As the Darkness Approaches the Light

Chapter 2

When Caroline was in the process of getting her PhD, she used to wake up every morning, work out for a little while, shower, then get straight to work. Now that she had her PhD...she did the exact same thing. Only now it was to brush up on literature that she wanted to potentially use for future research projects, or to create lesson plans or power points for her class.

Caroline knew her apartment building and its gym on the bottom floor so well, that she didn't even need her cane to go down there anymore. Noah had organized Caroline's closet so that Caroline could easily pick out clothes that would match, so Caroline dresses herself in a purple tank top and leggings of the same shade of purple with an orange pattern going across them, and her tennis shoes. She throws her hair up into a bun and grabs a water bottle, her phone, her airpods and her keys, then she walks out of her apartment at 6:12 a.m. She finds the hand railing of the stairs and uses it as a guide to walk down, but she knew these stairs so well that she almost didn't need it.

Once reaching the ground floor, it was exactly eleven paces to the glass door that led to the gym. Caroline opens it and is greeted by a handful of other people who were regulars at the gym during this time of morning, all of whom knew Caroline and knew that she was blind.

"Good morning, Dr. Heights."

"Good morning, Diana," Caroline chimes. It was exactly sixteen paces from the door to the treadmills, where Caroline always started her workout. She would always warm up by walking slowly, then gradually build up to a jog, then eventually slow back down. She and Noah had lived in this apartment complex for so long that the building manager knew them well and allowed them to put braille labels on some of the workout equipment so that Caroline would be able to use them, which she now did every weekday.

After the treadmill, she moved on to a couple of light floor and weight-lifting exercises, then she stretched to cool down and headed back upstairs, this time using the elevator.

Caroline let herself back into her apartment and took a shower, able to differentiate the different bottles with waterproof braille labels that she put on everything she bought. Once she finishes her shower, she dries up and decides to just put on a bathrobe for now, and wait for Noah to wake up and help her pick out an outfit since she was going on her coffee-date with Chris this afternoon.

This would be her first date in several years. She was anxious, but she was excited. As cliche as it sounds, Chris seemed different. He seemed polite and respectful, but was also fun to be around. She just hoped that today would go well, and that maybe this first date would lead to a second...

x

The previous night, Chris had been with Ricky in an attempt to do some writing for Motionless's new album. The formal writing process in the studio wouldn't start for another couple of weeks, but they always liked to get a head start. Ricky showed Chris some of what he'd been working on, and they even revisited some of the old things they'd written but never used and tried to see how they could use them in the next album.

After a couple hours of Chris driving Ricky absolutely crazy, they decided to take a break from writing for a few minutes and change the subject.

"So, you're getting coffee with Caroline tomorrow, right? You nervous?"

Chris shrugged, "Not really. Maybe a little at first, but Noah kinda gave me some tips on how to go about accommodating for the fact that Caroline's blind without being, y'know, a dick. And she showed me some blind YouTubers, Molly Burke is a good one. Now that I've kinda versed myself on what things maybe are and aren't okay to say, I think it'll go really well."

"Well, as someone who kinda knows Caroline because I'm dating her sister, here's what I'll say: first of all, don't ask her how she went blind."