Hello August, Please Be Good To Me

Chapter 33: Can You See Me?

JULY

I've been avoided it for a while but maybe, just maybe, it's time to come to terms with my eyesight. I didn't even know I had been squinting, and squinting for a while until Justin and I were bowling again with the guys, and I had difficulty reading the score. "How many fingers am I holding up?" Justin teases placing two fingers right in my face before moving them quickly and kissing me on the lips. "Eww, get a room," Ant jokes, and Justin slaps him across the shoulder. "Two," I snap, but I'm not really mad. "I can see just fine," I remove my glasses and start cleaning them, thinking that maybe they're just dirty. The lights still look like little bursts instead of straighter, smaller lines and occurs to me my eyesight got worse. Again. But I can still see just fine, except for maybe the words on posters a distance away.

My optometrist didn't have to lie to me. "When you're done going through puberty," I can't stand that word, "You're eyesight will settle and adjust and it won' fluctuate as much." Oh really? I've gotten a new pair of glasses every year since seventh grade it seems like. I always find the same pair of frames, so nobody notices. But I'm pretty sure...puberty...ended for me a long while ago. I place my glasses back on my face and get ready for my turn to bowl.

Maybe another reason I'm not ready to face facts is simply because my dad told me the next time I get my eyes checked, I'm taking myself. Next he'll be making me set up doctors and dentist appointments. I can't help but envy my brother who wore glasses for only two years and miraculously he didn't need them anymore. What kind of foolishness is that? Then I picture myself without my frames and I thank my lucky stars. Justin and I try to go our separate way from the group after the game is finished but the guys have other plans. All I can focus on are my eyes, but Justin puts up a fight. "Damn Ant, stop playing," he won't let me close the door, and I just leave it open, trying to read billboard on the other side of the plaza. By this time, Robert and Lewis, who came today, have taken over the hood and the trunk. Robert makes a humping motion with the trunk before jumping up to sit on it. He gives me a cheeky grin and a showgirl wave, and Ant is reaching over me to change the station.

"I will drive with y'all asses still on this car, please don't tempt me," Justin retorts when Lewis asks where we're going, as if "we" includes all five of us. "Aww, you guys need us to babysit you?" I asks in a sentimental voice, still struggling to read the billboard, and leaning over to see past Lewis' back. "No, we just need to make sure Justin is being a gentlemen, ya know, not trying anything, if you know what I mean," Ant's eyebrows waggle up and down, and I suddenly wonder if Justin told any of them what happened at his house, between us. My comeback is lost on my tongue, but Justin thankfully isn't bothered. " Oh, right, because you guys are perfect model citizens."

The minute Justin drops me off at my house, sans our chaperones I feel a headache coming on. I let myself in, surprised to see Danté. With some random girl. Cooking in our kitchen. "Umm, hi?" I wave, and I just know this his new girlfriend. I wish I was as tough as him.