Love Is Blind (11 page)

“I’m glad you came.”

Eric looked as handsome as ever in his
jeans and long sleeved grey t-shirt that probably cost more than my entire wardrobe.  We were in his car pulling up outside the venue where the concert was being held.  He’d been surprised when I’d called him and said I’d take him up on his offer of a free ticket, but he’d sounded pleased. 

And he’d been nothing but nice to me from the moment he’d pulled into the drive to pick me up.

“I’m glad to be here,” I replied.  It was the truth.  Not only was I eager to see my long-time favorite band, but I was also desperate for a distraction.

Normally I’m the type to avoid big crowds but I told myself all eyes would be on the band, not my birthmark.  And besides, once the show started the lights would go down and it would be dark inside.  I loved the dark.  I felt at ease in the dark.
  I was made for the dark.

We made our way inside, pausing to give our tickets to the guys at the door.  They slapped wristbands on us and off we went.  If Eric noticed the curious and occasionally startled looks I got when people got a good look at my face – and I’m sure he did – he said nothing. 

“I guess we’re a little early,” Eric said apologetically. 

I looked around.  It was true.  People slowly trickled in but the place was still quite empty.  It looked like we’d have a little time to kill before the show started.
  I didn’t mind.  Having never been to an actual concert before, I was happy to just take everything in and enjoy the atmosphere.

“I don’t mind.”

“So I’m curious,” Eric changed the subject.  “Have you listened to that CD at all?”

“Quite a bit, actually,” I confessed.  “It’s good…very good.”

His smile widened and I couldn’t help but notice how perfectly straight and perfectly white they were.  “I’m glad you think so.  They’re one of my favorite bands.  I’ll let you know if they ever come to town,” he promised.  “If they do, we’ll have to check them out.”

Most people probably wouldn’t have thought much of a comment like that.  But I’d spent pretty much my whole life in self-imposed exile, locked away in the safety of my room or taking refuge in the library. 
To have Eric just casually mention that we should get together again sometime meant a lot.

No one was forcing him to be nice to me.  No one was twisting his arm to make him apologize for his past transgressions.  He couldn’t take his cruel words back but he could be different going forward.  Maybe, I reasoned, he really did want to be my friend.

The thought was a nice one. 

Immediately, I was reminded of a conversation I’d had with Chris about whether or not people are capable of changing. 
He’d been adamant that they are.  I hadn’t been so sure.  But maybe I’d been wrong.  Maybe I just hadn’t wanted to admit that I was having trouble letting go of the past. 

So what if I didn’t know how to forgive?  I’d learn.  I’d adapt.  I’d stop seeing myself as the bullied
victim who hid away from the world between the pages of a book.  I’d stop looking at Eric as the enemy.  I’d even try to quit second guessing everything Chris said to me.  If he told me he still wanted to be with me, shouldn’t his word be good enough?

“So how big
a fan of these guys are you?” Eric asked, gesturing to a poster of the band that hung on the wall beside us.  “Have you heard their early stuff from three years ago?”

“Those are some of my favorite tracks,” I replied.  “They’re so different from the new music.”

“I know, right?  The new stuff is good too, but the old stuff has, like…I don’t know…”

“Soul,” I supplied.  “It has more soul.”

Eric’s face lit up.  “Yes!  That’s exactly the way to describe it.  The new stuff is more commercial.  The older songs are just raw.”

“Passionate.”

“Exactly,” Eric replied, looking at me appreciatively.  “I never knew you were such a music buff.  I guess I didn’t know much about you at all.  None of my friends know much about music or are interested in talking about it.  It’s nice to hang out with someone who’s as into it as I am.”  He paused and looked around.  “Do you want something to drink?” he asked. 

“Actually yeah,” I nodded, realizing I was getting a little parched.  “Please.”

“Do you want to stay here to guard our spot?” he asked with a teasing grin.

I glanced around
.  “I don’t think we’re at much risk of losing it,” I told him, smiling back.  The few people who were already there seemed more interested in socializing than snagging a spot up by the stage. 

