Love is Blind (28 page)

“We’ll ask her later. I don’t know where she was
at lunch.”

“Probably hiding because she knew what your
initial reaction to the video would have been.”

He chuckled. “You’re probably right. Maybe I’ll
have some fun with her before I let her know we aren’t mad at
her.”

I rolled my eyes. “You can be so cruel
sometimes, did you know that?”

“Hey, I gotta have my fun where I can especially
since you won’t let me roll over anyone’s toes.”

I laughed and reached over to pat one of his
hands that were on the handle of my chair. “Don’t worry, I’m sure
we can think of other things to do that are fun.”

“Hmm, you’re probably right. But I still like
tormenting her. She’s like my little sister, so it’s my job as her
‘big brother’ to annoy her by any means possible.”

“I want to say that it’s not your job, but I
have Jake as a brother so I know that it kind of is.”

We continued walking along, chatting about
random things. When the house came into view, I frowned a little.
“There’s someone at the house,” I said, eyeing the unfamiliar car
in the driveway.

“Probably someone who works with Liam.” Blake
didn’t pause as he continued to push me forward.

“You’re probably right. So what do you want to
do for dinner tonight?”

“Do you want to go out? I could call Jack and
see if he’s free to drive us tonight.”

Jack had been driving us around a bit since my
surgery. It was nice to still have the freedom to go places without
Jared or Liam having to come with us. “Yeah, that sounds like a
good idea. Maybe we can go…” my voice trailed off as I spotted the
person leaning against the car in the driveway. “Marcus?”

Chapter thirty

My wheelchair jerked to halt as Blake stopped
quickly. “Marcus?” he repeated incredulously.

I squinted against the bright sunshine. “Yeah,
he’s leaning against the car in the driveway.”

“What do you want to do?”

I debated with myself internally for a moment
before letting out a long breath. “I think I should probably talk
to him. Obviously ignoring his calls and texts isn’t getting the
message through to him.”

Blake started pushing the wheelchair towards the
house again. Marcus spotted us and straightened up from his
slouched position. He didn’t say anything as we approached him.

When we were closer, I got a good look at him
and my eyes widened slightly. His light brown hair that he’d always
had carefully styled was now long and lifeless and flopped over his
forehead. His green eyes that had always sparkled with
mischievousness and playfulness were now dull and had a haunted
look in them. He had dark circles under his eyes and his cheeks
were more hollow than they had been the last time I had seen him.
He looked like death warmed over, and that surprised me almost more
than actually seeing him.

I put a hand on one of Blake’s and he stopped
once more. I looked up at Marcus and studied him for a moment. “You
look like hell,” I told him bluntly.

His lips twitched the slightest bit, but he
didn’t smile. “Thanks.”

“What are you doing here?”

He brought a hand up and scrubbed it over his
face roughly. “You wouldn’t answer my calls.”

“That should have told you that I have no desire
to talk to you.”

He lowered his hand again and gave me a pleading
look. “Hailey please. I just want to talk to you, explain to you
what happened that night.”

I bristled. “I know what happened that night,” I
hissed, gesturing to my wheelchair. “I was there, remember?”

Marcus flinched, but stood his ground. “I know.
But I want to tell you my side of the story.”

“Your side? Marcus, you were drunk and had
another girl in the car with you that distracted you enough to
cause you to run my parent’s car off the road. What else could you
possibly have to tell me?”

Blake put his hands on my shoulders and rubbed
them soothingly. “I don’t think she wants to talk to you,” he said
in a deceptively calm voice.

Marcus looked at him briefly and then back at
me. The pain that was evident in his eyes made my breath catch a
little. “I saw the video of you two,” he said quietly. “It was then
that I realized I had to at least come here and try to talk to you.
Please Hailey, just hear me out.”

After a moment of hesitation, I finally nodded.
“Fine. Let’s go inside so we don’t freeze. It might be a nicer day
than normal out, but it’s still the middle of winter.”

Blake bent down so he could talk quietly in my
ear. “Are you sure you want to do this?”

