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?"

Stellan was quiet for a long time before answering, his voice sounding raw. "No matter what happens, we will always be the closest of friends."

Thea ran off in tears. "I won't come looking for you again. When you've made up your mind, take it and go find my mentor."

Lying on the floor in a daze, I found myself drifting back to the year I turned 13. I had come home from the school for the blind covered in bruises.

Stellan had been furious. He was a bright kid with no reason to be there, but he insisted on transferring just to stay by my side. To keep up with the standard curriculum on his own, he never slept a full night.

When I was 15, Mom remarried. She held my hands and sobbed.

"Elara, your new stepfather can't help me raise a blind child. Being your mother has been so hard. You understand that, don't you?

"Stellan was taken in for your sake in the first place. He should be the one looking after you."

Mom dragged her suitcase out the door and left the old house and Stellan behind.

He was barely 18. Taking care of a blind girl ran him into the ground until his own health fell apart. I used to cry and beg him to leave, to stop burdening himself with me.

He would just smile and ruffle my hair. "Crybaby, the swallows under the balcony always fly in pairs. Neither one does well without the other."

Now, the little swallow was exhausted. He deserved to fly away on his own.

I was just a blind girl nobody wanted. If Stellan had not held my hand and raised me, I would have died a long time ago.

I should die somewhere he would never find out about, or else he would blame himself.

I wiped at the throbbing back of my head and had barely fumbled my way to my feet when the door opened.

"What happened to you?"

Stellan's voice was raw. "Where did all this blood come from?"

The words flashed across my vision. "Are you serious? You're the one who knocked her down, and now you're asking?"

I managed a smile.

"I'm sorry, I can't see, and I tripped over something."

Before the words had left my mouth, a cup shattered at my feet.

"Elara! You've lived in this house for years. How do you still not know where things are?"

I heard his ragged breathing and clutched at my sleeve, miserable. "I'm sorry, Stel. I'm useless."

Stellan dug out a dusty old cane and dragged me toward the door, walking so fast I could not keep up. I nearly fell down the steps more than once, but he did not stop.

I grabbed at him, frightened. "Stel, where are we going?"

He stopped without warning, and my nose slammed into his back hard enough to draw blood. I wiped at it with the back of my hand, and then I heard him come apart.

"Elara, there are millions of blind people in this world. All of them manage just fine with a cane. Why can't you?

"I'm not your guide dog. I can't spend the rest of my life being your dog!"

My heart felt like someone had it in a fist. Stellan shoved me from behind, and his voice came through the wind, ice cold.

"If you don't learn to walk the tactile path tonight, don't bother coming home."

His voice and his scent both disappeared. All that was left were the wind, the sound of traffic, and strangers muttering around me.

"Is she blind? What's she doing out here by herself, trying to get hit for a payout?"

The darkness and the panic swallowed me whole. I gripped the cane and fought the urge to scream, whispering Stellan's name instead.

"Stel, I'm so scared."

Back when I first lost my sight, I still had not gotten used to being blind. Every time I woke to nothing but darkness, I would cry until I could not breathe. Stellan always came running in and grabbed my hand.

"I'm right here. Don't be scared, don't be scared."

Now the only answer was the wind.

The words were still raging. "Didn't he swear he'd hold her hand for the rest of her life? That she'd never need a cane? What a piece of sh*t!"

I wiped my tears. It was not like that.

I had long forgotten how to read the tactile paths. I stumbled along, tapping the ground blindly in every direction. A girl like me must have been so exhausting for him.

I wandered without direction and stopped where the honking was loudest.

If a car hit me right here, Stellan could finally be the freest swallow of all. However, the impact never came, and someone yanked me into their arms.

Stellan's body was trembling. His voice was nothing but despair.

"Elara, you're blind, not stupid. How can you not figure this out?"

"Why did it have to be a blind girl who found me?"

Why indeed…

He was such an idiot. Why did he bother taking care of me at all?

