Clarity 2 (8 page)

“
You can give me vision, but you can’t give me clarity.”

Liam reaches out and presses his palm against my cheek. He stares at me silently for a brief interval before speaking. “Winter,” he says softly. “The name does suit you. You’r
e as pure as the snow. Your mind is like the crisp, clean winter air.”

I puzzled by his romantic response.

“I will give you clarity, Winter,” he promises in a low voice. “I’ll give you everything I possibly can.”

The tone of devotion in his oath is so strong that I can’t bear it. I press my hands against my face as the tears begin to fall freely.
I want to believe him so badly. I want to believe that things will be fine. “I was so happy, Liam. Earlier on, with you and Owen. I was the happiest I’ve been in ages. Everything seemed good.”

“I know,” he says, hugging me gently. “When I texted Owen, I told him to try his best to make you laugh.”

Once again, I am stunned by Liam’s thoughtfulness. That he would care at all about making a stranger laugh is unreal. It causes more tears to slide down my cheeks. “What am I going to do?” I ask him. “How can I live in the same house with that man? He threatened to kill my sister and her baby.”

“Just take it
one step at a time,” he tells me. “One day at a time. You might find that once you rid yourself of fear, life will surprise you and you’ll learn a great deal.”

His words of wisdom are somehow soothing; even when I’m in this state.
For an instant, I recognize how vulnerable I am. Liam is already incredibly nice, but compared to Grayson, he seems like a storybook hero. I am not in a good place to be making decisions or judgments about anything or anyone. I really don’t have any clarity. Maybe I never did.

“I would like to invite you out on a date,” Liam suddenly says.

“A date?” I ask guardedly.

“Yes. I spoke to Dr. Howard earlier, and I told her about your gran
ola-bar-and-protein-shake diet...”

“
Don’t forget the wine. I also drank wine,” I inform him stubbornly.

“That doesn’t help too much with your overall nutrition,” he says lightly. “Leslie is concerned about your health and wants to run a full physical on you and some diagnostic tests on T
hursday, before we proceed with the clinical study. At this rate, she might also have to treat you for frostbite.”

“T
hat doesn’t sound much like a date to me.”

“Oh, not that!” He laughs lightly. “I meant that maybe I could pick you up
and take you to the appointment, and we could hang out afterwards.”

“
I would like to—but isn’t that unethical?” I ask him.

“Yes,” he says softly. “It would technically be unethical for me to date you until after the study is complete, and some time has passed. Otherwise, it puts my career in jeopardy.”

“Oh,” I say in disappointment. “Well, we shouldn’t risk it. I understand.”

He seems to ponder over this briefly. “
Or maybe... I could
not
be ethical,” he suggests.

“
Yes,” I tell him quietly. “Please. Please—don’t be ethical. I don’t need ethical right now.”

He takes my hand and puts reassuring pressure on my palm.
“Then I’ll see you on Thursday,” he says decisively. “I’ll plan something awesome for us to do, to take your mind off all of this.”

“I doubt you can take my mind off this,” I say skeptically.

“I’ll consider that a challenge,” he says with a chuckle. “But for now, let’s get you inside and get you warm. For god’s sake, woman. What will your father think of me? It’s not a good first impression that I let his daughter get turned into a popsicle.”

The mention of popsicles makes me smile in memory of Owen’s stories. After sitting and chatting with Liam, I am definitely feeling better and stronger.
When I let him guide me to my feet, I am not so terrified of the future. It helps to have one pleasant thing to look forward to.

I toss and turn between the sheets.

I have been locked in my bedroom for days. I have no idea how I’m going to last until Thursday.

After the wedding
, I had the housekeeper help me move my suitcase from my old bedroom to one of the guest rooms on the other side of the house. It is closer to my dad’s bedroom, and as far as possible from Carmen and Grayson’s new room. Of course, it also has its own bathroom, and
not
one that opens into any other rooms. Choosing this strategic location has made me feel slightly more at ease. I even asked the housekeeper to study the outside of the house and make sure that the window wasn’t easily accessible by climbing up any drainpipes. She probably thought I was crazy. I figured that I could keep to the safety of this room for the most part, but venture out into the rest of the house when Grayson was at work. But it just so happens that he was able to get many vacation days to celebrate his wedding.

Unfortunately, he didn’t use them to go on vacation.