I turned my head so I could give him a light
kiss. “No, but I think I need to.”

“Okay.” He stood straight again but instead of
pushing me forward, he spoke to Marcus. “We’ll go in and talk. But
if you do or say anything to upset her, I will hurt you. And don’t
think the fact that I’m blind will stop me.”

Marcus blew out a breath. “Fair enough.”

“Men think they can solve everything with their
fists,” I muttered under my breath. Blake chuckled quietly and
started pushing me towards the front door. Marcus trailed along
behind us, not saying anything as we went inside.

We went into the living room and Blake lifted me
from my chair and set me down on the couch. He sat beside me and
took my hand as Marcus stood awkwardly in the middle of the room.
“Okay, talk,” I said.

He took a deep breath and then sat in a chair
across from Blake and I. “First of all, the girl in the car with me
wasn’t distracting me in the way you might think she was.”

I raised a brow. “Oh really?”

He flushed a little. “I should start at the
beginning. I wasn’t even going to go to that party because you
weren’t there, but Mike and Brad convinced me to. I had a couple of
beers, but that’s all. I didn’t stay too long because I was hoping
to maybe see you after you finished dinner.

“As I went to leave, I saw this really drunk
girl trying to get into her car. I went over to stop her and
offered to drive her home. She was really hammered but managed to
tell me her address, so I put her into the passenger seat of my
car.” He paused then and rubbed the back of his neck, a sign I knew
meant he was uncomfortable. “Like I said, she was really drunk, and
as I was driving, she got this idea that she should… repay me for
driving her home.”

His face was bright red by now. “She kind of
launched herself at me and caught me off guard. I was trying to
fight her off and I wasn’t concentrating on the road as much as I
should have been. That’s what caused me to swerve into the other
lane.” He dropped his head into his hands. “That’s what caused me
to run your parent’s car off the road,” he finished quietly.

I didn’t speak for a minute as I thought all of
this through. “So that’s supposed to make everything better?” I
finally asked sarcastically.

He looked up at me again. “No, of course not. It
doesn’t change anything; I know that. I just needed you to know
that I wasn’t cheating on you. It doesn’t make anything any better,
but I thought maybe that it would… you know what, I don’t know what
I thought it would do.”

I studied him closely again, taking in his
ragged appearance. “This has been really hard on you too, hasn’t
it?” I asked him quietly.

He shrugged. “I figure I deserve it. I may not
have been drunk, but I’d still been drinking. Maybe if I hadn’t had
those two beers, I would have been able to keep that girl off of me
and stay in the right lane as well.”

I sat back with a sigh. “You’re right; you
shouldn’t have been drinking. But that might not have changed
anything that happened that night.”

“We don’t know that for sure. I have to live
with myself every day, knowing that I caused you to lose your
parents and almost your brother as well. And that I caused you so
much pain, both physically and emotionally.”

I looked down at my hands. “The emotional pain
was harder for me to deal with than the physical pain, I think. It
felt like I lost everything that night. My parents, my brother, my
independence and the guy I loved. It took me a long time to realize
that I didn’t lose everything. Yes, I lost a lot, but I still had
my uncle and Jared. And most importantly, I still had my life.”

I looked at Blake, who had remained silent the
whole time we were inside. “But it wasn’t until I met Blake that I
really started to heal. Here was a guy just as emotionally damaged
as me, but he was also surly and rude. I made it my goal to
befriend him, thinking I could maybe help him in some way. But
instead, he helped me. He gave me an outlet when I needed it and
didn’t get offended when we argued about stupid things. My feelings
for him ended up healing those last emotional scars that I had
left.”

Blake leaned in and kissed me gently. “You would
have been fine without me.”

“Maybe, but we’ll never know because I do have
you.” I glanced at Marcus again. “I’ve learned a lot in the past
year, Marcus. I know that not everything is always black and white.
When the accident happened, I needed someone to blame and you were
the obvious choice. I didn’t want to talk to you because I didn’t
want to hear your side of the story at the time. I think part of me
knew that there must have been a more logical explanation for what
happened, but I didn’t want to know what it was. I wanted to be
able to keep blaming you so I had an outlet for all that rage
inside of me.”