I finally broke down and sobbed.

"You're right, I'm not stupid. So go! I don't need you looking after me!"

When I was five, my parents were in the middle of a divorce. They fought every single day over who would be stuck with me. They were so consumed by it that neither of them even noticed when the fever burned my eyesight away.

I had thought, miserably, that a child nobody wanted could not even hold on to her own eyes. Therefore, when I saw Stellan lying in the snow, thrown away just like me, my heart cracked open for him on the spot.

The world did not need another discarded child who could not keep what mattered most.

Stellan took my hand, too spent to fight anymore. "Okay. I'm sorry. Don't say things you don't mean.

"What, am I supposed to just let you wander into traffic and get yourself killed?"

He led me home. He never brought up the cane again, but he spent more and more time staring at whatever was in the study in silence.

I hid in my room and dialed a number. The voice on the other end flared the second she realized it was me.

"What do you want now? I haven't been legally responsible for you in years!"

I sniffed back the sting in my nose. "Mom, I don't need you to take care of me. Can you just pretend to take me in?"

I swore up and down that I was not trying to cling to her. Only then did she agree that, for old times' sake, she would come for me once my sister finished summer camp.

I hung up and smiled to myself.

Good for her. Mom had a new child to keep her company now, and Stellan could finally drop the dead weight.

When I knocked on Stellan's door, I heard him scramble to put something away.

"What do you want? Lost something again?"

I faltered for a second, then pulled on a playful grin.

"Stel, my mom reached out to me. She said she's doing really well now, and she feels awful about everything. She wants me to come live with her. I already said yes."

Stellan sounded stunned. "Do you even know what you're saying?"

I said it again. "I want to live with my mom."

He exploded. "Elara, have you forgotten what she did to you? Haven't you suffered enough?"

Of course I had not forgotten. During the years the court had given her custody, she was always out on dates. Sometimes she would disappear for days at a time and forget to leave money for food.

Little Stellan used to go out in the dead of winter collecting bottles to recycle. Every piece of bread he bought with that money went straight into my mouth.

He was just a scrawny kid, stomach cramping from hunger, but he still kept his voice steady to comfort me. "I'm fine, I just ate too much."

I had taken Stellan in because I wanted him to live a good life. Instead, he had spent every day since then dragging a blind girl behind him without a single good day of his own.

I would not budge, and Stellan threw a fit, but he would not budge either.

I sighed to myself. He was just a stubborn idiot.

Then I called Thea.

"Please, try talking to him again..."

Thea called on the same day I had just come back from another eye exam. The doctor had let out a long breath before delivering the news.

"With her eyes... Dr. Hale, if even you can't do anything, she'll most likely be like this for the rest of her life."

Stellan's fists were so tight the knuckles must have been white. "Elara, why do your eyes have to be so useless?"

I had nothing to give him but an apology.

On the phone, Thea's voice was heavy. "Stellan, I'm leaving with my mentor in a few days. Once I'm gone, there really won't be another chance.

"Your whole life... is really just going to be this. Is this really what you want?"

Stellan stared hard at my eyes. Something in him snapped. He rushed into the study, grabbed something, and ran out the door.

Listening to the door close behind him, I felt something close to happiness.

A full day passed and Stellan still had not come home.

Thea sent me a voice message. "Thank you for letting him go. Stellan really is meant to paint. He and my mentor hit it off right away."

I was glad, but I had not eaten anything all day, and the hunger was becoming hard to bear. This time, when Stellan left, he had forgotten to set out the snacks where I could reach them.

I used voice commands to order delivery, but the door had been locked from the outside.

By evening Stellan still was not back, and acid was churning in my stomach. I felt my way toward the kitchen, searching for anything to eat.

However, that was the thing about being blind and useless. I knocked something over without knowing what it was, and the kitchen caught fire.

I scrambled to put it out, but I could not even aim the water in the right direction.