Dandelion

Meeting My New Best Friend

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JOURNAL!!
I'm so excited! We're getting a kitten!

The girl from Alex's class, her name is Lizzy, who likes to make flower crowns told us that her cat had had a litter of kittens, and offered the first pick to us! We're going to meet her in about five minutes, once Alex gets out of the shower. Not only are we going to get a cat, I get to leave the apartment! It's a God damn miracle!

If I think about it, I'll write more once we have the kitten, but for now, I hear Alex coming out, and I can barely write in in the house, my eyesight is so bad without my glasses, so I'm not even going to attempt to write in a moving truck.

I was bouncing on my toes like a happy kid when Alex came out into the living room; I was so excited to get this cat and get out of this apartment that I couldn't keep still.

When Alex saw how excited I was, he smiled, shook his head, and laughed. He tossed my Captain America beanie at me, then came over and handed me a long, black case.

"What is this?"

"I found your old glasses in the drawer with your hat," he said.

Oh no. The hipster frames. . . I shuddered.

But, I needed to see, so I bit the proverbial bullet and slipped the obnoxiously large frames onto my tiny face.

The world snapped into focus, and I hadn't quite realized how much I missed seeing until my vision was back.

"God," I breathed, looking around with new eyes. Okay, not literally new, they were the same nineteen-year-old eyes I'd been born with.

Alex was looking at me with amusement. "Better?"

I nodded wordlessly. I gaped at him, lost in his face. I hadn't seen him beyond an Alex-shaped blob since before the accident. He looked exhausted, dark rings under his eyes.

"Ready?" He smiled, spinning his keyring around his index finger.

I nodded excitedly, following him out the door and down the stairs on legs that barely shook. I climbed into the truck all by myself, proud of what I'd been able to do. Judging by the smile on his face, Alex was proud too, which made my little heart happy.

Alex started the truck and pulled out of the parking lot, starting down the road toward Lizzy's house. I assumed she either still lived with her parents or she had at least one roommate. At least one roommate who liked cats, I hoped.

I rested my chin on the door, my nose against the window, and with a happy sigh, I watched the world whiz by outside the truck. Trees with their bare branches reached up to the blue winter sky. I looked for shapes in the cotton ball clouds, thankful to be able to see again.

"That one looks like a dragon, don't you think," I asked, pointing at a cloud in front of us.

"I see more of a hippopotamus," Alex replied, and I wasn't sure we were looking at the same cloud, although I did see the hippo he was talking about.

"No, not that one, that one," I said, pointing harder at the cloud that actually looked like a dragon.

Alex squinted up at the cloud when we came to a red light. "I see more of a lizard shape. I don't the wings."

"Not all dragons have wings, Alex," I said, laughing.

"You haven't looked for shapes in the nimbus clouds in a long time," he observed.