Open My Eyes

Nine: Can't Hide from a Blind Man

"I'm an idiot," I admitted, falling back onto my bed. I looked at the ceiling, pulling my fingers through my hair.

Kae didn't chuckle, since he noticed the serious tone in my voice. He inquired curiously, "Why are you an idiot?"

I laid my hand on my face and spoke, muffled, "You know how Iggy and I had that talk on Friday and we actually didn't tease each other the whole time?"

He murmured his response, remembering.

My eyes squeezed shut as I confessed, "Well, I thought after that, things would be a bit different between us. As in, he wouldn't be such an annoying jerk to me. But today, he was back to being that infuriating varmint. He cut me off, twice! And he kept dropping things and making me pick them up."

If I were talking with one of my friends from high school who had left the state for college, they would have joined me in complaining and called him an absolute jerk deserving of a foot to the groin, which was what I wanted to hear. But I was on the phone with my older brother, and it sounded like a video game was beeping in the background.

"Maybe he had a rough weekend," was what I got instead. Kae cursed under his breath and my suspicions were confirmed—he was, indeed, playing a video game.

I rolled my eyes at my hopeless brother, who still acted like a thirteen year old boy sometimes. I let out a sigh as I replied skeptically, "I seriously doubt that. He seems like the kind to brood silently when he's going through a rough time, not tease me relentlessly."

My brother offered another scenario. "Okay, maybe he was just afraid of getting close to you. Perhaps he feels like he was too personal with you so to back off, he went back to being—how do you put it? An infuriating varmint?" Rapid gunshots fired in the entourage.

I considered this a moment. "Maybe," I allowed. "Would you do something like that? Back off when you got too close to someone?"

There was a pause in the conversation, as his attention focused entirely on something happening in his video game. He mumbled absentmindedly until finally he returned to our phone call. He pointed out, "Well, he and I are very different people. Besides the obvious—I can see and he can't—we approach situations different. Our personalities are pretty conflicting."

My eyebrows lowered in frustration. I countered, "Yes, but you're both of the male species. You think at the same basic level."

He laughed, saying, "Nice to know you think that about me." He paused until his chuckles ceased. "All I can tell you is we both like female body parts and the majority of the time our instincts are based on our reproductive organ. Other than that, we don't have much in common."

My nose scrunched at his words but I decided against making a comment.

"He's lived his entire life in a completely different environment," Kae elucidated. "I can only speculate, but I think it's a safe assumption that, because he's lost one of the basic senses, he thinks differently than the average Joe. After all, he looks at life differently. Taking it to its logical conclusion, he must approache situations differently, too."

Everything he said made sense. Although, it was hard to think that way when I was fuming in suppressed irritation.

I closed my eyes and released a long sigh. I mocked, "So essentially you're telling me you can't help me out whatsoever?"

He chuckled shortly. "Sorry, small fry. Had I spent more time with blind guys during high school, maybe I'd be able to give you better insight. But this is as new an experience for me as it is for you." His voice lowered. "I've never met a blind person before."