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“Would you like a guide over?” Cameron asked, and I took a step back.
“Think I’d like to find it for myself.” I heard the dog’s leash clink again, and my brow furrowed. “Do you normally bring your dog to work?”
He laughed. “Makes things a little bit easier on me. But he’ll behave. Loki, to the sofa.”
He walked ahead of me, and I managed to follow behind using the sound of his heart, though I tripped over the coffee table and nearly face-planted on the hard wood. My palms slapped the tabletop with a noise like a gunshot, and I heard Cameron’s heart give a handful of quick beats.
“That’s going to be a hazard for a while. If you’re not too attached to it, I suggest at least moving it out of the way,” he started, and I let out a small grunt as I heaved myself back to my feet and groped around for a chair. I didn’t much care if I looked ridiculous, I just wanted to plant myself somewhere steady.
“None of these things are mine. They set this up for me when I got back here,” I told him, then sighed with relief when my hand found the armchair. It was a little stiff, but it was good enough, and it was only when I was able to rest a little that I felt the ache in my chest from my heart injury. “If you think I should toss it…”
“I think it would be a good idea for you to learn how to navigate around obstacles, but you don’t need to make your living space more difficult to get around in if you don’t have to,” Cameron said. He cleared his throat, and I heard him shift a little. “Your space should accommodate you, not the other way around.”
“Blind man one-oh-one?” I asked with a grimace, and he laughed again.
“Something like that. I’d like to start off by getting the most infuriating part out of the way.” He went silent for a moment. “I know this is hard. I know you’re frustrated and angry. I know that every time you think you can do this, the realization that it’s permanent settles in and you want the world to just stop.”
My throat went tight at the words he was speaking that my lips and tongue had been too afraid to form. “I should have healed,” I told him.
“You should have never been injured,” he corrected. “Not like this. I know you know war injuries, General—”
“Kor,” I bit out. “It’s just… it’s just Kor.”
He sighed out a quiet breath. “Kor. I’m sure you’ve seen it all.”
He had no idea, but I had no plans to relive those ugly, brutal, bloody moments with a total stranger. “It’s not the same.”
He laughed, but the sound wasn’t amused or mocking. “No. No, I don’t imagine it is. I only mean that I don’t say these things to patronize you. You’re likely telling yourself that people have survived worse—and in a way, that’s true. But you’re allowed to be angry. You’re allowed to mourn what you’ve lost. You’re allowed progress and set-backs.”
I bowed my head and breathed out through my nose. “I just wanna make a damn cup of coffee. And I want to know what the fuck is in my cupboards, and to be able to get into bed without breaking my shin.”
“And to be able to brush your teeth with toothpaste instead of foot cream?” he offered, and I heard a smile in his voice.
Against my will, the corners of my mouth lifted because it was true. It was all fucking true. “I don’t know about the rest—I know being in public and having people stare at me is going to come up. But right now, I just want to be able to breathe in my own home.”
“And that is the perfect place to start. My job is to get your body back on track so you can prepare yourself for the moon shift and to make sure that you can get from point A to point B without breaking your neck in a fall.” I heard him shift again. “The techniques for that are simple, but they’re not easy.”
I couldn’t help a snort. “Yeah, well, I definitely wasn’t thinking any of this was easy.”
He made a noise—a soft huffing sort of sound. “Then I think you’re ready. And trust me, I know your frustration will be—”
“You know what?” The words tumbled out before I could stop them, but I was tired of the platitudes. “If people could stop goddamn telling me they know how this all feels, that would be great. Because no one fucking knows what this is like.”
He was quiet a long time. “I understand it’s not the same. I was only six when I lost my sight…”
He said more after that, but the words faded off into a shocked hum inside my head. He was blind. He was a blind Wolf? “Wait,” I said when he started to speak again.
Cameron was silent, but when I didn’t say anything else, he cleared his throat. “If you’re not ready to do this, Kor, we can hold off for a bit.”
My mouth opened and closed for a second before I could make the words come. “You’re blind,” I said. I heard the way the words came out—sort of flat, a little confused. He must have been able to hear my heart, the way it was stuttering in my chest, but he had enough grace not to call me on it. “You didn’t say you were blind.”
I heard him shifting around. “I assumed they would have told you.”
I shook my head, then felt like an idiot again because, just like me, the man couldn’t see the gesture. “Uh. Uh… no. No, they didn’t…” I squeezed my eyes shut. “Is that what the dog’s for?”
He chuckled. “Yes. He’s a guide dog. I would have introduced myself more properly if I’d known they hadn’t said anything about me.”
I passed a hand down my face and leaned back until I was sort of hunched with my chin near my chest. I felt a powerful want to see—just for a second. Just a quick glimpse of the room, and I hated myself for it. I was never the sort of person to deny my circumstances—my weaknesses, like when a battle was about to be lost. I hated this feeling, this need to grasp for something that was impossible, but I couldn’t turn it off.
