Read Online Now I See You by Nicole C. Kear - Free Book Online Page A

Great Romance I’d vowed to find but it was greatish. Memorable, anyway.
    One night, as I lay languidly against him in the bath, I broached the subject of my eyes. Tentatively, I told him I had this condition; that I couldn’t see in the dark or out of the corners of my eyes. I told him about the fat Park Avenue doctor. I hadn’t revealed the diagnosis to anyone in a year or two and was out of practice, so the whole confession was vague and rushed and as soon as I’d started speaking, I regretted it. He hmm-ed and uh-huh-ed but didn’t say a word. A few days later, in the middle of a bodice-ripping sex scene, I accidentally elbowed him in the jaw.
    “Fuck!” he yelled grabbing his jaw.
    “I’m sorry,” I said, flushed with embarrassment. I was waiting to see if I’d be forgiven, now that he knew my extenuating circumstances.
    “Well,” he grumbled, “just be more careful.” Then he turned back to the business at hand.
    Either he hadn’t heard me or he’d chosen not to hear. Either way, I shouldn’t have told him. In this respect, he was right: I did need to be more careful.
    Toward the middle of the summer, I stepped out of my front door one night to meet Ollie for dinner on Telegraph Avenue and I met my next-door neighbor for the first time. He was walking out of his front door at the exact same moment. Had it been a movie, we’d have locked eyes and fallen instantly in love.
    But we couldn’t lock eyes because he was blind.
    Not a little bit blind, the kind you could hide, but wear-dark-sunglasses-to-hide-your-freaky-eyes-that-don’t-work blind. Carry-a-cane blind. He looked just a few years older than me, in his late twenties, a large man with broad shoulders, so tall he had to hunch down when he stepped through his doorframe. It was odd to see a man who looked that young and strong, imposing even, carrying a cane. It was odd, too, to feel a kinship with this stranger, like he was wearing an emblem that signaled we belonged to the same club. More than odd, it was unsettling. I didn’t want to belong to that club. Not now. Not ever.
    I stood motionless in the doorway, one foot inside my apartment and one out, feeling nauseous and panicky. Should I just creep back into my place and wait for him to pass? Or—wait—maybe he wasn’t all the way blind yet, and he could see me, in which case my backing away would be unforgivable. Was I supposed to introduce myself? Was that patronizing? I mean, why should I assume he was sociable just because he was blind? Maybe he was a misanthrope. Maybe he fucking hated unsolicited introductions, just wished do-gooders would leave him alone. Did he have the same eye disease as I did? Had he fallen into a bucket of lye as a child? Could I ask him or was that gauche?
    As I stood there, exposed and bewildered and depressed, my neighbor turned to me. Even without a super-keen sense of hearing—which he, no doubt, possessed—you couldn’t miss the sound of my hyperventilating.
    “Hi,” he ventured, his face pointed a few feet to the side of mine.
    “Hi,” I replied haltingly. “I’m Nicole. I, uh, live next door.”
    His face broke into a smile. “Oh, you must be subletting for the summer. Welcome, welcome! I’m Greg.” He had a musical voice, deep and smooth and appealing and he smelled good, too, the light aroma of aftershave wafting my way.
    How does he shave , I wondered, without slicing his face to shreds?
    I was staring at his cane, which he held pointing straight down to the ground at his chest, so I was able to catch sight of his hand as it let go of the handle and reached out to me.
    I extended my right hand to meet it.
    “Good to meet you,” he said, gripping my palm firmly. “I hope you’re enjoying Berkeley. It can take some getting used to.”
    We stood opposite each other for a few minutes and chatted; he gave me recommendations of good places to eat and tips about which mentally ill homeless people were harmless and which to steer clear of. He