“I can understand that. I told myself to just
leave you alone, but I couldn’t. I guess I hoped that if I could
tell you the whole story, maybe it would ease some of the guilt
I’ve felt since that night.”

“Did it work?”

“I don’t know. I’ll find out tonight, I suppose.
If I have the same nightmare that I’ve had every night, then
probably not.”

“You’ve had nightmares?”

“Yeah, every single night since the accident. Do
you have them?”

“Not every night, but I get them occasionally.”
I frowned a little. “Actually, since I met Blake I think I’ve only
had a couple of them, and none at all since before Christmas.”

It was true. The last time I’d had a nightmare
had been the night before Blake came over when I was in a
wheelchair the first time after meeting him. We had started dating
not too long after that and I wondered if that had something to do
with it.

Marcus interrupted my musings with a question.
“You really love him, don’t you?”

Blake cleared his throat. “Hales, why don’t I go
make us some hot chocolate?”

I was a little hesitant about him leaving. “You
don’t have to do that.”

He squeezed my hand. “I know. But you need a
chance to talk to him alone for a minute. I won’t be long.” He
pressed a kiss to my temple before standing up and walking towards
the kitchen.

When he was gone, I turned back to Marcus. “To
answer your question, yes, I do really love him. I didn’t expect
that to happen again, especially so soon after everything happened.
But it did, and now I don’t know what I’d do without him.”

Marcus sat back in the chair and released a long
breath. “I could see it in the video that was posted online. Like I
said earlier, that’s what made me finally just show up here. I was
hoping that since you’d managed to move on, you’d be more receptive
to listening to me.”

“You were right to think that. If I hadn’t met
Blake, I likely wouldn’t have had anything to say to you.” I smiled
a little. “You know, not too long ago I told the principal of my
school that everyone deserves to tell their side of the story. I
guess it just took me awhile to listen to myself.”

“I’m glad you let me say my piece. I know it
doesn’t change anything or make anything better, but…” he trailed
off, obviously not knowing what to say.

“I know what you mean. It wasn’t healthy for me
to have all this rage built up inside me. I had this plan to
eventually talk to you on the phone, but this is better I think. If
I hadn’t seen you, I never would have seen how much this actually
has affected you. I never would have believed your side of the
story if I hadn’t seen that.”

He ran a hand through his hair and grimaced. “I
need to get a haircut, that’s for sure. I haven’t really been doing
much more than just existing for the past year. My parents made me
see a bunch of therapists, but none of them helped.”

“I refused to see anyone as well,” I admitted.
“When I was learning to walk again, I took a lot of my anger and
frustration out on Jared, and he tried to get me to go to therapy.
I wouldn’t go and it took me a couple of months to realize that I
had no reason to be angry with Jared. After that, I kept a lot of
my more unpleasant emotions bottled up until I met Blake. He was
the first person I talked to about the accident. I told him
everything and it changed our relationship.”

“I guess I’m lucky he didn’t knock me out as
soon as he saw me.” He frowned. “Or heard me, or you told him or
whatever.”

I grinned. “Yeah, you are lucky. He has quite a
nasty streak to him.”

His lips tugged up into a small smile. “I’m glad
you’re happy with him.” He shook his head with a rueful look on his
face. “I never thought I’d be telling you that I was happy that
you’re in love with someone else.”

“Life is strange sometimes, isn’t it?”

“It really is.” He stood up and looked down at
me. “I’m going to get going now. Thanks for listening to me.”

“You’re welcome.” I waited until he was almost
out of the room before speaking again. “Marcus?”

He stopped and looked over his shoulder at me.
“Yeah?”

“I don’t blame you anymore. And I’m sorry for
ignoring you and not letting you tell me your side of the story
this whole time.”

His shoulders sagged and relief crossed over his
face. “Thank you. You have no idea how much that means to me to
hear you say that.”