Love Is Blind

Chapter 1

Isaac drifted off into a deep sleep. His eyes may be gone but his mind remembered what it was like to see. When he dreamed he saw everything clearly. He saw the way the orange leaves fall in autumn. He saw the way they swirled in small tornados. He liked to dream. He loved his dreams because in those he could see. It was hard to let go. Going 17 years with eyes then losing them was hard but losing your two best friends in the world in less than two years was much harder. He missed them but when he dreamed he could see them. In his dreams they were together. They were happy. He supposed that was what heaven looked like. That was what he usually saw but tonight the streets were empty. It was just him walking down the empty street. His head started to pound and his vision started to blur. He was scared. He grabbed his head as the pounding became faster and faster. He couldn't see. The world was fading to black. He wanted to scream but he couldn't. He couldn't see. He couldn't breathe. That's when he felt hands on his shoulders.

"Isaac wake up!" He heard a frail voice say. His vision started to fade in again and he could see the blurry outline of a girl. He hair was wiry, her skin was pale and her eyes were sunk into her head. Her skin was pulled tightly over her bones, which could easily be seen.

"Isaac wake up!" She screamed.

He woke up. His breathing was heavy. He brought his hand to his head and felt sweat trickling down his forehead. He ran his hands anxiously through his hair. It's gotten longer in the past year. He'd been too worn to leave the house so he never went out and got it cut. Not like that mattered anyway; he'd never seen how it looked. He was still shaken from his dream as he pulled his knees up to his chest. He hugged them closer as the first tears started to roll down his face. What was wrong with him? He asked himself this often. What kind of an 18-year-old boy spent almost every waking hour penned up in his house? Most of the boys his age were moving out and he was still completely dependent on his parents. Isaac look at yourself, he'd say, oh wait you can't. His biggest fears were starting to come true. He'd always been scared that he'd forget their faces. He knew he would eventually forget their smiles. He knew he'd eventually forget the way Hazel's eyes shone or the way her bangs would always find their way over her eyes. Then there was Augustus: he'd never be able to forget him but what if he couldn't see him in his head anymore? He'd never get to imagine or visualize the way he hobbled slightly with only one leg or the way he'd laugh and become overly competitive when they played video games. It was getting harder every day for Isaac. He could no longer remember the exact way his voice sounded when he popped the unlit cigarette in his mouth and told him, "It's a metaphor." Isaac was not doing well. He'd even stooped as low as listening to the audio book of "An Imperial Affliction". He didn't even like the book but he'd listened to it almost three times now. He was not okay.

That morning his mother awaked Isaac from a dreamless sleep.

"It's 10 o'clock." She said cheerfully. "I've made you pancakes. Do you need help getting dressed?"

"No." Isaac said bitterly.

"Are you sure? It's no harm-"

"No." He said louder, "I'm fine." He hated having to rely on everyone else. He waited until he heard the door shut then he got up slowly and felt around for the outfit his mother left out for him. He trusted that it was a decent outfit. It felt like just jeans and a t-shirt as he fumbled with difficulty to put them on. He then felt his way downstairs by hanging onto the railing. His mom helped him sit in a chair at the table and served him. He cut his food easily and ate it slowly. He couldn't stop thinking about his dream. The girl in his dream was most troubling for him. Why was she there when Gus and Hazel weren't? He'd done a lot of research on dreams after he'd lost his eyes and started dreaming more often. He'd learned that all the people in your dreams are people you've seen in real life before. That was the only reasonable reason why the girl had felt so familiar to him. He remembered her sickly thin figure, pale skin, and sunken eyes and thought that the only place he could've met a girl with that appearance was the hospital. There was lots of unhealthy looking there. It was a hospital after all. She was probably dead by now. It was a dark thought but it was true.