EmPATHETICally Blind (A skinny love story)

Chapter 22: I'm told a story.

        Emilee's POV:

At school on Monday, I lean on Jane's shoulder, sneezing into my sleeves every five seconds. We're leaning against my locker, since we have nothing else to do. Jane's confused, wondering why I came to school so sad and with a horrible cold, but I simply told her that Matt and I had a fight. She made a small joke, asking if it was because he couldn't see my side of the argument, and I sneezed on her in response. 

        "Get your germy butt over to him and work it out." Jane says, shoving me over towards where he was standing with his friends, silently listening in on their conversation with a small smile on his face. How could he be smiling while I was left heartbroken? 

I may have potentially lost my best friend.

        "No way. I'm not going to walk over to a group of teenage boys looking like this." I say, gesturing to my half-ass messy braid, my runny nose, my oversized sweater with snot covered sleeves and leggings and Uggs. 

        "Hey, the only one that matters is blind, and sick too mind you." She said, pointing just in time for him to sneeze and start coughing. His friends started patting him on the back, telling him he sneezed like a girl and stuff.

I rolled my eyes and thanked God silently that at least I had Jane, who didn't know the real me yet, but hopefully wouldn't be as freaked out if I ever did tell her.

Secrets were supposed to stay secrets for a  reason.

***

After our class, Matt grabbed my sleeve without word and dragged me not to the library, where we usually go for study hall, but outside. I didn't protest, since after a few classes worth of pointed silence, we were going to have to talk to each other eventually.

He leaned against the wall of the building, sitting down, and I copied him. I opened my mouth to say something, but then felt nervousness coming from him. He bit his lip, even the snakebites which I bet hurt. Then he started talking.

        "It was in science class, seventh grade. We were doing a special lab at the high school, working with semi-harmless acids and bases, ya know, where you stick the special paper and it either turns red or blue or whatever. Me and my friends were goofing around in the back of the classroom, I was doing some weird dance or whatever to impress this one girl who was looking at us. I slipped on some water, my hand grabbing the table and knocking over the chemicals, getting them all over me. Including in my eyes. I remember being weirdly calm as people started freaking me out, shoving me into a chemical shower. My eyes really hurt. I had my goggles flipped up at the time, even though we weren't supposed to have them off. I kept rubbing them, they were stinging really badly, and things were seriously blurry. I kept telling them to get the stuff out of my eyes, and they took me to the eye rinse, but no matter how long I stayed there, the blurriness stayed. It got gradually worse, dark spots were forming, and suddenly, I just didn't see anything. I'll always remember the last thing I saw though, it was my friend's face. The lucky bastard, I never told him though. I don't know how he'd react. So there you have it. My horribly stupid seventh grade self trying to impress a girl, ends up blind." He finishes.

I look over and his sunglasses are still on, and I feel absolute sadness, anger, bitterness, all wrapped up in one. 

        I slowly take off his sunglasses, setting them on his lap, then kiss the side of his head before putting them back on. I didn't comment on how I noticed he was crying. It was a sad, sad sight, seeing a blind person cry.

I wrap my arms around him and put my head on his shoulder, willing myself not to sneeze on him.

        "Well....say something." He says quietly.

Here's the moment where I could take revenge, be a total bitch and say something cruel like "you shouldn't have slipped" or "Wow you're clumsy." and make him feel the pain that I felt all weekend, of humiliation and rejection.

Instead I focused in on taking all his pain and sadness away, using my empathy to will them away. I could feel a cold hand grip my heart as I took the sadness in, and next to me Matt visibly relaxed.

        "Anything in response would almost sound wrong, so I'm not going to." I answer. He chuckles and gently takes my arms off him. I'm getting an odd emotion from him, one I can't read. It annoys me, but I ignore that and focus on him instead.

        "I'm sorry about freaking out. Really. I like the fact that you're pretty fucked up in a lot of ways." He says.

        "Uh..thanks?" I ask, smiling. 

        "You don't need to worry about me telling anyone anything by the way. I'd never." He says.

        "I know. Same vice versa." I say. He nods. 

We sat there, facing each other, for who knows how long, when he holds out a fist.

        "We cool?" 

Here's where I could've been totally nonchalant, fist bumped him saying 'yeah' or 'definitey' something like that. But emotional, sick me decided to let all the sadness she took in build up, the crappiness of what's happened, and the relief of not losing her best friend all roll up into one big wrecking ball, and I leaned over and hugged him tight, probably making him feel awkward as hell, but I didn't care.