Never the Way We Were

The year I lost my sight at five, I found Stellan Hale half-frozen in the snow.

I told my mother I wanted a companion to guide me and begged her to take him in. Then I leaned close to his ear and whispered a promise.

"I don't need you to be my guide dog. Just stay alive. Go wherever you want to go."

Still, Stellan stayed. After Mom remarried, he became the only person I had left. He watched over me as I grew up, serving as my eyes and my cane year after year. He even gave up his extraordinary talent for painting to study medicine, all for the sake of my sight.

Even after he became one of the most brilliant ophthalmologists in the country, I still could not see.

On my 25th birthday, someone he had once been close to won a prestigious art prize. He shut himself inside the study, and I could hear pages rustling behind the door.

He told me, his voice carefully even, that he was writing my birthday wishes.

I smiled and moved toward him, wanting to kiss his cheek, when words suddenly scrolled across the darkness behind my eyes.

"Wake up, you blind little fool. He's tearing every one of his paintings to shreds. On the back of each one, he even wrote 'Go to hell, Elara Langley.'

"Stop walking. There's a wire on the floor ahead of you. One more step and you're dead."

I froze. Then I smiled again and kept walking.

"Stel, Stel, every wish you made for me is going to come true."

I walked carefully, terrified of missing the wire.

Stellan Hale called out suddenly. "Elara!"

His voice cracked, but he stopped himself before he could say anything more.

I pretended I had not noticed, keeping my tone bright. "Is your head hurting again? Come here, let me rub it for you."

Words flashed frantically across my vision. "Stop walking, you blind little fool! The wire is right in front of you!"

That was good. Right in front of me, so I would not miss it.

Yet just as my foot was about to come down, the doorbell rang. A chair scraped violently across the floor behind me.

"Watch out!"

Something slammed into me with full force and knocked me to the ground. My skull buzzed from the impact, and for a long moment the pain overwhelmed everything else.

Stellan's hands were trembling as he pulled me upright. "Elara, I'm sorry... There was a wire."

The words erupted in fury. "You piece of sh*t, Stellan Hale! You're the one trying to kill her, and now you're shaking? Now you feel bad?"

My chest ached. He was such an idiot. Why did he go soft now?

I pushed through the pain and gave him a reassuring smile. "Even if there was a wire, it's my own fault for not seeing it. I'm fine, really. It doesn't hurt at all."

The words went wild again. "She cracked her head open and yet she's the one apologizing?"

However, I knew Stellan was hurting more than I was.

Broken sobs reached my ears. He was about to say something else when the phone rang.

A woman's voice came through. "I know you're home. I'm not leaving until I see you.

"Stellan, just think of this as my last visit."

I recognized her. Thea Callew, the prodigy painter who had been all over the news lately.

She and Stellan had met years ago while volunteering together, bonded by their shared love of painting. He had told me once that he had found a kindred spirit in her, and Thea had told me just as earnestly that his work was the most inspired she had ever seen.

Now one of them was a celebrated artist while the other was a doctor tethered to a blind girl.

Stellan hated being a doctor. After every surgery, he would throw up until he could barely stand.

He squeezed my hand so hard it hurt, then let go just as suddenly and stumbled toward the door. The force of him pushing past me sent me staggering. I lost my bearings and the back of my head cracked against the sharp corner of the table.

Blood ran down in warm, steady streams.

"Stel," I whimpered. "It hurts..."

The door slammed shut.

I could not see, but my hearing had always been far sharper than most people's. Even through the closed door, their muffled voices carried.

Thea spoke through tears. "Her eyes can't be fixed! You can't save her! Your hands have more talent than mine ever will!

"Come with me to my mentor. It's not too late, if you just..."

Stellan cut her off, his voice shaking. "Thea, she gave me my life. She's blind and she's here. Where am I supposed to go?"

Thea's voice became softer. "Then what about your dream? What about... me?"