Read to Me

chapter two- everything is fuzzy

The ring of the doorbell startled me as I was buttoning up my shirt, and I heard my mother yell to me as she went to get the door.

'Head towards the lounge room Tate!'

'Ok!' I yelled back.

As I walked into the lounge room I could hear my mother talking to a woman about the house, what a lovely day it is and I zoned out of their conversation. I moved to the spot on the couch I normally sit in and as I say down I was startled. 'Whoa, man, what are you doing trying to sit on me? Didn't you see me here?' A strange voice said.

'No.' I replied to the stranger. 'Especially since I can't actually see properly.'

I said waving my hands in front of my eyes. 'I'm blind. '

‘Oh shit.' He gasped. 'I'm so sorry. If I had known-'

'Don’t worry about it. You just startled me is all. Besides, I'm not completely blind. It’s called cataracts. It's just very fuzzy. So I can't see any details and mostly it's a blur of colours.

'I can move to a different spot if you want.'

'Don’t bother. There's more room on the couch.' And I sat down beside him.

'So…' I said, not very good at awkward conversations. 'I'm Tate.'

'Caleb.'

'Well, nice to meet you. '

'Yeah, you too.'

After that we fell into a silence and eventually I could hear him tapping his fingers on what I assumed was his phone. Man I missed phones. Since going to the doctors I can't go on my phone at all. That means no more social media sites or phone apps. When I could see I thought they were kind of pointless but entertaining. But now that I can't go on them at all, I missed it. But the biggest thing that really gets me, is reading. I am a bookworm and not afraid of telling anyone. Sure there are audio books, but you need to be able to see properly to get them started, which means I couldn't just start listening to one when I couldn't sleep. I had to get my mother to get it set up for me. That's one thing that bugged me the most; being so terribly dependent on people now.

Dinner went smoothly and mine and Caleb's mother chatted on for a while and at one point I almost fell asleep.

'Tate.' Caleb said.

'What? Huh?' I perked up, no longer about to drift into the land of dreams.

'Where you about to fall asleep?'

'Dunno what you're talking about.'

'Right... So wanna go do something while our mums talk their heads off?' He lowered his voice so his mother didn't hear him.

'Uhh... Sure, I guess. We can head to my room and chill there.'

I led him into my room and he looked around…I think. I mean, I could hear him not moving to sit down on the bed, so I assume he was looking around. What he would have seen was light blue walls, filled with posters of bands I liked and book posters. Ironic isn’t it, someone who loves to read who gets vision impairment. Yeah, life sucks. I sat down on my bed and leaned against the bed head. I felt the mattress go down and guessed he’d decided to join me. I closed my eyes and just listened to him breathing. You’d be surprised at how relaxing it is to just listen to people breathing, the same goes with cats purring. I’ve fallen asleep listening to Ludo purr.

‘So… what can you see? You don’t have to answer that if you don’t want to.’

‘Well, the condition is called cataracts so it’s a type of vision impairment, I’m not completely blind. It means my vision is clouded and blurry. So I can’t see details of your face or clothing, but I can see that you’re wearing something blue. I inherited it from my grandfather. If I don’t get treatment for it, I will go completely blind.’

‘Is it painful?’

‘Nope. The only reason we knew I had it was because my eyesight started getting a little blurry and it annoyed me while I was reading.’

‘You like to read?’

‘Do you like to breathe?’

That made him laugh. Come to think of it, he had a nice laugh too.

Hello if anyone is reading this! and if you are, THANK YOU! I hope you like it, sorry if it isn't that great yet. If you did like it, maybe leave a comment? that would make my day! Sorry if the chapters aren't that long yet, I'm still just getting the ball rolling with this story. Hopefully, they will be longer soon!

I love you guys!