I’m not sure why they didn’t go on a honeymoon—I think it’s because Grayson wanted to keep an eye on me. Either way, I have been unable to leave the room. That in itself is not so terrible. I am used to being confined to a small space and not moving around much. However, I have been entirely unable to work. Every time I tried, I found myself sitting uselessly before my braille typewriter, with my hands resting lightly on the keys. Try as I might, I could not seem to make my fingers move to produce anything worthwhile. All I could think about was that
he
was right outside my door.

Sometimes my father tried to coax me out to join the family for dinner, but I tried to decline as politely as possible, making excuses about how I needed privacy for my writing. In the middle of the night,
I was able to scavenge for a large case of bottled water, in addition to a six-pack of soda. I also secured a few jars of peanut butter, some raisins, bags of chips, and cheese. These items are my only sustenance, and they must last until Grayson leaves the house again, and I can finally get more food. I locked the bedroom door and used several pieces of furniture to barricade myself inside. Pushing the dresser was difficult, but once I temporarily removed the drawers, it became easier.

Now, I have no idea what day it is.
Possibly Tuesday or Wednesday. I am also unsure whether it is night or day. Liam has called me a few times to make small talk, but he has been busy at work and hasn’t had much time to spare. For the most part, I have been trying to sleep to pass the time. (It also requires the least expenditure of energy and helps my food last longer since I don’t need to consume quite as much.) I have been rolling around in bed for hours, trying to think of my story and imagine the scenes I intend to write later on, so there is at least some meager attempt at working. Mostly, I just let my mind run away with me and dream, and do as it wishes to do. This could be therapeutic in clearing the blockage in my brain and allowing my imagination to flow freely again.

I am focused on the bright colors and stories of my dreamscape when a knock sounds on the door. I try
to coax myself into being awake as I pull myself off the bed.

“Dad?” I ask in confusion. “I can’t come out to eat today. Not until I finish this book.”

“It’s not your father,” Grayson responds.

In an instant, I am ext
remely awake. My hands tightly grip and twist bunches of the comforter.

“Your dad told me to bring some of your favorite cupcakes for you,” Grayson says gently. “Why don’t you come downstairs and spend some time with us? We can catch up.”

I can’t believe his gall in acting like nothing is wrong. In acting like we could be a happy family and eat cupcakes together. “No, thank you,” I say through the door. “I’m not hungry.” My stomach immediately growls at this lie.

“You don’t have to come downstairs if you don’t feel like it,” Grayson tells me. He pauses. “I could just hand you the cupcakes and leave.”

“No, thank you,” I say again. My mind begins to race, and I begin to grow worried. “Where is my sister?” I demand.

“She went out
to a doctor’s appointment for the pregnancy,” Grayson tells me. “She’s fine—it’s just a routine checkup.”

“Why didn’t you go with her?” I ask him.

“I told her I had some things to take care of here.”

My eyebrows furrow deeply. “Then go take care of them,” I tell him.

“I am,” he says.

I sit up straighter in alarm when the doorknob starts rattling as he tries to gain entry to my room. Swinging my legs out of bed, I walk over to the dresser that blocks
my door from opening, and I abruptly sit down with my back against the furniture. I figure that even if he is able to somehow unlock my door, maybe I can use my body to push against the dresser and keep it from opening.

“Come on. Let me in, Helen,” he demands. “I just want to talk.”

“Go away,” I tell him.

“Really, your dad’s getting worried about you. I think it would ease his mind if you came out of your room and ate a few of these cupcakes.”

It occurs to me that my dad probably took Carmen to her doctor’s appointment. That means I’m alone in the house with Grayson. My cell phone is over on my night table, but I decide to bluff anyway.

“If you don’t get the hell away from my door and stop bothering me right now, I will call the cops,” I tell him quietly.

“Don’t be like that,” Grayson tells me. He sighs, and I hear him put his back to the door and slide to sit down just outside the bedroom. “I just want to talk about what happened between us. I mean, don’t you wants answers? Aren’t you curious?”

“No.”

“I’m your brother-in-law now, Helen. You should be nicer to me. We should be friends.”

“Fuck you,” I hiss.
Anger and fear are bubbling up inside me like a storm. I don’t think I can take living in this house anymore. Not even for Liam—not even for the prospect of getting my vision back. This is not living. I have no freedom and I am completely unable to work. Liam said that staying was the stronger thing to do, but I don’t feel like I can keep fighting against my fear on a daily basis. It wins. Each and every time, it wins.

