The Girl in the Painting

But I needed to do this one on my own.

“Observant, Doc,” I tease, but I quickly drop the sarcasm and get to the reason why I’m here. “I’d like to apologize for my abrupt departure the other day.”

I’m pretty sure I knocked over no fewer than three pieces of furniture and a nurse on my way out of his office, but there’s no need to get lost in specifics.

“Not a problem,” he responds, his voice the auditory equivalent of a neutral, friendly smile. “I can imagine it was overwhelming.”

“Yeah,” I answer around a choked, sardonic laugh. “Quite overwhelming, in fact.”

Silence fills the room as I try to organize my scattered thoughts. Thankfully, the doc senses the need for quiet and stays patient through the lack of conversation.

God, where do I even begin…

“This surgery,” I say, and I clear the cobwebs from my throat. “It’s a bit of a risk, yeah?”

“Yes, Ansel. There are serious risks involved with it.” He pauses, and I tense as I wait to hear the rest of what he has to say—what I need to hear him say. “But there’s also a significant reward.”

With a deep, calming breath, I force myself to move past the risks and focus on the reward.

“Do you really think it’s possible?” I ask. “I mean, how confident are you? Do you really think you and your team can pull this off? Really restore my vision fully?”

“We’ve been successful in London, and we wouldn’t have been fighting for approval from the FDA and the medical board for the past eight months if we weren’t ready,” he answers, and I don’t miss the calm confidence in his voice. “We can do this surgery, Ansel.”

“Why me?” The question falls from my lips before I can stop it. “Surely, you have other patients. Ones who are also blind and good candidates…”

Ones who aren’t assholes.

“For one, your blindness wasn’t caused by disease or a genetic disorder. It was caused by trauma from an accident,” he explains. “We know going into it there’s no risk for disease to come back and ruin the healthy eyes.”

“Okay…” I pause and swallow hard against the anxiety creeping up my throat.

“And to be blunt about it—mostly, you’re financially stable enough to handle the cost of this surgery and the therapy that’s required after.”

His words startle a laugh from my lungs. “You mean to tell me I’m a candidate because I’m rich?”

“That’s not the only reason, but it’s definitely an important factor.”

“That’s a little fucked, isn’t it, Doc?” I retort.

The idea someone else deserving doesn’t get this opportunity just because they’re less financially stable coils anger around my nerves.

“I know it’s not right, but that’s just the way it is right now,” he clarifies. “Insurance companies won’t cover something like this because it hasn’t been done before in this country. There are no statistics or prior cases for them to use as a guide. One day, though, they’ll have the statistics they need. But we have to start somewhere.”

“With me.”

“Yes.”

“And if I say yes, if I agree to the surgery, when would it happen?”

“Well, we’ll have to do some extensive blood and genetic testing on you before we list you as an actual candidate for a donor, but I don’t anticipate that taking more than a few weeks.”

“And after that?”

“Then we wait for a donor.”

His words hit me straight in the fucking gut. “You mean…we wait for someone else to die.”

“Yes,” he answers frankly.

I think about the risks and the possibilities. I think about the seriousness of what I’m about to do.

I think about opening my eyes and seeing the world around me.

I think about my art, my painting, and getting my life back.

And I think about the fact that if I go through with this, I could be paving a path for other people who are just as desperate as me to see again.

“Okay.”

“Okay?” Dr. Smith questions.

“I look forward to seeing you, Doc.”

Ansel

The TV blares from the living room like a fire alarm, yanking me out of a dream and straight into consciousness. It’s so loud, in fact, I can hear every word that comes out of the stupid newscaster’s mouth.

“Good morning, New York! This is Louis Fallon coming to you live from Times Square with the eight o’clock morning news. Stay tuned for an interview with the mayor about the impacts of yesterday’s storm, and the Flash Five-Day Forecast from our favorite meteorologist, Jenny Flash. It looks like the first official day of February is going to be a cold one, folks.”

Fucking Bram.

You’d think as a lead singer of one the country’s most popular up-and-coming rock bands, he’d be pulling late nights with groupies and shit and refusing to wake up before noon.

But, sadly for me, that’s not the case.

Up with the sun even if he goes down with it too, the bastard has made it a habit of arriving at my house far too early, like some sort of stupid, macho, I-don’t-need-sleep, show-off thing.