Chapter 4
Violet
There’s a feeling you get from a new home that you can’t get anywhere else.
Everything is clean and fresh and free from the energy of the previous occupants.
It promises fresh starts and new beginnings.
But I’ve been in my new home for a few days already, and I’m yet to be flooded with the familiar chest flutter of new beginnings.
Still, I cling to that hopeful, I-can-do-this-shit promise with everything I have left.
Swinging my legs off the bed, I slip them into the slippers and take a deep breath. “Okay, Vi. The only thing to fear is fear itself. Let’s do this.”
Great, now I’m an inspirational poster.
How many bumps and bruises am I going to get today? I swear I have more bruises than a drunk construction worker.
My slippers whisper over the hardwood floor as I trail my fingers along the wall, each step like a heartbeat steadying me. My breath slows, my shoulders relax, the knot in my stomach loosens. I’ve got this.
Until I need to change environments.
I’ve been blind for nearly a year now, and I still find every day scary.
When I reach my bedroom door, I suck in another breath and venture out of the carpeted space into the tiled hallway and to the stairs.
“Okay, Violet, you’re safe here. Nothing here is going to harm you. You moved here to be safe.” I say this to myself every day, and every day it still feels scary.
I continue to trail my fingers along the wall as I descend the seven steps, then steadily make my way to the kitchen.
I’ve always had an active imagination, and even when I could see, I used to imagine all sorts of horrors waiting for me in the dark.
As if the moment I switched off the light in my bedroom, every scary urban legend would jump out at me.
Ever hear the one about the woman who used to hang her arm off the side of her bed so her dog could lick her hand?
If not, look it up. You’ll never sleep with a limb hanging off the bed again.
Then there’s the whole Bloody Mary thing.
You wouldn’t catch me looking in a mirror at night. And I’ve never even said her name.
Living in a world where I can’t turn on the light to reassure myself there isn’t a boogeyman under the bed is frightening. But I’m getting used to it. I just need to talk myself out of all the horrors my brain comes up with.
Meemaw says I should write a book because my imagination is so vivid. Yeah, no thanks. Can you imagine all the horrors I could invent? I’d never sleep again.
It hurts because I was an adrenaline junkie.
I’ve skydived and swum with sharks and even bungee jumped.
But I didn’t just lose my eyesight in the accident—I lost my sense of control.
And that’s the most terrifying part of all.
That’s why I moved away to the country. Partly because I needed to get away from my past life.
But also, until you can’t see what’s going on, you take things for granted.
Things like walking across the road. I was in a car when I lost one of my most important senses.
Imagine what could happen to me if I crossed the road blind.
The transition from seeing to non-seeing was huge as it was; I just couldn’t deal with the well-meaning people anymore. The things people would say to make me feel better irked me.
“Oh, well, at least you have had vision, so you can still picture things. Imagine those poor people who were born blind.”
“Thank goodness you’re still alive, it could’ve been so much worse.”
On and on it would go.
“Well, Susan, let’s take your vision, then we’ll see how grateful you are when people talk to you like you’re a child,” I mutter to myself. Hmm, seems the road rage has developed into something more.
So off I go. One foot in front of the other.
Violet, Michael Myers is not waiting around the corner for you. Neither is that annoying dude from Scream.
This is why I need a service dog. So I can rest assured that if there was a serial killer waiting in the dark—or light, as it were—the dog would alert me.
I count.
One.
Two.
Three.
Four.
Five.
Six.
Seven.
Stop.
My fingers find the frame of the kitchen entrance.
I beam at the very small achievement even as a flush creeps up my cheeks. I’m a little embarrassed that such a small thing would bring me so much joy, but hey…
One, I didn’t get murdered in my home by a crazed sociopath who escaped from a mental asylum in the middle of the night, and two, I got the steps down pat from my bedroom to the kitchen.
That might not seem like a huge achievement, but if you plan on going blind anytime soon, I hope you’ve got an excellent memory.
It’s twenty-seven steps from the bedroom to the kitchen doorway.
