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“I have one,” he said through gritted teeth. “The rehab place gave me several.”
“Why don’t you use it?”
He didn’t answer and I didn’t push it. The walk was obviously stressful enough for him as it was.
We made it to Broadway with its loud, busy thoroughfare and honking taxis, running engines, and other pedestrians who crowded the sidewalk. Noah swore under his breath the third time someone brushed his shoulder.
“They’d get out of your way if they knew you were blind,” I said gently.
“They should get out of my way even if I weren’t,” he spat, but I could see his irritation was only a mask to conceal his anxiety. Sweat beaded on his brow despite a pleasant breeze, and I felt his grip on my arm tighten. Finally, he stopped short and pulled me close to him. “Charlotte…”
“It’s okay,” I told him, feeling horrible for suggesting this walk when he obviously wasn’t ready. “We’ll go back. I’ll take you back.”
“No, wait.” He stood rooted to the spot, his jaw twitching. “Just wait. Where are we?”
“Columbus and West 77th.”
“That doesn’t mean anything to me.” He heaved another breath. “Goddamn, it’s loud. Are we close?”
“We just have to cross this street, and we’re there.”
“The park is in front of us?”
“Yes.”
“Describe it.”
“Describe…?”
“Charlotte, I’m fucking drowning,” Noah breathed. “Tell me what you see.”
“Oh, right. There’s uh…a wall. A gray-ish wall with greenery spilling over it. There’s a bench just inside this wall a little ways in, along a paved path. I can see it from here. That’s where we’re going.”
He nodded and took a deep inhale. “All right. Go.”
We waited to cross Columbus, a street that was crazy-busy with speeding cars and rumbling trucks that hissed and honked. Finally, the light changed with no sounds or bird tweets for the visually impaired like some crossings. I wondered how on earth a blind person would navigate without help and realized most blind people probablywouldhave help. A dog, maybe. Or a cane that they actually used.
I led Noah to the bench just inside Central Park, and he sank into it, withdrawing his death grip on my arm. “Remind me again how this is supposed to be good for me?”
“You did great. You should be proud.”
“Proud of what? Walking outside for fifteen minutes without shitting myself?”
“When was the last time you were outdoors? Months ago, right?”
“At the rehab place upstate.” He snorted a laugh that almost concealed his sigh of relief that he was sitting. Almost. “They were constantly dragging me around, trying to get me to learn to be blind.”
“Don’t you want to?”
“Nope.”
“Why not?”
“Because, that means game over. I lose.”
I frowned. “I don’t understand.”
“Doesn’t matter.”