Together, we made our way out to the lobby where the concession stand was open for business. 

“Ah, so this is where everyone is,” Eric observed as we took a spot at the back of a rather long lineup.  “At least there’s going to be a good turnout tonight.  I was beginning to wonder!”

“Yep,” I murmured, glancing around apprehensively.  Like it often did, my hand crept up to my hair and, almost of its own accord, rearranged it to fall across my face.  I stared straight ahead, trying not to make eye contact with anyone.  It was easier that way.

“Hey Eric, how’s it going buddy?  Long time no see!”

I turned around in time to see a guy every bit as good looking as Eric clap him on the back.  I recognized him.  In fact, my fist had become rather well acquainted with his nose.
  I immediately looked way, not wanting him to notice me.  My heart was pounding. 

As I listened to Eric and the jerk make idle chit chat, it was hard to concentrate.
  I didn’t want to be there anymore.  I just wanted to get away.  So I bolted, moving through the crowd to put as much distance between myself and my former bully as possible. 

The only problem was that in my haste to make an emergency exit, I bumped into a bleached blonde, deeply tanned girl, causing her to spill her drink all over the front of her low cut top.

“I’m sorry!”

“Hey watch where you’re – oh my God!”  When she got a good look at my face, she immediately changed her tune.  “Don’t worry about it!” she exclaimed this so loudly and shrilly that pretty much everyone within earshot turned to stare at me.  I tried to block out their expressions when they got a good look at my face, but I knew those looks would be etched into my mind long after this humiliating ordeal ended.

I shot a desperate look in Eric’s direction and was relieved to see two things.  The first was that he appeared to be blissfully unaware of what had just happened.  Knowing he hadn’t witnessed the embarrassing scene made me feel a bit better.  The second thing I noticed was that he was standing there alone.  Thank God for small favors.

Taking a deep breath, I tried to calm myself down.  The crowd in the lobby was beginning to thin as everyone filed inside.  The band was going to start playing soon.  Maybe then I could just lose myself in the music as I’d done so many times before.  Maybe things would be alright after all…

Determined to try to make the best of a bad situation, I made my way back to Eric.

Right as I walked up behind him, someone pushed past me.  It was a group of busty, scantily clad girls making a beeline for him.  I r
ecognized them from high school.  They probably recognized me too – after all, I do have a memorable face!  But they didn’t let on that they knew me. 

I watched with a mixture of annoyance and amusement as they swarmed Eric.  I couldn’t help but see parallels between him and the guy I imagined Chris had been before his accident.  Both were handsome, popular and outgoing.  Chris had probably had girls hanging off him just like Eric did now, I thought to myself with a pang of jealousy. 

“Didn’t I see that chick with flesh eating disease standing here with you a minute ago?” one of the girls demanded as she cozied up to Eric.

“
Oh disgusting!” the second one exclaimed, her voice tinged with repulsion.  “I remember Zombie Girl!  It looked like her face was rotting and about to fall off at any minute!”

“That’s how flesh eating disease works!” the first girl informed her.

I waited for Eric to interject.  I waited for him to explain that I didn’t have flesh eating disease – or any other disease, for that matter.  I waited for him to become offended on my behalf and brusquely inform them that it was rude and unnecessary to call me Zombie Girl or any other name that wasn’t my own.  I waited for him to become indignant and insist that they stop being so ignorant.

But he didn’t do any of those things. 

Instead, he merely stood there grinning stupidly and basking in the attention.

But then it got even worse.

“You’re not like, here with her, are you?” Bimbo #1 asked.

“Oh God, tell me you’re not dating her!” Bimbo #2 wailed.  “Can you imagine waking up to
that
every morning?  Oh my God, I’d just
die
!”  She made a face to prove her point.

Both girls collapsed in a fit of giggles.

“I’m not dating her,” Eric said defensively.  He said it with such contempt in his voice that I was momentarily taken aback.  I mean, it’s not like we were at the concert on a date…but the
way
he denied it was like a slap in the face.

