Too Close For Comfort

Chapter Two;

Authors note;; I will edit this chapter in a few days to make it longer { probably within the next two days } because I know it's a short chapter.

I woke up to the sound of beeping, but I couldn't see; I didn't know why I couldn't see. The beeping was overpowering, I really didn't remember a thing. I couldn't explain why my face hurt, I didn't remember my name. I felt like I couldn't breathe and I felt like the darkness that I saw engulfed me, almost as if someone was holding a pillow to my face and I was slowly suffocating. I do remember being scared, though. I remember the loud beep that seemed to get louder as I held my breath, I remember hoping that everything that had happened was only a bad dream, and maybe if I would pinch myself I would wake up and be fine, that if I could just open my eyes, I would see.
Reality struck when I heard my mother's voice. Her voice was calm and soft, but it was masking hurt. I heard it laced in every word she said,
"Aspen. Oh my little girl. You're awake."
After my mom finished speaking, I sat up rather quickly. In doing so, I felt an awful pain in my head, an instant headache. I went to rub my temple, but as I reached for it I touched fabric...something I wasn't expecting.
"Mom?" I questioned as I felt a lump form in my throat, both of my hands tracing around the thin fabric, realizing it went completely around my head.
"Mom, what's going on?" I asked again, longing for her to answer, but she stayed silent. My breathing quickened and I shook my head, "I'm not awake right now, am I?" I asked, my voice getting louder as I asked, the lump staying in my throat. Stop being an idiot, I could almost hear Jesse say to me. Look what you caused, you bitch.
I felt someone try to push my shoulders down, but it caused me to panic. My breathing quickened and I tried to push myself away from them, but where was I going to go? I couldn't see.
Stop being an idiot, I told myself.
"Aspen, you're alive, sweetie. At least we could be thankful for that? Normally when people don't wear their seat belts and get in car accidents...you know. But this, we can handle this. You're breathing, you can still walk. We can handle this," I heard my mom say before I felt a pair of hands under my jaw and thumbs rubbing my cheeks, one of the only ways I would ever calm down when I was a child. Something that only my mom would know to do.
"They just have to sedate you so you can go back to sleep and not feel any pain, okay sweetie? You need rest so you can heal, Aspen." It took me a few minutes to realize that I was crying. I didn't feel the tears streaming down my face, however. But I did feel the cloth on my face dampen the slightest bit as I started to slowly lose consciousness.
"You'll be okay, Aspen. I promise you," she whispered quietly as I felt a faint indent in my bed and a hand brush across my forehead before the nurse bluntly asked,
"Does the poor girl know she's blind?"
I'm sure she meant to whisper it, but it was quiet enough in the room that you most likely could hear one another's heartbeat. Either way, I'm sure that everyone could hear mine because as soon as she said that my heart began to race again and my breathing increased. I couldn't handle it. I just turned eighteen and my life is turning out like this, I thought. All because of a misunderstanding. And like that, I was asleep. But sleep, I had found out, isn't always an escape from reality.

-----

Being blind isn't what anyone would think it would be. You aren't special and you don't receive special treatment. I can't watch a movie like everyone else can and I no longer can do what I love to do most; read. I can listen to books or read Braille, but it's not the same.
I've stopped listening a while ago, to anything anyone has said to me whether it's the nurse, my mom, hell, it could be Madonna and I wouldn't know. Everyone's voices sound the same now. It's hard to listen to people be positive and happy when your world is dark and tragic.
"You might feel a slight pressure or pinch in your forearm, sweetie." I heard someone say as they held my right arm in their hands.
That's all I hear now. Sweetie, darling, honey, you name it.