was looking at me.

I swallowed and quickly averted my gaze. Why was he looking at me? Why did he notice me?

Probably because I was staring intensely at him, basically drooling all over my lunch. I shook it off, turning my attention back to Callie, who had started talking about some show she was watching.

Back to my regularly scheduled, boring life.