“I know what I did to you was wrong,” he says, “but I just couldn’t help myself.
That day, when you were sitting and crying on the stairs in the engineering department, it wasn’t the first time I had ever seen you.”

I sink my teeth into my bottom lip to try to keep from
responding and betraying how upsetting this is.

“I’d been watching you for weeks,” Grayson admits softly. “
I thought you were really cute, and I wanted to ask you out... but I didn’t know how to do that. I used to be really shy when it came to women. So, I followed you. I memorized your schedule, and I would watch you enter your classes, and wait until they were over, and watch you head back to your dorm.”

I was being stalked. The realization that I had no idea that this was happening hits me like a ton of bricks. All this time, I thought it was just a random attack. If I could see—if I had been able to see, I might have noticed that I was being followed. I press the palms of my hands into my eyes, hating my body for being so flawed.
I inwardly curse my disability.

“There was just something special about you, Helen. There always was. I watched you moving through the crowds of people with this serene look on your face. You just seemed like someone holy to me. Someone greater than everyone else. I spent weeks following you, and studying you from afar, and trying to gather the courage to talk to you.”

I take a shuddering breath. Listening to this story is filling me with horror. I don’t want to hear his perspective. I don’t want to revisit this event. I just want it to be finished and over.

“Your hair was the color of mahogany, but when you stepped into the sunlight, it burst into flames like the strands were made of copper. I couldn’t stop staring at your tawny locks, and the way they curled around your perfect face. I was just so drawn to you, Helen. I’ve never felt that way about anyone. It was like you were calling out to me. Like touching you was part of my destiny.”

“Please stop,” I say in a hoarse voice. “Please stop talking about this. Please go away.”

“Then a day came when something changed. I could see the change in your face. Your eyes, they used to shine like burnished amber.
But on this day, they were just dead. They were empty, like sand or rust. You didn’t go to class. You wandered aimlessly until you just collapsed and crumbled into tears. You were sad. I’ve never seen you so sad, Helen.”

I can’t listen to this. His retelling makes everything fresh. I can feel the way I felt that day, even before he made my day worse. I shake my head, unable to believe that this is happening to me.

“That was the first day I could find the courage to talk to you,” Grayson said. “I had to say something. I had to try to lift you up and be your hero.”

I swallow a bit of saliva that has been gathering in my throat.
“When I first heard you speak,” I manage to croak out, “I thought you were nice. You could have asked me out. I would have probably agreed.”

“I wanted to,” he admits. “More than anything, I wanted to.
I just... I don’t know what was wrong with me.”

This is so painful. He sounds like a wounded little boy. I don’t know how it’s possible, but I’m beginning to feel a pang of sympathy for him.
His voice still sounds as kind as it did the first time I heard it—the first time it deceived me. I press my face into my hands, hating myself for pitying him.

Grayson sits silently outside my door for a few minutes before speaking again. “
I couldn’t control myself,” Grayson says softly. “You were just so beautiful, sitting there on the stairs like a broken angel. I needed to touch you to see that you were real. And once I started touching you, I couldn’t seem to stop. I felt like you might disappear right before my eyes. I needed to have you, while you were still here on this earth, in human form. I couldn’t waste a second not being inside you. I needed to drown in your beauty; I needed to feel you around me. I needed to feel every inch of you, whether you would have me or not.” His voice has been growing quieter until it is a barely audible whisper. He pauses to take a deep, mournful breath.

“
I felt like I could fuck you into being real. I felt like I could fuck you into being mine.”

I am so horrified that I do not know how to respond. I wrap my arms around myself and double over, trying to push his voice out of my mind.

“You were an angel,” Grayson says again. “I was guiding you through the halls, and staring at you. And I just started getting more and more... excited. I thought that if I could just have you once, just one taste—that it would somehow be everything I ever needed.”

I am struggling to breathe. I am struggling to think. My lips are parted in shock and disbelief. “I was never an angel,” I say dumbly, because it is the only thing I can manage to say. “I was just a girl.”

“You were so much more than a girl,” Grayson says with complete certainty. “Maybe you didn’t even know, but I could see it. And I just couldn’t wait. I couldn’t stand the thought of you rejecting me. I don’t know what came over me, but even your hand on my arm... I couldn’t bear it. I needed you. Right then and there. I needed to have you. You understand, don’t you? I needed you, Helen. I needed you.”