I Let Them Think I Was Still Blind

I lost my sight when I was ten, shoving Chase Whitaker out of the way of a firework he'd lit on the beach.

Three weeks ago a surgeon in Boston took the bandage off my eyes and I could see again. The only people who knew were my parents.

I was saving it for my eighteenth birthday party. Wait for the cake, take off the dark glasses I'd worn for eight years, and say his name while I looked straight at him.

Chase had been my boyfriend since we were fourteen. Last summer our families made it official over dinner, a ring and a toast and a wedding after college.

At 8:40 I read the message on his phone.

Honestly? Sometimes I wish that firework had just finished the job.

He was sitting on my left with the screen turned toward Tyler, his co-captain on the lacrosse team, a foot and a half from my face.

The whole table laughed at once.

"Sorry, sorry." Brynn, who'd been my friend since sixth grade, raised her voice for me the way people do. "Hazel, Tyler sent this video. It's so bad."

The chat kept scrolling under Chase's thumb.

Tyler: save that one. when she can finally see, somebody has to show her

Brynn: who's gonna want a blind girl lol chase is literally a saint

Tyler: she ran into that firework on her own btw 😂

Chase didn't correct him. He typed, ok ease up, she did save my life, and then, nobody screenshot this.

I closed my hand around the grip of my cane.

He felt me move. His eyes went to my glasses, then down to the cane leaning against the table leg. When I didn't turn my head, his shoulders dropped.

He rubbed my arm. "You cold, babe? They keep this room freezing."

"I'm okay."

"Ten more minutes and we'll do cake." He kissed the side of my head. His thumb never stopped moving on the phone.

Tyler tipped his chair back. "Honestly? I'd take blind if I got a girl like Hazel out of it."

They all laughed, and I smiled, because that's what I'd done at that table for two years.

Kenzie Doyle dropped into the seat on my right with a plate she had no intention of eating from. She'd been the team's manager for two years, and she'd spent those two years telling everyone she was just one of the guys.

"Okay, that's enough out of you," she told Tyler. "Some of us are nice."

She was wearing a thin silver chain with a little star on it. I'd never seen it before.

Kenzie: prove it then

Kenzie: kiss me. right here. she can't see anything anyway

Chase found my hand under the table and laced his fingers through mine.

Then he leaned across my shoulder and kissed her.

I was close enough to hear it. Phones came up around the table, four or five screens lighting at the same time.

Kenzie sat back and wiped her thumb across her lip. "Fine," she said out loud. "I believe you."

Chase: happy now?

He squeezed my hand. "You want water, babe? You look pale."

"I'm fine."

"Say the word and I'll take you home. I don't care about any of this."

Brynn leaned into my arm. "He's been staring at you all night, Hazel. It's honestly gross."

"Thanks," I said.

The lights went down. Somebody by the door started the song and everyone picked it up, loud and off-key, while a server wheeled the cake in.

Chase took my wrist and set my hand flat on the table edge so I'd know which way to face. Down at the other end, one of the moms who'd come by to drop off ice said, "He's so good with her."

Then he put his mouth against my ear. "Make a wish, Hawkeye. I love you."

He was looking at Kenzie when he said it.

"Oh my God, it's gorgeous," Kenzie announced. "Hazel, it says To my forever girl, and there's a little heart."

The cake said HAPPY 18TH HAWKEYE in blue icing. Under the letters somebody had piped two X's, the way you'd draw eyes on a cartoon that just got hit with an anvil.

Eighteen candles. A dozen phones pointed at my face.

He'd started calling me Hawkeye when we were eight, because I spotted the dolphins off his family's dock before anyone else could. He kept using it after the accident. Everyone thought that was sweet too.

At the winter formal, Brynn told me he'd watched me from across the room all night. In March they passed a photo around and described it for me, his hand on my back, both of us laughing at something. Kenzie said it was the cutest picture she'd ever seen.

My hand was already halfway to my glasses. I put it back in my lap.

If they knew, they'd have about three seconds to fix their faces. Chase would call it a joke, Kenzie would cry, and I'd spend the rest of my life believing whatever they told me next.

I didn't blow out the candles.

Somebody turned the lights back on. Kenzie grabbed for Chase's phone and he held it up out of her reach, and the two of them wrestled for it behind my chair, laughing, knocking my shoulder hard enough to rock the table.

"Kenzie, you're going to knock her over," Brynn said, laughing while she said it.

"Relax." Kenzie was out of breath. "He's basically my brother."

Nobody at that table looked up. The server started cutting the cake.

I found my cane and stood.

Kenzie got in front of me before I took a step, and her voice lost all of its sugar.

"Everybody drove out here for you. You didn't even blow out your candles and you're just leaving?"