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Ansel
“Ansel!” Bram calls toward me. “Shit! Slow down!”
I keep moving, tapping my cane fast and furious on the ground in front of me, out of Dr. Smith’s office building and onto the pavement. I never move this quickly anymore, and I barely know this area of town, so I have a feeling the exercise is just for show. If there’s anything in my path, the crash landing is going to be hard.
But I can’t stop my feet from moving.
Fucking hell. He thinks he can make me see again.
He wants me to trust him and his team to perform an intense, extremely difficult surgery that’s barely even been performed before, let alone established a solid success rate.
Coma.
Death.
Permanent brain damage.
When Dr. Smith started reading through the long list of risks, I had to get out of there.
My heart races, and the sounds of cars rolling by on the street guide me to stay on the far side of the sidewalk.
One of the first eye transplants in the country…
My boots move over the concrete as fast as I can manage, and it’s not until I accidentally bump into someone that I stop.
“Shit, sorry,” I mutter after a soft female voice squeaks out her surprise. “Are you okay?” I ask and, out of reflex, I reach out my hand, but I know my blind ass isn’t going to be able to do a damn thing to help her.
I can hardly help my fucking self.
“I’m fine,” she says, pity lacing the edge of her words. “It’s fine.”
Fuck. I want to scream, pound on my chest, and break shit like a fucking lunatic, but I rein in my frustration. It won’t do me any good.
Believe me, I’ve tried.
All it’s ever given me is a scratchy throat and a renewed sense of self-loathing.
It doesn’t take long before Bram’s footsteps catch up with me.
“You okay?”
Not even fucking close. “Yeah.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah,” I say through clenched teeth. “I’m fine.”
I inhale a deep breath and prepare myself for the onslaught of his questions and concerns and fucking hopes that have most likely been created from Dr. Smith’s big news.
But they never come.
Instead, he wraps his arm around my shoulder. “You hungry?”
“No.” I shake my head. Anything I eat right now will come back up.
“Thirsty?”
I shrug. “I guess that depends.”
“On what?”
“If you’re talking about grabbing a coffee, count me out. But if we’re talking whiskey, then yeah, I’m fucking thirsty.”
“Whiskey it is.” Bram’s chuckle fills my ears. “I know just the place.”
Three hours and four whiskeys later and I’m blessedly numb.
I don’t make a point to drown my issues in alcohol because if I did, I’d be dead from cirrhosis of the liver by now. But every once in a while, it’s needed. And today…definitely qualifies.
Dr. Smith’s news was meant to be some kind of godsend.
Some answered prayer. A fucking miracle.
But that’s not what I felt when the words came out of his mouth.
Instead, the acidic sting of hope replaced the blood in my veins, and it did it easily.
So easily, it terrifies me.
The past year has been the worst year of my life.
After the accident, I was desperate to find some sort of loophole. Something, anything, that would let me see again. But it wasn’t a wound that would mend or an illness that could be cured. My eyes were destroyed by the glass of the windshield, and there was no going back.
I hate it. Of course, I fucking despise it. But I’ve been working toward closure. Toward finding some sort of internal peace that will fill this dark void inside of me.
But now, Dr. Smith is trying to tell me there’s a possibility I could see again.
It’s downright unbelievable. Preposterous.
Unreal.
If I start to hope for it, and in the end, I’m still the blind artist who can’t paint…I won’t be able to handle it.
I’ll officially become a lost cause, and all of my effort—all of Bram’s effort—will have been for nothing.
Fuck, just drink your whiskey and stop thinking about it…
“Hello… Are you…uh…Bram Bray?” a timid female voice pulls me from my thoughts. Despite the mood that got us here—the mood that still clouds my every nuance—I can practically hear my brother’s smile.
This is the fifth or sixth woman who’s found her way into our VIP section at this bar, and every one of them wants the same thing.
A chance at Bram Bray.
My brother the rock star, ladies and gentlemen.
“I am,” Bram responds with his familiar cocky confidence.
“Oh my god,” she all but squeals. “I can’t believe this! I can’t believe I’m meeting the lead singer of New Rules! Oh my god! Oh my god!” she rambles, tripping all over her words—and likely her tongue as it lolls out of her mouth—before finally asking, “Can I…uh…take a picture with you?”
“Of course.”
Of course, I mock silently. Always so doting to his adoring fans.
