Page 21 of First Kiss with a Mothman

And what a man he is. His tall, lean body is the stuff of dreams. He has a chiseled jaw and likely a muscled torso as well. Even his sour expression doesn’t diminish his super-model-level good looks. I thought his character and voice were hot, but I get why a visual person would want to swoon over him.

Then he looks at me. He visibly panics before shaking his head, attempting to play it cool. While his buddies all go to order from Seth, Mort approaches me.

Shit. I shake my head and relinquish the tether between Reginald and me. My bird feels so distressed when I push out his consciousness into who-knows-where, and I’m silently grateful he hasn’t run away from me yet. I don’t enjoy hurting Reginald, even temporarily. Besides, I don’t enjoy being overwhelmed by visuals anyway.

My disability is part of who I am; this is my existence. But taking a peek at my crush was just too tempting to pass up.

“Hey, Arie.”

“Mort? Is that you?” I push up my sunglasses, trying to feign ignorance.

“Yeah. Let me guess, my wings gave it away.”

We share a soft laugh. “Actually, I just recognize your voice. Wanna sit?”

“I’m with my frat, but…” He pauses and appears to wander off. “Okay, they went to go chat with some other people. I’m here now.”

“Awesome. How was your week?”

“It was fine. I skipped orchestra because my parts were boring.”

“Ah, that’s why I didn’t catch you.”

“Yeah, sorry.”

“But you’ve caught me here at the coffee shop. I didn’t even have to text you or anything, eh?” I tap the plastic rim of my cup. “Be careful―you might make a boy feel special.”

He coughs and clears his throat. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say my mild flirting is making him flustered. Maybe Mort does have some interest in me beyond the platonic.

“Yeah, um, I actually had something to tell you.”

His serious tone gives me pause, but I slap on a smile and sit up straight. “What’s up?”

“I…well, I don’t know how to say this.”

“Is this about my cousin talking about your old TV show? Because I never watched it.” My cousin forced me to listen to a clip, but that felt very invasive, so I shut it down quickly.

“No. Not thrilled about that, but…”

“You haven’t spoken to me all week. I thought you ditched me.” I laugh self-consciously as I pet Reginald on the table.

“I was just…busy with work and classes, but…” I can hear him wince when he says, “I did something bad.”

My smile falls. “What?”

“After we did laundry, I found this note on the floor. You must have dropped it.”

The blood leaves my face, but I try not to visibly show how freaked out I am. “Mm hm?”

“It’s in Braille.” Please don’t say you translated it. “And I translated it.”

“Oh.” My heart sinks into depths unknown. I naively thought that since I’m the only blind guy on campus, no one would be able to read my note if they found it. But you can do anything with the internet, I suppose. This is what I get for misplacing my stuff.

And now the monster I’m growing close to knows all my secrets.

“Arie, I am…so sorry.”

I try to tamp down the embarrassment and attempt to be pragmatic. “Why did you translate it? I didn’t think anyone would care to interpret all that Braille.”