The Problem with Forever

“That’s when he told me that I would most—I would most likely go blind or almost completely blind.”

“Ainsley,” I gasped, shocked.

“And they don’t even know when it will happen, but it will happen. There are more tests they have to do, but he started telling me that I could either lose my vision from the sides or something called lattice vision and—” She cut herself off with a deep breath. “Okay. I’m not going to freak out.”

“It’s...it’s okay to freak out about something like this,” I reassured her. This was an official freak-out situation. “Are they sure it’s really that?”

“I think so, Mal, I really think so. Even the assistant was looking at me like she wanted to hug me and I was just sitting there having no reaction at all. And I came home and it still hasn’t... It hasn’t sunk in. Like, am I going to wake up tomorrow blind? Do I have like a few weeks, a couple of years? I don’t even know what to think. A couple of hours ago, everything was normal.”

I pressed my hand to my chest. “Ainsley, I’m...I’m so sorry. I don’t know what to say.” And for once it wasn’t because I was caught up in my head, but because I honestly didn’t know what to say. This was a big deal. This was life-changing. “I hope...I hope they are wrong.”

“Me, too,” she murmured. “There is a chance, you know? They have to do a field test and they were mentioning some kind of genetic test to confirm, but no one in my family is blind. I don’t know.”

“Is there...anything I can do?”

“Find me new eyeballs?” She laughed, and for a moment, she sounded like her normal self.

When we said good-night a half hour later, I was still reeling from the news. I dropped my phone on the bed beside me and stared at my computer. Closing my laptop, I pushed it off the pillow and away from me. It slid to the middle of the bed, stopping as it reached my book bag.

“Oh my God,” I whispered, closing my eyes tight for a moment.

Swinging my legs off the bed, I stood and started toward the door but stopped. I didn’t even know where I was going.

Ainsley was going blind?

How was that even possible? How did you wake up one morning thinking everything was fine, that today would be like any other day, and then get told something like that?

I didn’t know what to think.

Sitting down on the edge of the bed, I slowly shook my head. I had no idea what Ainsley must be going through, what she must be thinking. You took something like vision, no matter how poor, for granted. No one ever considered the possibility of not having it. Of not actually knowing what the color red looked like or how the sky changed at dusk. If I was her, I’d be panicking. I would be in a fetal ball somewhere, rocking—

I would probably never know what I’d do.

Because I wasn’t going to lose my eyesight. At least as far as I knew.

My hands dropped to my knees as I stilled.

I would most likely never get shot in the back and lose my ability to walk. I would probably, hopefully never again experience what it was like to go to bed hungry at night, my stomach so empty it hurt. I didn’t have to worry about everyone having low expectations of me anymore. I had Carl and Rosa, who cared about me deeply. I had great friends, one who was going through something serious, something that would change her entire life. I had Rider. I had all of these things because of the second chance I’d been given.

I thought about all the people who would never have the privilege of a second chance at anything.

I was lucky.

My life had been hard

, but the past... It was a part of me, but it wasn’t me. I had a future, possibly a beautiful one where I wouldn’t be a...a victim, and yet, when I got lost in my head or let what Mr. Henry did shape my decisions, I wasn’t embracing that future.

I wasn’t acknowledging everything I had.

That...that had to change.

And I thought, by realizing just that, becoming aware, I was changing.

Chapter 29

Rider grinned as he eyed the open bedroom door from where he sat on the window seat. I was sitting in the middle of the bed with my speech textbook open in front of me. We were supposed to be working on the next speech, one we were to deliver on someone who was important to us. I’d given my persuasive speech during lunch last week, which hadn’t been hard to write though was still painful to deliver, but this one was giving me fits.

There were so many people I could write about. How could I just pick one? Taking a deep breath, I started writing again.