He was ashamed of me.  He’d had no problem hanging out with me, sometimes even in public, as long as no one he knew saw.  But the second his superficial, idiotic friends were around he reverted back to the douchebag he’d always been. 

I should have known better.

Tears pricked at my eyes as I ran out of the venue and into the night.  I’d been right all along, though I wished that wasn’t the case.  People can’t change.  Or rather, they don’t change.  I felt stupid for having ever let myself believe otherwise.

“How was the show?”

It was Sunday morning. 
The doorbell had rung and when I’d opened the door Chris had been standing on the front step.  He’d just turned up unannounced, informing me with a grin that he’d love to watch Sunday morning cartoons with me on the couch.

So there we were, each with a bowl of cereal in our hand.  But he wasn’t watching the cartoons.  He was paying more attention to me than the TV screen.  I think he could tell something was wrong but wasn’t sure if he should come right out and ask.

“I didn’t stay for it,” I replied, picking at a hole in the toe of my sock just so I didn’t have to look him in the eye.  Lately I’d been noticing that even when Chris looked at me, it seemed like he was almost looking through me, or occasionally at whatever was immediately behind me.  The only explanation I could come up with was he couldn’t stand the sight of me.  That theory gave me a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach.

“Did something happen?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”  My tone was frigid.

“Uh, okay.  So I’m going out to grab a bite with some buddies this afternoon.  Join us?”

I felt anger boil up inside me.  “Are these the same so-called friends who stopped visiting you after your accident?” I demanded, feeling indignant.

“Well yeah, but I don’t hold it against them.  I wasn’t exactly easy to be around.  I was an –”

“Asshole.”

He blinked, momentarily looking like he wasn’t sure if I was finishing his sentence or calling him a rude name.  To be honest, I wasn’t sure either.

I set my bowl full of soggy, milk-saturated cereal down on the coffee table with a loud clink.  Wrapping my arms around myself tightly, I turned to look at him.  It wasn’t a coincidence that I’d positioned two fluffy throw pillows between us, a barrier to prevent him from trying to touch me or be intimate in any way.  They weren’t all that different from the walls I was hastily reconstructing around my heart.

“Michelle, what is it?”

“When I described my birthmark to you, what did you envision?” I demanded.

“Huh?”

“You thought it was just some cute tiny red freckle, didn’t you?  You thought that I was exaggerating when I tried to tell you how big and red and ugly it is.  You didn’t believe me when I tried to warn you…”

“Warn me about what?”  It was Chris’s turn to set his cereal bowl down.  Now his attention was focused solely on me.  He had a bewildered and slightly panicked expression on his face, like he knew I was about to drop a bomb on him but didn’t
understand what he’d done to provoke me.

I tried a different approach.  “When you saw me for the first time, were you surprised?”

“Well…yeah,” he nodded, dumbfounded.  “I had no idea what to expect.  I mean, I knew you had brown hair and green eyes but it’s
weird
seeing someone you already know so well for the very first time, you know?”

“Were you disappointed?”

“Michelle.”

I blinked back tears.  “You were, weren’t you?” I insisted.  “It’s okay.  You can’t help it if you’re not attracted to me.  Hell,
I
wouldn’t be attracted to me.  But why string me along?  Why not end things right then and there instead of dragging it out?”

“
Okay, so maybe things have changed.  I feel it too.  But it has nothing to do with the way you look, Michelle.  I would have been caught off guard even if you’d been a supermodel,” he began.

“…Instead of a monster,”
I finished, cutting him off.

Irritation flashed on Chris’s face.  “Quit putting words in my mouth.  That isn’t at all what I was going to say.  Michelle, you’re acting crazy.”

“You treat me differently now,” I insisted.  I knew I hadn’t imagined that part.

“What does that
even mean?”

“I don’t know, I can’t explain it.  You just…
treat me differently.”

His jaw clenched in annoyance.  “Did you ever think about how weird it is for me to suddenly be able to see you after I’d pretty much accepted that I never would?  Have you even stopped to consider what I’ve been through?” he asked tersely.  “Or are you too busy being insecure about how you look to even think about the emotional rollercoaster I’ve been on lately?”

