A Glimpse of the Dream (17 page)

Kane was blind.

I was having trouble getting my head around that. What had happened to him? How had he lost his sight? Why would he have kept that from me? Jumping up from the floor and grabbing a flashlight—which caused a wicked case of déjà vu—I ran all the way to the beach. The water swirled from the churning of the little boat’s engine as I made my way to the island.

Climbing from the boat, I ran to the house. Zeus heard me before I even knocked, his warning growl alerting Kane. A minute later, the door pulled open.

“Why didn’t you tell me you were blind?”

Surprise flashed over his face. “Teagan.”

“Why?”

“Come in.” He held the door for me. I stepped in, was greeted by Zeus, but I didn’t move into the room, staying close to the door.

My pulse was pounding in my throat, the back of my eyes were burning, and I had a thousand questions on the tip of my tongue, but the only one I kept asking was, “Why?” Disbelief had morphed into devastation, but my anger was growing to rival it.

“What gave it away?” A touch of humor laced through his deep voice.

“You were very convincing, but I lived in that house too, I saw the changes. What happened to you?”

He pulled a hand through his hair, his sightless eyes staring right into mine as if he could see me. Somehow he managed to navigate himself to stand on the other side of the room. I didn’t understand why he needed to put the room between us, but I moved on from that slight. His face was completely blank, almost as if he didn’t hear me. I really thought he wasn’t going to say anything and then I saw it, the slip in the armor, the crack that offered a glimpse into the tormented man it hid. His mouth opened, the words tumbling over each other as if he were relieved to finally get it all off his chest. “There was a fire in town, the volunteers were called in. The O’Malleys’ old ice cream parlor at the end of Main Street—by the time we got there, the place was completely engulfed. We were going to let it burn, since the risk to the other shops was minimal, and then I saw the kid. My guess, there probably had been a few kids inside smoking, since kids have been doing that since the place closed down. They were most likely the ones who’d set the fire. One of them got trapped when she tried to put the fire out.”

Dread rippled over me, like icy fingers down my spine. “A fire?” Kane wouldn’t have yanked himself from my life, left me broken and alone, because he had gone blind. No, whatever had happened to him had been significantly worse.

“What happened in the fire? How did you lose your sight?”

“Teagan, there’s no point.”

“How did you lose your fucking sight?”

“A beam fell, trapped me under it. Retina detachment caused my blindness.”

A beam fell, a burning beam. Oh my God. “Lift your shirt.”

“What?”

“Lift your fucking shirt.”

His face went hard as he pulled his shirt off. I couldn’t help but gasp, nor could I stop the tears that spilled down my cheeks. His skin, his beautiful skin, was scarred, twisted and red up and over his shoulder from his left pectoral. My feet forced me around his back, and my tears fell harder, because half of his back and up to his neck were also scarred.

“Oh my God,” I said through a strangled cry. And then the reality of what had really happened to him nearly shattered me. Burned, blind, and alone. I had never felt heartache so severely. “Oh my God.”

“Tea?”

My teary eyes looked up into his, into those beautiful blue eyes that I had thought were dead. I ran, fled down the beach and back to the boat. Somehow I managed to get to my room before I stumbled, falling to my hands and knees. Curling into myself, I tried forcing air into my lungs, and, when I exhaled, the sound that ripped from my throat was inhuman. All these years I had cursed him, hated him for living the dream without me, but he hadn’t been. He had almost died, but then he’d lived: burned, scarred, in excruciating pain, and having to deal with all that horror in the dark. The force of my sobs made my ribs ache. Rocking back and forth, I completely broke down.

Kane

Her scent, that had haunted me all these years, still lingered. I wanted her. My body ached for her.

“Fuck.” Clenching my hands, I wanted to smash something, wanted to rage, but I’d been there, done that, and afterward I always had a mess to clean up that I couldn’t even see. My Tea had finally come home. Had finally learned my secret, and it revolted her—she couldn’t bear to look at me. I didn’t blame her, and yet the agony that sliced through me made the pain from my burns seem like nothing.

Needing a distraction so I didn’t tear my house apart and despite the fact that it was late, I started toward the backyard. I had spent years learning my house, how many steps to get to any room, to any spot on this island. The high bar I had installed between two large trees had seen me through so many bouts of anger. Pulling myself up was like second nature, curling and lifting, releasing.

