Love is Blind (27 page)

“Well on the bright side, at least everyone
won’t be staring at me for once,” Blake said.

That caused me to start laughing and he joined
in. “We make quite the duo, don’t we?”

He nodded. “Yeah, we do. The blind, cranky guy
and the girl who sucks at giving directions in a wheelchair.”

“Are you seriously going to start that argument
again?”

“No, not right now. I’ll save it for later.”

I rolled my eyes. “What is it that I see in you
again?”

He ran his fingers up and down my arm. “My
charming personality?”

“Oh yeah, that must be it,” I replied
sarcastically, before snuggling into him a little more. “No, I
think it must be that you’re so comfortable to cuddle with.”

He smirked a little. “That’s not all I’m good
for,” he said suggestively.

I smacked his stomach lightly. “Pervert.”

He shrugged. “Can’t deny that. I am a guy after
all.”

“Very true.” I stretched my arms up over my head
and then sighed. “I suppose we should get up. Jared will be coming
in here soon if we don’t, because I know he’ll want to start
working on the therapy right away.”

As if on cue, there was a knock on my door.
Jared opened the door and poked his head in a moment later. “You
ready to get started Hailey?”

“I suppose. Blake will help me get up and we’ll
meet you in the kitchen shortly. I want to eat before this torture
begins.”

Jared rolled his eyes. “It’s not that bad.
You’re just being dramatic.”

“No, you’re just a slave driver. But I know
it’ll get me back on my feet faster, so I’ll try not to bite your
head off too much.”

“Remember that in about an hour, okay?” he asked
and then closed the door again.

Two hours later, I was cursing and swearing at
him as he stretched my legs out for me. He looked at me with mild
amusement. “What happened to not biting my head off?”

“You started pushing me too hard already, that’s
what happened,” I snapped.

“Hailey, you know I’m not pushing you too hard.
We did this before.”

“And it hurt then too,” I retorted.

Blake squeezed the hand that he was holding.
“What kind of names did you call him last time?”

I thought back for a moment. “Pretty much the
same ones as this time,” I replied.

“Well, we can come up with more creative ones
now, right? Two minds are better than one, after all.”

And that was how the rest of the session went.
Blake and I thought of creative names to call Jared and it managed
to distract me from the pain. When the session was done, Blake
carried me into my room so I could rest for a bit before lunch. I
knew that I’d have to go through another session in the afternoon,
so I was grateful for the brief reprieve.

Blake turned some music on and we relaxed on the
bed for a bit, eventually talking about school again. “It was nice
of Mr. Avery to let us finish the semester out of school,” I
said.

“Yeah, it was pretty cool of him to do that. And
he arranged our schedules for next semester so that we have all our
classes together.”

I smiled. “You do realize that means I’ll make
you do work in all the classes, right?”

“Yeah, I kind of figured that. Luckily one of
the classes is music, so that one won’t be so bad.”

“And we have a spare, so we really only have two
classes that I’ll have to bug you about.”

He sighed. “I’ll just have to suffer through it,
I guess.”

I chuckled. “It won’t be that bad. And we still
have a couple of weeks before the next semester starts, so you
don’t have to worry about it for a bit. I, on the other hand, have
to deal with this torture called physical therapy for a couple of
months.”

He rubbed my back gently. “Yeah, but we can keep
on thinking of creative names to call Jared. It made you feel
better earlier.”

“I think it was just the fact that you were
distracting me that made it better. You’re officially hired to
entertain me during my sessions.”

“How much does it pay?”

“Three kisses an hour.”

“Hmm, can I get some payment in advance?”

I laughed and pressed my lips to his, kissing
him lightly. “Good enough?”

“No way, I want more than that.”

“You have to earn them first,” I said
teasingly.

“Now who’s the slave driver?” he grumbled.

“Still Jared, but maybe it’s rubbing off on
me.”

He kissed me a couple more times and then pulled
away. “There, that’s one hour in advance.”

I just shook my head and gazed up at the
ceiling. “Is Sophie still coming over here after school?”

