Vision (18 page)

“Were there any other symptoms? I’ve been told about your headaches, extreme light sensitivity, quickly deteriorating visual acuity. Anything else, like odd smells or sudden total vision loss?”

Bobby debated telling him about the terrifying premonitions and ruled against it. The man would think he was nuts. He just wanted to keep from going blind, not end up locked in a mental ward.

“I thought I smelled something burning yesterday.”

“Ahh, I see. Okay, then. I’m going to have to ask you to remove the glasses. I’m afraid this may not be pleasant for you.”

What followed was the worst ninety minutes of Bobby’s life. After a session of stabbing lights, prodding, poking, burning drops, MRIs, and a lot of apologizing, Bobby was delivered to the waiting room, his eyes tearing, glasses off, unable to see a thing.

“It’s only temporary, Bobby,” the doctor reassured him.

“We’ll go to the park,” Gabe said cheerfully. “I have a blanket and I bought some delicious sandwiches for us from this great Italian bistro.”

The blanket on the grass was an island in the middle of a stormy sea.

“Bobby? You haven’t said a thing. Was it that bad?”

“I’d rather not talk about it. You said there’s going to be music here?”

“In about an hour. I found us a good spot. Not too close to the speakers, but not too far away. They’re setting up right now.”

He reached for Gabe’s hand. “Would it be okay if you just kept holding my hand?”

“It would be fine, Bobby.”

They ate, and Gabe was right. The sandwiches she had gotten for them were amazing. “Max should serve these at the Grill,” Bobby said.

“He’s planning on it.”

After they’d finished eating, Bobby lay down on the blanket, the sun’s rays hot on his face. Gabe talked softly, describing their surroundings. He let himself drift, more interested in the notes in her voice he’d never noticed, the beautiful, warm textures he vowed to capture with his guitar. Her smell. The rhythm of her breathing beside him.

Her. So close to him.

“He knows how I feel about you,” she said suddenly, the bluntness of her statement pushing through the dreamy haze of his attention.

“And how exactly is that?” he murmured.

Gabe squeezed his hand surprisingly hard. “If you haven’t figured that out, you’re an even bigger blockhead than I suspected.”

Bobby lay still, almost tasting the crush of her lips pressed to his. Then he sat up suddenly, faced her, and smiled, seeing only the barest glimmer of light. “That’s why they call me Bobby the Blockhead.”

Gabe giggled and leaned into him, her lips to his ear.

“Daddy knows,” she whispered, “and he hasn’t fired your ass, has he? He likes you.”

Bobby rubbed the bridge of his nose, the pressure building inside of him. “Wonder if he would still like me if he knew exactly how I’m feeling right now.”

“What
are
you feeling right now, Bobby?”

The force of his want prickled hot beneath his skin, her contours forming in his mind’s eye. He imagined her pressed against his chest, the thump of her heart against his. The hell with everything else. He wanted her. He wanted her
now
.

“Why did you leave the city to come to Graxton?” he blurted.

Gabe leaned in closer, her mouth hovering inches from his, butterfly soft. He bit down on his lower lip to keep from crying out.

She nuzzled against him, fingers raking through his hair. “I needed to find out who I really am. Not who Mother thinks I am.”

“So, did you find out yet?” he gasped.

And then, all at once, her lips were on his. His will to resist was gone, lost in the rush of her heat. He drank in the taste of her—spice and salt—irresistible. He could live like this, he decided, locked forever inside a kiss with Gabe.

“I’m working on it,” she murmured.

They kissed, slowly, deliberately, his reservations gone, the need burning inside him barely contained. It made no sense to deny how their bodies curved into each other. How they were meant to fit together.

But the urgent sweetness of kissing Gabe as the band tuned up was interrupted by a sharp tug, a splinter in his conscious mind. An insistent energy pulled at him, and try as he might, he could not ignore it. Abruptly, Bobby stood, white cane in hand, and pivoted toward the source of the disturbance.

“Bobby, what on earth are you doing?”

Gabe caught up with him just as he stumbled over a low fence.

“Why did you run off like that? You could get hurt.”

“I have to see something. Spot me, okay? I need to learn how to do this, anyway.”

“In the middle of a park in Manhattan?”

“At least I’m not walking out into traffic. Stop me if I do.”

He walked tentatively ahead, the cane scraping across pavement, until he was certain the source was right in front of him.

“Hey!” someone snarled. It was a park bench.

“Sorry. Mind if I sit here?”

After some heated whispering, the bench emptied. A vivid image burned into his mind.
A ragged man sprawled on the ground beside the bench, asleep
.
The gleam of a knife
.
Laughter. The gurgling sound of the man’s last breath. The sound of running
.

He sat there frozen, terrifying images filling the dark void in horrible, lurid color.

Quickly he stood, realizing how stupid it had been to wander away from Gabe. He’d blundered ahead, unsure of where he was going.

“Bobby! Over here!” Panting, she grabbed him by both arms. “Please, don’t ever do that again!”

“Sorry. Can you do me a huge favor? Does your phone get Internet? Can you look something up for me quickly?”

“What?”

“Can you see if any murders took place here recently?”

“Madison Square Park is a pretty safe place. The murder rate in Manhattan is exaggerated.”

“That’s not why I’m wondering, Gabe,” he said.

“Okay, then. Whatever you like.” Back at the blanket, he had his answer.