How could I have known going into that building all those years ago would have changed my life so completely? Looking back on it, I hadn’t been focused. First rule of fire—complete focus. But I’d had Tea on my mind. She had said yes; she had agreed to marry me. I hadn’t stopped flying from the moment I’d slipped my ring on her finger. In truth, I’d felt almost invincible; she’d made me feel invincible. And when I saw the terrified face in the window, I didn’t even hesitate. How could I not try? It would have haunted me my whole life knowing I hadn’t done everything I could have. As it turned out, I was still haunted, but I’d also lost my life, or the one I had so very much wanted, the one that included Tea.

The fire had been so hot that every man who went in had to come back out, none even getting close to the girl. I didn’t think; I just ran in and managed to get through the blaze. There was only one kid left, barely a teenager, the O’Malley girl. She hadn’t run fast enough, and her friends, not much of ones, hadn’t waited for her. We had just reached the door when the beam fell. I feared she had been hit too, but I learned later she had gotten out.

Feeling my skin burning, the smoke suffocating me, I willed the fire to take me, to end it fast, and, even wishing for that, my eyes teared up, because I knew just how devastated Tea would’ve been from the loss, knew it because the idea of losing her was unbearable.

Lying in that hospital, I’d wanted to die. I was close, knew somehow that everyone was just waiting for me to die. I’d been conscious long enough to demand of Mrs. Marks that she not call Tea. She was horrified, outraged that I would deny Tea her chance at saying good-bye. But I remembered how much she had hated seeing her parents being buried. I wouldn’t do that to her, make her last memory of me in a box. I wanted her to see us swimming to our island or laughing over some joke we’d played on each other. I wanted her to remember my body over hers as I moved deeply inside her, connected and bound. I wanted her final memory of me to be on the side of that road when I dropped to my knee and asked her to marry me. I wanted her to remember all that was good and not me burned and broken.

Weeks later, when I was brought out of the medically induced coma, I opened my eyes and saw the same as when they were closed. The doctors explained the burns and the years of treatments I was going to need, explained that the blindness was permanent. I knew I had to set Tea free. At the sound of her voice when I called and told her I had found someone else, I heard her spirit die. I hated myself for that, would always hate myself for that. But she deserved more than the life that stretched out before me.

The pain of the recovery almost rivaled that in my heart. She never came. Even though I had told her I no longer wanted her, she knew how much I loved her—and yet she’d believed the lie. And it was then that I realized she had already been pulling away—not taking my calls, not coming home for Thanksgiving when she had been so upset about leaving me only three months before. Even the way she handled my defection had been almost callously cool. Being away from me, and around so many others with similar interests, she had finally realized that I was just a convenience. I would have dragged my body to the cliff and walked off it, had I been able to see, had I not been as helpless as a child: dependent on everyone around me.

Two years after the fire, Mrs. Marks finished what I had started. I hadn’t initially gone off with Tea when she’d moved to Boston, because I’d needed six months for the plans for our house. Mrs. Marks offered me the island, but I wanted to pay for the house myself. I had hired an architect to draw up the plans for the house that Tea and I had both envisioned. I’d intended to show up in Boston with the blueprints to our home, my engagement gift to her. After the fire, Mrs. Marks found them and had the house built. She gave me part of our dream. Mrs. T came to clean and bring me groceries, my nurse stayed with me for years, helping me to adapt to not only the blindness but the limitations of my body due to the scars. That was one thing I could change; I worked out, rebuilt the muscles, forced my body to adapt.

The town had given me a rather large settlement. I didn’t want it. What was the point of it when I couldn’t leave my fucking house and the person I wanted with me was far away? So the money sat in my bank account collecting interest.

I was haunted by the memory of my last encounter with Tea when she’d returned home from school. Hearing the heartbreak and pain in her voice at seeing me, I knew I had been wrong, that she had loved me as I did her.

But I had ceased being the boy she’d loved. There was nothing I could give her, and taking her away from the life she was building for herself so she could become a hermit with me was selfish. I felt guilty about lying to Tea, telling her my nurse was Doreen, and worse, my wife, but I’d had to get her to go, and I didn’t know how else to make her. In that moment, I was glad for my blindness. Seeing the look on her face, and knowing I’d caused it, would have broken me. She was better off without me, there was no doubt in my mind and heart about that. But hearing her, being near her, only reinforced the simple truth: how much I had missed her, wanted her, only her, always her.