“Yeah, she’ll bring us some homework to do. My
aunt is picking her up and driving her here.”

Later that afternoon, after my therapy session,
Blake and I went into the music room to play around a little. He
put my wheelchair in front of the piano and then picked up his
guitar, sitting close to me. We fiddled around for a bit and then
decided on a song to actually play; Stand by Rascal Flatts.

When we finished the song, we were both smiling.
“That song reminds me a lot of you,” Blake said as he stood up,
putting his guitar to the side.

“It suits you as well,” I replied. “Especially
because of what you had to deal with when it came to your
father.”

He shrugged and grabbed the handles of my chair.
“I think it suits you better. You ready to go get something to
eat?”

“Yeah, I’m getting hungry.”

Neither of us noticed as Sophie quietly snuck
away from the door to the music room.

Chapter twenty-nine

I threw myself into my physical therapy in the
time before we had to go back to school. Jake joined us fairly
often and he graduated from a wheelchair to using a cane. I slowly
started gaining control of my legs again, but it was a very slow
process and I was still wheelchair bound. When the day came for
Blake and me to return to school I was more than a little
nervous.

“I don’t know if I can do this,” I said as we
sat in Jared’s truck outside of the school.

“Yes you can,” Jared said. “You’ve never let
what people think stop you before and you’re not going to let them
now.”

I made a face. “Sometimes it’s a pain when
people have so much confidence in you,” I replied.

“Look on the bright side Hales. If people piss
you off, you can run over their toes with your wheelchair,” Blake
said helpfully.

“I’m not as mean as you,” I said. “Although that
does sound like fun,” I admitted.

Blake opened his door. “Come on, we’ll be late
if we don’t get our butts in gear.”

Jared got out and grabbed my wheelchair from the
back of the truck. He unfolded it while Blake got out and then
carefully picked me up. With my guidance, he set me in my chair
gently. I strapped myself in and he moved around to grab the
handles.

“I’ll pick you two up after school,” Jared said.
“Have fun.”

“Oh yeah, this is going to be a laugh a minute,”
I said dryly.

“Well, at least you still have your sarcasm
intact,” Jared muttered as he climbed back into his truck. “See you
later.”

I watched as he drove off and then gave a
resigned sigh. “Okay, let’s get this over with. I’ll steer so we
don’t run into anyone. You just hold onto the handles, okay?” I
asked as I turned my head to look at Blake.

He pouted a little. “You ruin all my fun,” he
complained.

I grinned and shook my head at him. “If you
weren’t so sadistic, I wouldn’t
have
to ruin anything,” I
retorted, starting to wheel myself forward up the path to the front
doors.

Blake walked behind me, hanging onto the
handles. “Can we at least run over one person’s toes?” he
asked.

“Maybe if you’re really good,” I replied.

He seemed satisfied with that and continued to
follow along behind me. When we got to the doors, he went ahead of
me to open them and I pushed myself through. Then he grabbed the
handles again and we went down the hallway.

People did turn to look at us, but to my
surprise they were all smiling. A few people even called out
greetings, which I definitely hadn’t expected. When we got to my
locker, my eyes nearly popped out of my head. “Whoa,” I said.

“What?”

We stopped in front of the locker and I looked
at it in amazement. “There’s a huge paper attached to the locker
door and people have written messages on it.” I leaned a little
closer. “Give me your hand.”

Blake did as I asked and I put his hand on a
specific piece of paper. I saw his mouth drop open in shock.
“There’s Braille on here as well?”

“Yeah, it looks like it’s in a few spots. All
the messages pretty much say get better soon or something along
those lines.” I sat back again, a little overwhelmed. “I can’t
believe people did this,” I murmured. There was no falseness to any
of the messages; they all seemed genuine. Maybe I had been wrong
about receiving fake sympathy from everyone if they knew about what
happened to me.

Blake put a hand on my shoulder and squeezed it
gently. “Apparently people actually like you here.”

