Blind Love: English

Copyright © 2014 by Rose B. Mashal

All rights reserved.

This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Cover designer:

Grafix Momma

https://www.facebook.com/Grafixmommauk

Editor:

Susan Willeat

Proofreader:

Jaana Häkli

Title

Copyright

Summary

Dedication

Blind Love

About the Author

Acknowledgments

"Roses are red, the sky is blue; so everyone says, but I wouldn't know."

A story about a popular rock star falling for his biggest fan.

And an insecure girl learning a new life lesson about love and trust.

To Jennifer Reeves, with my whole heart.

I couldn't see.

There was darkness everywhere I looked, every
time
I looked. Darkness everywhere. There was no light. Not even a glimpse of light. None. There was
none
. Opening my eyes was just the same as closing them tightly shut. Either made me see the same thing: darkness.

I couldn't use my eyes, so I abused the heck out of my ears. I loved music, more than I could say. It was my passion. Listening to music was the only thing that kept me going. I lived through it, in it. It surrounded me. Consumed me. Filled me with ease and comfort.

What they say about music is true – one song could make you forget everything, and one song could make you
remember
everything. I chose to listen to songs that made me forget. It was much better that way. Forgetting things was better than remembering them. The right choice of a nice song that lasted for four minutes would ease the pain I'd felt for four
hours
, pain that I'd always blocked out as much as I could.

I relaxed my eyelids by closing them, throwing my head back while facing the sky and swaying to the music, feeling the bliss of soft tunes and the delight of the tender melodies filling my every sense. Joy. Pure joy and untainted happiness.

"Dude!" my sister and best friend called over the loud music. "I don't want to freak you out, but – Ethan
fucking
Thompson keeps glancing at you."

I froze in my place. Surely she wasn't being serious? I couldn't believe her. But I could always tell whenever Sandra was bullshitting me, just from hearing her voice. And this time she
wasn't
doing it, she was being honest. But then again, it couldn't be true. She could be mistaken. Why would the mighty Ethan
fucking
Thompson look at me or even glance my way? Why me? I was nobody, nothing special, far from it. Surely there were a lot of girls around me, pretty and perfect girls, not someone like me.

I decided that Sandra could be mistaken,
of course
she was mistaken. He could've just been looking at nothing and it just so happened that his eyes landed on me, nothing else. I was so sure.

"Cool," was my only reply.

It was a nice image to put in my head while swaying to the music, though. To imagine Ethan Thompson – the owner of the sweetest and strongest voice you would ever hear – looking at me and giving me a few seconds of attention, it was a very nice image to add to my list of fantasies that starred him.

The concert was so good, so good it almost
hurt
. I was enjoying it so much, and so glad that I'd finally gone along with Sandra's pleas that we should attend.

Ethan was the lead singer of the Thompson Brothers band. One of the biggest and most popular bands, not just in America, but in the whole world. Since I was living in Los Angeles, California, concerts were all around us, and there were tons of TB's shows, but I never saw the need to go. I found it odd and unnecessary for
me
to go there. I could hear his voice and their playing anywhere; why would I bother going to a place where I could easily get lost in the crowd? I'd never found the need to do so.

But,
God
! How wrong was I! Listening to his voice live was nothing like listening to his CDs. It was magical. Plain and simple. Magic. Something that was out of this world.

I could hear the crowd around me as they cheered his name, while others were cheering for his brothers, Carl and Dominik. Sandra was pretty fond of the latter; he was the band's drummer. Carl was the one who played wonders on the piano. Ethan, on the other hand …
Ah
, he sang and played the guitar; he was the one who wrote all the songs, as well.

Don't even let me start on the lyrics …

The words of his songs were something else. Each word he sang was as if he was meaning for
me
to listen to it. The lyrics talked about fighting pain and battling with bad luck. They talked about forgetting and just living, how life was so short and one should live it to the fullest, no matter what stood in their way. They talked about hope and how things would be okay sooner or later, no matter how hard and unfixable they seemed to be.

His songs gave me hope. His voice gave me warmth. His melodies brightened my dark days.

Besides the cheers, I could hear the snaps of photos that came from cellphones, fan-girls screaming and squealing. They were the only things that tainted the joy of hearing Ethan Thompson's singing, but it was a small tax I was willing to pay for listening to his powerful voice as it sang words that went straight to my heart once they passed by my ears.

About two hours and one break later, the boy who could sing like no other asked if any of the fans wanted to come up on the stage. The screams that came in reply to his question were almost deafening. It was crazy, so crazy I had to cover my ears.

I heard Ethan's chuckle, which was music on its own. He then said that he picked the girl with the white shirt, and I heard the crowd laughing, Sandra told me that almost everyone was wearing the same white shirt we were wearing, the band's t-shirt – ours had 'I Love the Thompson Boys' on the front, though. I smiled at that, at the boy I’d found to be such a goofball since I’d come to this concert. He'd kept us entertained throughout the whole thing, not just by his wonderful voice and playing, but also with his playful nature.

"Oh. Em. Gee!" Sandra squealed loudly after a few moments. "Anna, he's pointing at you!"

Uh, what?

It took me a moment to take what she’d just said in. Ethan had chosen
me
to get up on the stage? "No freaking way!" I said. This time the doubt started filling my head with how Sandra must be hallucinating or on something. It was not possible that Ethan Thompson was glancing my way, let alone picking me to get on the freaking stage!

"Oh, my gosh! You need to get up there!" my sister screamed, and just then I realized that I still hadn't replied to her.

"It can't be, Sandra, he must be pointing at someone else, someone behind me or something."

"Anna, there is no time for this, he means
you
, you have to get up, right the fuck now!"