Her words to me earlier, about how I had broken her and callously turned away from her, tormented me. My intention had been to spare her pain, not cause it. I had known my actions from all those years ago would’ve initially caused her pain, but I’d really believed she would have moved on and found happiness again. She hadn’t, though, and I didn’t need the words to know the pain she still felt—her voice dripped with it. It took every shred of willpower I possessed to not pull her into my arms at the boatyard, the same reason I’d had to put the distance of the room between us just now. I wanted her, but I wasn’t just burned and blind, wasn’t just battling all the insecurities that came along with my life now. I had other lingering problems from the trauma that made me unfit to be around people. Limited exposure was okay, but building a life with Tea when I was so fucked up was not fair to her, despite how much I still really wanted that.

I dropped from the bar, my muscles sore and tired, and yet still my body ached for her. Moving to the bathroom, I turned on the water and stripped. I liked the water as hot as I could stand it, because it forced me to feel. A dispenser for soap and shampoo hung from the wall, something Mrs. T filled for me during her weekly visits. Feeling the cold liquid in my palm, I massaged it into a lather before wrapping my hand around my erection, my other hand pressing against the tile, my head lowered as I thought of my Tea.

Teagan

I lay on the floor, staring at the ceiling. I’d cried so hard and for so long, I was numb. Shock had settled in, part of the reason the pain I had felt seeing Kane’s scars had ebbed.

Maybe it was wrong of me to feel anger, but I did. I should have been at his side, and instead he had pushed me from his life—not just pushed but ripped me out of it. I understood, as much as I hated it, what had motivated him. Had it been me, I would have done the same, spared him from the agony and horror, and yet I was still pissed.

Blind. I still couldn’t quite believe it. He walked around very well for a man who couldn’t see. For someone like him to have to live in perpetual darkness—someone who loved looking out at the sea, loved watching the sun rise and set, loved seeing the world—was cruel.

He’d gone into a burning building to save someone. That was my Kane. Always the first to lend a hand, always offering so much of himself. And despite how it all turned out, love burned in me to know that the boy I adored was still there, in the man he had become.

How had he survived the nightmare? Even trying to put myself in his shoes, I knew I couldn’t possibly appreciate the terror he must have felt and lived through for so long. And was still living through, being forced to learn how to live with limitations he never thought he’d have.

Wanting to understand, wanting to find that connection, I stood and closed my eyes. Trying to walk to my door, I hit my shin on the corner of the bed and nearly face-planted when my toe got caught on the edge of the rug. It was too easy, though. I knew this room. Making my way to a wing of the house I didn’t know as well, I kept the lights off, closed my eyes, and tried to find my way back to the stairs. At first, I thought I could do it, but I got disoriented, my hands reaching out for something, anything, to give me some indication where I was in relation to the door. Panic gripped me, the darkness so complete, so scary and lonely. The urge to open my eyes was strong, but Kane would never be free of the dark. My heart was pounding in my chest, and an icy chill covered my skin. True fear filled me, overwhelmed me, nearly crippled me. Even being in a room full of people, you could feel all alone: Who was near? How did you get out if you needed to? How did you find your loved ones? I couldn’t even find my way out of a room in a house I had grown up in. I fumbled around in that room for God knows how long, but I never made it to the door. Anguish accompanied my fear even knowing that Kane was adapting and learning how to compensate for his blindness. And he had learned all of this while healing for years from those burns. How much pain had he been in? And he had no ability to draw comfort from the faces of those he loved.

Defeated, I opened my eyes and made my way to the kitchen and lit a burner on the stove. I watched the blue flame come to life, grow strong. I placed my arm over it, but I couldn’t hold it there longer than a few seconds. The pain was excruciating, and the smell . . . Tears I didn’t think I had left to cry started filling my eyes again. This burn was small and it still hurt like a mother. Half of Kane’s back and chest were scarred. The fact he’d survived the pain alone was a testament to his strength. Tending my wound, I waited for morning before returning to Kane.

As his house came into view, my heart stopped beating in my chest. The house was painted green with window boxes gracing the front windows. He had built our house. Climbing from the boat, I walked to the front door and knocked. Zeus came from around the back.

“Hey. Your daddy here?” I asked, scratching behind his ear.

Following him around back, I found Kane doing pull ups on a pole anchored between two trees. The memory of him doing this when we were younger nearly brought me to my knees. We were older, different, and yet the continuity of seeing him doing something so familiar comforted me. Like in our youth, his muscles bunched and corded as he curled up and down, though they were significantly larger now.