“Some of them must like you too, because it
couldn’t have been easy to get Braille onto this paper.” I shook my
head in wonder. “It had to have cost a bit to get that printed
out.”

He ran his other hand over the paper, finding
the few messages that were written in Braille. “I guess that’s
true. Maybe my status as an asshole is slowly fading. I might have
to do something to get it back.”

I smacked him in the stomach lightly. “No, you
can lose that status. I like it better when you’re nice.”

“I’d still be nice to you,” he assured me.

I rolled my eyes. “That’s not what I meant. We
should probably get going to our first class.”

We started going down the hallway, but stopped
when we heard our names being called. Rachel came hurrying up to us
and she was almost vibrating in excitement. “That video of you two
is so amazing!” she squealed.

“Uh, what video?” I asked.

Her excitement dimmed a tiny bit. “You mean you
don’t know about it?”

“No?”

She whipped out her phone and fiddled with it
for a moment and then handed it to me. I looked down at the screen
and my jaw dropped when I saw myself and Blake in the music room at
my place. The video showed us playing around for a moment and then
we started actually playing the song and singing.

Blake leaned over my shoulder a little. “Why can
I hear our voices coming from your hands?”

“Rachel handed me her cell phone,” I replied.
“Apparently a little birdie was taping us after one of my physical
therapy sessions, when we were in the music room. Three guesses who
it was.”

“I only need one. I’m going to kill Sophie,” he
grumbled.

“Why?” Rachel asked in shock. “Everybody loves
the video! Everyone has been talking about it since it got posted.
It’s had over half a million hits already.”

My eyes widened. “Seriously?”

“Yeah, and you should read what some of the
comments say. I think you’ve inspired a lot of people.”

I looked up at Blake. “Maybe we shouldn’t kill
her. If we’ve helped even one person in some way, then the video
was worth it.”

He sighed. “Fine,” he agreed reluctantly. “But
you have to promise to try and get a video of her doing something
embarrassing.”

“I can try to do that. We really need to get to
class right now though. We’ll see you at lunch, okay?” I said to
Rachel, handing her the phone back.

“Okay. I need to go find David anyways; I seem
to have lost him somewhere along the way.”

I chuckled as I watched her scurry away. “That
girl really has too much energy sometimes. I don’t think she ever
actually just walks anywhere.”

“I never would have thought David would date a
girl like her. He was always so calm and laidback about
everything.”

We started heading towards our classroom again.
“Well, they say opposites attract. I mean, we’re opposites when it
comes to our personalities and yet we fit together really
well.”

“That’s true,” he agreed.

We reached our classroom and I guided both of us
to some empty seats near the back. Blake moved a chair out of my
way and then took his place right beside me. “What class is this
again?” he asked.

“Geography. We have Music next and then History
after lunch. Our spare is last period, which is great because it
means we get to leave school an hour early.”

He reached over to play with my hair lightly. “I
was thinking that since it’s actually a nice day out, did you want
to just walk home? The fresh air will do us both some good I
think.”

We’d had a recent spurt of warmer weather over
the past few days, which wasn’t unusual for this time of year. We’d
get more cold weather soon, so I was all for taking advantage while
we could. “Well, you can walk and I’ll just go along for the ride,”
I replied with a small laugh.

He grinned and shook his head. “Smartass.”

I shrugged. “Can’t argue with the truth.”

The morning went by quickly. Music was a lot of
fun and I quickly realized that everyone in the school had already
seen the video. A lot of people stopped to talk to us wherever we
went. It was definitely different than being given funny looks and
then ignored.

At lunch, we sat at our usual table with Rachel
and David. Again, a lot of people came over to talk to us and ask
me how I was doing. By the time the day ended for us, I was a
little overwhelmed. I think Blake was as well, but he didn’t say
anything about it as we started home. I had already called Jared to
let him know we didn’t need a ride.

“That was an interesting day,” I mused.

“Was it as bad as you thought it was going to
be?”

“No, it definitely wasn’t. I still can’t believe
how many people came up to talk to us because of that video. I
wonder why Sophie decided to make it?”