I pictured it, what he was seeing, and I wondered if he felt guilty about what happened to me and all the things I could no longer see.
“I hear it,” I told him in a quiet voice as I listened to everything around me. “The drops on the roof, heavier or lighter in certain areas, because the trees are catching some of it not hitting us.” I caressed his neck, finding his ear lobe with my fingers as I listened for more. “The storm drains we pass every minute or so, because the tires are hitting where the water pools as it flows into the underground.” And then I smiled, telling him, “And the rhythm of the wipers and how they sound like We Will Rock You when the two in front go and then the one in the back does, and it’s like “swipe, swipe, SWIPE”.” I imitated the beat of the song and how the wipers mimicked it.
I heard him laugh under his breath.
I continued. “The way I know he’s driving over the speed limit, because it wasn’t windy tonight, but the rain sounds torrential as it hits the windows.” I wetted my lips, feeling his hand move to my hair and smooth it over and over again. “There’s more thunder over the sea than there is over the forest,” I said, analyzing more sounds in my head, “and it’s getting closer to us.”
I brought my hand down, tucking both in the pocket again to keep warm.
“How, with everything going on out there,” I went on, “I feel like I’m wrapped in a blanket in here—warm, dry, and safe. And all the world living and breathing and raging outside makes where I am seem like a world within a world. Like a fountain in a maze.” I paused, musing, “Like a home.”
Everything with him was like home.
“I hear so much more than when I could see,” I said, my voice turning to a whisper. “I don’t think I’d ever want to not hear all that now.”
I missed not seeing things and enjoying the world the way so many others did, but…I also saw the world so much more differently now. One kind of beauty was replaced with another.
I rested my head to the side and closed my eyes, lulled by all the little sounds and hoping that tomorrow would be more of this with no doubt between us.
“I do love you,” I told him again before I drifted off.
Just so he knew.
I woke the next morning in Damon’s bed, naked under the sheets, everything from last night slowly coming back to me. The party. The maze. The drive in the car.
The whole lot of extra energy he had in bed throughout the night when we got home.
I broke out in a smile, blissfully exhausted but more awake than I’d felt in a long time.
Reaching over, I didn’t feel him in bed, though. Patting his sheets and pillow, I landed on a piece of paper, it crinkling under my hand.
He wasn’t dumb enough to leave me a note, was he?
I picked it up, noticing the little pokes in the paper, and I laid it in my palm, running my fingers over the raised dots and instantly recognizing the Braille.
Moving left to right, over the cells, I deciphered the message.
Stay in bed. I’ll be back for breakfast. Then after breakfast, we’ll eat.
I snorted, realizing the breakfast he’d be back for was me.
P.S. Your phone is on the nightstand.
I crashed back on the bed, feeling my body tingle all over. He wrote me a note. I’d never gotten a love letter before, and that was totally one.
I couldn’t believe he had a Braille printer? Nice. With audiobooks and VoiceO
ver, I rarely read anything in Braille anymore, but if only to get little notes from him, I loved it.
What time was it? We were up so late, and if he wasn’t back yet, it must still be early. Didn’t he ever sleep?
My phone rang, and I reached over and grabbed it, hoping it was him.
“Hello?” I answered, sitting up and keeping the sheet wrapped around me.
“Winter?” Ethan blurted out. “What’s going on?”
I stilled, my smile falling. Why was he calling me?