LIB

Chapter 18

The next few weeks went by fairly quickly. The weather grew colder and I knew that winter was on its way. Blake continued to eat lunch with us and he slowly started talking to David again. Our relationship was going well, even though we still argued all the time. I had talked to my teachers and now had permission to be late for all my classes so that I could walk with Blake to all of his. That had caused our first big fight.

            “I don’t want you to have to babysit me,” he snapped. We were standing in his bedroom and I’d just told him about the new arrangements.

            “I’m not babysitting you! I’m just walking with you to all your damn classes. What’s the big deal?”

            “I should be walking you! Not the other way around.”

            I rubbed a hand over my face. “Not this again. Blake, I know that it’s hard for you dealing with being blind. But you have to stop getting irritated with me just because I’m doing things that you stupidly think should be your job.”

            His jaw was tense and his arms were crossed over his chest. “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

            “Are you serious? You’re not the only one in this relationship with problems, you know.”

            He turned his head towards me. “At least you have a normal life!”

            “Normal? You think my life is normal? I have to be confined to a wheelchair sometimes! I wake up every morning praying that my back won’t act up so that I can actually walk.”

            “People don’t talk about you behind your back, though. No one knows about your problem.”

            “So what? You think I should go around and tell everyone that I was in a car accident that killed my parents and put my brother into a coma?” I asked snippily.

            “I didn’t say that!” he shouted.

            “No, but you implied that just because people can’t see my disability, it means my life is so much easier. You always bitch about people being closed minded, and yet you’re worse then a lot of them.” I stalked over to the bedroom door and opened it. I looked back over my shoulder. “I don’t tell people about the accident because I don’t want the fake sympathy from everyone when they hear about my family. Not because I don’t want them to know about my back.” With that said, I left the room, shutting the door roughly behind me.

            When I got home, I went directly to my room, ignoring Jared and Liam, who both seemed surprised to see me home so early. I slammed the door to my room and went over to my bed, flopping down onto it.

            It was an hour later that Jared finally came into my room to see what was wrong. He sat on the edge of the bed. “Want to talk about it?”

            I rolled onto my back so I could look at him. “Not really. Blake was just being an ass and it pissed me off this time.”

            Jared frowned. “But he’s always kind of an ass.”

            I cracked a half smile. “I know. But he said some things that made me want to punch him. So I opted to just walk away instead.”

            “Hmm. Well, I’d offer to kick his ass for you, but that probably wouldn’t solve anything.”

            I shook my head and gave him a more genuine smile. “No, it wouldn’t.” I sighed and sat up. “Why aren’t you with Cindy?” I asked.