“I stayed on the phone with you for hours when you were in Norway!” I reminded him, upset that he’d forgotten so easily.  “I tried to distract you and keep you calm and reassure you that no matter what happened, everything would work out.”

“Yeah, you were the perfect girlfriend until…”

“…Until what?” I demanded, my voice shriller than I would have liked.  “You were going to say until you saw me, weren’t you?  That’s when everything went to hell.”

“No,” he replied, his eyes flashing with anger.  “
But it almost seems like you were rooting against me, Michelle, like you wanted the procedure to fail.”

“I can’t believe you’d say that.  That’s a horrible thing to say!”

“I know it is.  It’s a horrible thing to wish on someone else, too.  But can you honestly say it’s not a little bit true?  Sometimes I wonder if you wanted me to be blind forever so you could pretend to be someone you’re not.”

“Pretty?”

“Someone comfortable in her own skin,” he corrected me.

I was deeply insecure and I knew it, but I’d spent years trying to hide it from everyone else.  Chris had touched on a nerve.   I lost it right then, flipping out on him.

“Like your old girlfriends?” I shot back, feeling my face redden and my fists clench.  “I bet they weren’t insecure like me, were they?  They probably all looked like supermodels.  I bet they weren’t scared to fuck you with the lights on, huh?”  The tears that had been welling up were spilling down my cheeks now.  “I bet you thought I was pathetic when I shut the lights off even though you couldn’t see…”

“I didn’t.  Actually,” he told me, his voice quiet and sad, “I thought it was sweet.”

Playboy
…his nickname had been
Playboy
.  He told me himself how he’d used girls up and tossed them aside like they were disposable.  Chris was no different than Eric.  In fact, maybe he was worse.  He crushed dreams and broke promises.  He only cared about getting in stupid girls’ panties, the chase.

And I’d been one of those stupid girls.  After so carefully constructing a fortress around myself, I’d allowed Chris in. 
I’d given myself to him in every way.  I’d trusted him when he’d told me he’d changed.  I’d been all too happy to believe him when he’d said I was different, when he’d promised he’d never hurt me the way he’d hurt so many before me.  I’d been an idiot.

“The condom in your pocket,” I muttered, feeling like I might throw up.

“Pardon?” he replied, giving me a strange look.

I looked at him blankly as revulsion, anger and betrayal washed over me.  “The night before you went to Norway, you came over to my place with a condom in the pocket of your jeans,” I told him, my voice flat and devoid of emotion even as I was self-destructing inside.  “You planned to have sex with me that night.  I was just another conquest to you.  And I fell for it.”

“That’s really what you think?” Chris demanded. 

I was disgusted with myself for being so gullible.  For a while, I’d almost started to believe Chris when he’d acted like I was special.
  Now I just felt used, deceived and foolish.

I’d already broken one rule.  I’d given my heart away, recklessly and hastily.  I wasn’t about to break my second rule:  never let anyone see me cry.  The only problem was I couldn’t stop the tears from coming no matter how hard I tried.

I stood up, hands on my hip. 

Chris looked up at me, his eyes searching mine. 

“I think you’d better go,” I told him icily.

“
You’re kidding me, right?  At least hear me out first?”

“You’ve already gotten what you wanted!” I exploded, the tears coming fast and hard now.  “You got me to fall for your stupid lines.  You made me think I wasn’t just some pathetic conquest.  You made me think you actually cared!  Nobody ever changes.  You told me yourself you were an asshole before your accident, so gue
ss what that means?”

Chris stood up, his eyes never leaving mine.  When he spoke his voice was firm and unwavering, but I could see that his hands were balled up in fists at his sides.  “You know,” he said, “I could never imagine you losing your mind outside the grocery store and attacking other people…until now.  You’re a mess, Michelle, and I’m not talking about your face.”

He let himself out and not a moment too soon.  As he shut the door behind him, the cereal bowl crashed against it, shattering into a million little pieces.