His Eyes Read Free

continued, “I spoke with Tristan. He can be very stubborn. He’s set against you, I’m afraid. He was the same with everything else, the specialists and books and all....”
    I frowned. There was no way I was losing my chance at Evanston over some brat! “Wait. You mean, he’s been blind two months and he hasn’t learned how to adapt at all? He’s just been moping around here?”
    Mrs. Edmund shifted uncomfortably. “Well, he is an adult....”
    “Then he shouldn’t be allowed to weasel out of things like a child!” I said a little too enthusiastically. Checking myself, I spoke firmly, “Just this once, don’t listen to Tristan. You hired me for a job; let me do it.”
    “You want to baby-sit my brother? What’s wrong with you?” Chris asked, leaning into the den from the hall.
    I shot eye-daggers in his direction.
    “Christopher John, this doesn’t involve you!” snapped Mrs. Edmund. Once the little imp had moved from view, she said slowly, “I think you have a point. Even if you just sit with him, he won’t be alone....”
    “Great!” I jumped to my feet before she had a chance to change her mind. “Where is he? In the closet again?”
    “No,” grumbled Chris, who stood in the hallway with his arms crossed, “he’s in his room ‘cause he thought you wouldn’t come back.”
    I followed him while he headed toward the stairs and mused, “So, the closet stunt was because of me?”
    I could feel the boy rolling his eyes. “ No . He does that whenever he’s mad or depressed—which is a lot.”
    This kid knew quite a bit. As I climbed the stairs, I wondered how else he could help me with Tristan. Chris and I passed the infamous closet door, which was once again closed, but still gave my stomach the nauseous feeling. We turned the corner where I’d seen Tristan disappear. Chris stopped at a doorway down the hall and waved his hands frantically, as if I wouldn’t realize whose room it was.
    Suddenly feeling like I was intruding, I tiptoed up to the doorway. Glancing down at Chris, I pointed inside and mouthed, “Are you going in?”
    The boy’s face split into a malicious grin and he swept his head back and forth in a resounding “No way!”
    I glared at him and, still trying to keep silent, peered into the room. Tristan’s bedroom was easily three times the size of mine. Leaning solemnly against the wall to my right was a white cane—the long, skinny kind that I’d never before thought of belonging to someone my age. There was something barren about this room. The glaringly-white walls didn’t have a single picture—who doesn’t have any decorations on their walls?
    His bed was a king-sized black monster whose head rested against the left wall and whose feet protruded into the room. I was so overcome by its size that I didn’t initially realize that there was a body lying on it: Tristan’s body. In one moment, my breath caught—he must have seen me staring!—and, in the next, I nearly laughed at the impossibility. Then I felt guilty for thinking such a rude thing.
    Tristan was lying on top of the comforter with his back propped up by pillows. He was breathing steadily, so I deluded myself into thinking that he was asleep. With this belief, I calmly slid into the room and observed him more clearly than from my previous on-the-floor vantage. He was dressed nicely enough, with a black t-shirt and expensive-looking jeans. He was like a statue of an Abercrombie & Fitch model...not that I was ever one to lose it over a guy’s looks.
    For no reason at all, I wondered if he smelled good. Then the statue seethed, “It’s you , isn’t it?” and the innocent thought was smashed hard and ground into the floor until it was nothing more than a smudge. I jumped, literally jumped, about three feet into the air. His head turned with horror-movie slowness in my direction and I did the first thing that popped into my head: I waved. I waved at him, a blind person—I waved at a blind person ! And