“Whoa. There
was
a homeless man stabbed right in this park last week. He was asleep next to a bench. They haven’t caught the killer.”

Bobby glanced around. The colors were starting to return, dim smudges emerging against the dark.

There was no avoiding it—if they were going to be together, she had to know the truth about him.

“It was that bench,” he said, “the one I just sat on. I saw it. Saw the murder. The killer was a kid who did it as a gag to impress his friends.”

“What are you saying, Bobby?”

“I saw it, just like I saw Dana’s body and the body in the dumpster. I see things, Gabe. Things nobody else sees.”

Gabe hesitated. He wished he could see if she doubted or believed him. Or thought he was completely nuts. Or if he
was
the killer.

“Did you mention this to Dr. Constantine? Maybe, and don’t take this the wrong way, Bobby, but hallucinations could be another symptom of your, uh, problem.”

“Maybe. But in my case, the hallucinations come true.”

Gabe didn’t get the chance to reply because the band started playing. With the first blast of sound, Bobby willfully clung to the deep bass notes, the high wail of the guitar, the gritty rasp of the singer’s voice, backed up by what sounded like a chorus of angels.

He let his mind empty of murder and death, instead admitting only the taunting smell of what he thought was smoked sugar, but Gabe informed him was candied peanuts, and the warmth of her sun-heated skin against his shoulder. Her lips on his as they kissed. The shape of her earlobe, the wispy hair that grew at the nape of her neck.

The trees above glittered, a ceiling of green, white, and pale blue. As his fragile vision slowly returned, all of his senses combined to put Bobby incredibly at peace.

“Bobby,” Gabe said, after a while, “I just got a text. The doctor is ready to see you with the results.”

His insides pulled taut and adrenaline rushed into his veins, crushing his serenity. Gabe squeezed his hand. “Whatever it is, you’re going to be fine. But promise me you’ll tell him about your visions. The doctor needs to know everything if he’s going to help you.”

The receptionist led Bobby into a bright room to a seat opposite a desk. The doctor, Bobby realized after a few seconds, was already seated there. Dressed in a white lab coat, he seemed to blend in with the brightness of his surroundings.

“Hello, Bobby! We were able to get the results back quickly because we do the MRI here in-house. My radiologist confirmed what I already suspected. I would have preferred you have a parent present, but since Mr. Friend informed me of your situation, I’m going to make an exception. It’s your health, after all.”

Bobby had gone completely still.

“Are you with me, Bobby?”

“Yes.”

“Your friend mentioned to my assistant that you’ve also had some other symptoms, very vivid hallucinations that seemed real to you. It’s not unheard of.”

“But mine came true, Doctor. I saw things that actually happened, before they happened.”

“I understand. Interesting,” he said, scribbling in a notepad. “Would you like your young lady friend in here to accompany you? I’m about to share some very difficult news.”

“No, thank you. I can handle it.”

“Okay, then.”

Bobby swallowed hard, palms damp. The doctor took him by the arm across the room to what looked like a wall of light. “I have the results of your MRI here. I’ve had the staff enlarge it significantly so you can see it.”

In front of him was a large grey square with swirly, light-gray shapes inside a medium-gray blob. The image made no sense to him at all.

“This is your brain, Bobby.” The doctor pointed to a spot on the blob. “You see this dark area here? This is a mass coiled around your optic nerve—the source, I believe of your headaches and failing vision.”

Bobby squinted at the mass. The floor seemed to liquefy under his feet.

“What is it?”

“It’s a tumor. A tumor growing in your brain. It’s benign, which means it’s not going to kill you, but if it’s not removed, you will go permanently blind. And quickly.”

He stood blinking, opening and closing his hands. His eyes burned. Maybe it would have been better not to know. Better to let the dark creep in slowly like nightfall, instead of fearing the moment the light would leave and never come back.

“Can it be—can it be removed?” he blurted. The doctor brought him back to his seat and offered him a glass of water.

“It’s a very risky, very experimental procedure. I’ll have to cast a wide net to find someone with the expertise to do the surgery. Then there’s the cost. And,” added the doctor, “the very real possibility that you’ll die on the operating table.”

“Oh.”

“I’m sorry, Bobby, not to have better news. But you have people who care a lot about you. People who will help you adjust. You’re young, strong, and adaptable.”

Bobby closed his eyes. He didn’t want any visual record of the moment he learned the awful truth.

“But I assure you, Bobby, I am going to pool all of my resources to help you as best I can. In the meantime, I have a prescription for the headaches, which should help you manage the pain, and for the light sensitivity, which will dissipate, unfortunately, as your eyesight dims.”

“So, eventually I won’t be able to see anything. Not even light and shadow.”

“We don’t know that. It depends on how the tumor grows. If it stops soon, your vision may stabilize. It’s small yet, but these types of growths can be quite aggressive.”

Bobby sat, flexing and unflexing his hands. He didn’t want to open his mouth, because if he did, he would start screaming and might not be able to stop.

Max took them out to dinner at a very exclusive restaurant, all wavering lights and the gentle clink of glasses. Bobby envied the busboys who worked there, untroubled by the knowledge that soon they wouldn’t be able to see the dishes they removed, or even the tables beneath them.

“I want to keep working, Max. Until I can’t.”

“That’s fine, Bobby.”

He didn’t speak through the rest of dinner, just methodically speared his food and chewed it. No. He wasn’t going to feel sorry for himself.

The clock might be running out on him, but he still had a murderer to catch.