Page 39 of Stops Along the Way
Declan straightens his back, turning to face me. “You’re making me nervous.”
“No, don’t be nervous.” I wave my hand, unsure how to set the stage for this. Either I casually drop the information like it’s nothing or it somehow becomes a big sob story and the conversation will get away from me.
It hits me all at once why Amelia isn’t forthcoming with this information.
There’s no great way to deliver it.
“Um,” I say, my voice faltering. Declan reaches over and puts a hand on my arm, but I shrug him away. “No, really, um.” I’m glad to be behind the wheel rather than having to look at him right now. “You know those glasses Amelia wears while driving?”
“Yeah?”
His voice is level, concerned. I can feel him getting ahead of what I’m about to say; it’s clear that he’s figured out where I’m going with this but is holding back until I deliver more information.
“She doesn’t really talk about it, so I don’t know exactly what to say here, but long story short, the condition with her eyes is genetic.” I fumble with the explanation. I’ve gone through a script in my brain a million times, how I would explain this to someone, but here in the moment, none of it is coming out as smoothly as I’d hoped.
I glance at Declan, who is watching me intently. His concerned eyes narrow, then go wide, and his jaw goes slack. The pieces fitting into place. The reason for my big reaction to a seemingly innocuous joke. I focus back on the road.
“Basically, there’s a one-in-four chance that I’ll also be blind, like my sister, but for me, it would be in addition to already being deaf. In ways that will each continue to progress over my lifetime.”
Declan reaches out to squeeze my arm. “I’m—I didn’t know.”
“This feels way too weird and somber.” I wish we weren’t stuck in a car right now so that I could pace around the floor. “Like, I’mfine. Right now it’s mostly just a trippy mind game,” I say, devolving into laughter, a different kind of tragic joke that somehow seems ridiculous.
His face lightens. “I don’t know if you’d want to hear an apology, but can I say that I’m sorry I don’t really know what reaction to give you right now?”
“Exactly!” My voice grows louder and more delirious, like this is the most hilarious thing in the world. “Like, what are you supposed to say to that?”
He shakes his head, eyebrows raised and eyes wide, with a matching grin. “I have no idea.”
“But that’s just it. I don’t want you to feel like you can’t talk normally around me. I’m not trying to tell you what you can or can’t say. It’s just—that comment hurt, and it hit me deeper than I thought it could. Like, if this happens, it happens, and my life continues on; I’ll just have more shit to figure out, but that’s life, isn’t it?”
“True.” He lets me continue since I show no sign of slowing down the thoughts pouring out of my mouth.
“And honestly, I love making deaf or blind jokes—Amelia and I do it all the time—they can be objectively super funny, but…”I take a moment to figure out how to phrase the nuance. “But it depends on the context and situation. Like, the point of the joke is the circumstance we have to deal with, not, well,me.”
“And I really, really didn’t mean anything like that,” he says. “I promise.”
“Declan, I know.” I keep my tone light and reach over toward him, and he grabs my hand. “But right now I don’t know what my life is going to look like, and it’s sometimes too much for my brain to handle. Like, the anticipation and uncertainty feel worse than the actual outcome sometimes.”
“I get that.” He squeezes my fingers. I take a deep breath, glad to stop talking. I said what I needed to say, but I only feel partial relief.
It distracts me from the current reality that Declan and I are holding hands. Extra confusing. I pull away from his grasp and put both of my hands back on the wheel.
“I can tell you one thing for sure,” he says, brushing back his hair, suddenly bashful.
“Oh, really?” I look at him out of the corner of my eye doubtfully.
“That none of that changes the way I think about you.”
I smile, realizing I’m the one giving a pitiful expression. “That’s easy to say now.”
He leans back. “Iris, why would any of that change how I feel about you?”
“Because other people—”
“I’m not other people.” Declan says this so earnestly that I can’t find a response. Then, with a cocky sort of confidence,he adds, “For a second, I thought you wanted to talk about that text.”
Does this stretch of road have more potholes than the rest of the journey so far? Because I’m finding every indent of the pavementfascinating. “What text?”
