Open My Eyes

Four: Dramatic Nothing

"You worry too much," Kae told me through a mouthful of food.

I flopped back onto my bed and closed my eyes. My hair spread around me like a golden halo. I put my hand on my forehead and sighed forcefully. "You did hear what I said to him, right? Buying him lunch hardly makes up for my behavior."

"Sis," he started in all seriousness, "he's a guy. Even if he is blind, he probably doesn't care what you said. If he did, he'd let you know. Since he isn't blackmailing you into stuff, I think it's safe to assume you can quit your worrying."

Pursing my lips, I stared at the ceiling, thinking in silence. Finally, I explained, "He may be okay with everything, but I'm not. I won't feel better about this until I do something more to make it up to him."

There was a pause on the other line, and then Kae released a sigh of defeat, long and slow. I imagined him running his fingers through his hair as he allowed, "Okay, I get that. So what are you going to do?"

Groaning, I exclaimed, "I have no idea!"

He chuckled. "I'm assuming you want big brother's help with this." I nodded, even though he couldn't see it, and he continued, "So we need something that makes it up to him without being bothersome."

I sat up in bed, eyebrows lowered over my eyes. I echoed, "Bothersome?"

"Yeah," he replied as if it were obvious. "If this William kid says he's fine with what happened and you follow him around trying to make it up to him, he'll probably get annoyed real quick."

That made sense.

"Okay, so what do I do?"

"That's the tricky part," he stated, beginning to mumble. He was talking more to himself as he went through the options. "You could open doors for him. No, bad idea. If he's pretty independent, he'll think that gesture's degrading. You could buy his lunch for him again. But if you do that, he'll know you're still trying to make it up to him."

I set my phone beside me and put it to speakerphone. While he muttered ideas to himself, I tidied my desk, only half paying attention to what my brother was saying. When I started whistling, Kae cleared his throat, reminding me I was being impolite, so I wandered back to my bed and listened to him once more.

Finally, he paused in his rambling, and I thought maybe he came up with something. Instead, he asked, "Hey, what does he do at Hope for Youth? If he's partly a volunteer, that means he helps out somehow. So what does he do there?"

For a while, I sorted through the information in my head, but with the realization that I had no clue what William did at Hope for Youth, my eyes widened. I told my brother, "You know, I actually don't know what he does there. The only times I've seen him, he wasn't doing anything."

He chuckled shortly and suggested, "Well, you might want to figure out what he does there before you wonder how to make this whole fiasco up to him. That way, you can help him out."

With a smile, I announced, "I like that idea, thanks."

"No problem."

I pulled a pillow onto my lap and took my phone off speaker, placing it to my ear once again. "So when are you going to finally be able to call yourself a junior in college?"

The smile was evident in his voice as he answered, "Once I finish with this online class."

"It's a writing class, right?"

"Yeah, I'm dabbling in journalism right now and that's what this class focuses on. An assignment was creating a blog with five posts. You should check it out," he recommended, excitement seeping into his tone.