Three steps from my bed to the balcony outside my bedroom.
Five steps from the side of my bed to the en suite bathroom.
Twenty-three steps from the kitchen, around the island, to the front door.
Eighteen steps from the living room to the front door.
On and on it goes. How many steps from the couch to the TV? From the couch to the coffee table, from the guest room to the bathroom, from the back door to the front door, from the front door to the porch.
I trail my fingers along the kitchen counter until I feel the cool stainless steel, the smooth plastic handle of the electric kettle.
I raise my hand directly above me to reach the cupboard door and search for the handle.
Opening it, I gently sweep my fingers along the inside of the cupboard and take out the mug, being careful not to knock it onto the floor.
I did that in my old place, but thankfully Meemaw was there to help clean up.
I feel the familiar flush of discomfort at the thought of anyone helping me.
It’s ironic, since I never had a lick of trouble asking anyone for help when I still had my sight.
I open the top drawer and take out my liquid level indicator, hanging it carefully on the side of my mug.
Meemaw is the greatest. After my accident, she had a party for me—sort of like a baby shower where people brought me a whole bunch of tools for the vision-impaired.
At first I was mortified, and my pride—the only emotion I could feel at the time—took a severe knock.
But despite how overwhelming it was, eventually, it helped me feel like things would be okay.
It also made me realize I had to get my shit together and stop being so dependent on people.
And I couldn’t deny the stuff I got was useful, like the liquid level indicator to tell me when my cup was nearly full; a braille label machine so I could label similar jars with different contents (which I’ve since misplaced); measuring spoons and jugs; and almost anything you could think of that you could use to make your life easier if you were blind.
I honestly don’t know how I would’ve gotten on without them.
While the kettle boils, I reach for my phone to read—ahem, listen to—the news. Again, better to know if a psycho is on the loose than be surprised when he’s unaliving me.
I trail my hand along the counter again until I feel the charging cord between my fingertips.
As I lift the cord, it releases from the jack and starts to fall.
Instinct kicks in, and I lunge to catch my phone.
I fumble, playing hot-potato with my phone until it slips from my fingers and sails out of my grasp.
I hear a crash as the phone connects with my glass, heat-resistant mug, and they both go tumbling to the floor.
“Son of a circus clown!”
Adrenaline spikes, and my heart just about hops out my chest. My fingers won’t stop shaking.
I drop to my hands and knees, and here’s where I make a mistake.
I don’t think about not being able to see, it’s just instinct.
I reach out to find my phone and press my hand straight down onto a piece of jagged glass.
A gasp erupts from my mouth. Pain explodes down my arm, and nausea sweeps over me in pinpricks of heat.
Holy Heathcliff, that hurts like balls.
Ever felt pain so bad that it hits you in the teeth?
Warm, sticky liquid drips from my palm onto my fingers and bare legs as a metallic scent fills my nose.
It’s true what they say about your senses being heightened when you lose one, because damn, I swear I can hear the pain.
I’ve never been great with blood, so my stomach turns, and my head feels woozy.
I cannot pass out here. Not on the kitchen floor.
Not while I’m losing so much blood. Not with all the glass.
“Stay awake, Violet. Stay awake.” Oh man, I cannot be sick right now. I literally can’t think of anything worse than having to clean up vomit when I can’t see if I got it all.
“Okay, Violet, you need to get your bearings.” Ever since the accident, I’ve gotten into the habit of talking to myself.
Judging from where I was and how I turned when I went to pick up my phone, I know if I turn to about nine o’clock, I should be facing the stove and can grab the dish towel hanging there. “Please be right. Please be right.”
I do that and—BINGO. Thank you, universe, or fuck you—whichever comes first.
I sweep the floor with my slippered feet, trying to find my phone, but when I nearly slip on some blood, I realize there’s no time to fuck around. I need help.
Frustration hits me like a tanker coming into dock, and I’m the dock.
I lift my pajama top to my mouth and scream into the fabric.
The sound scrapes up my throat and burns its way out.
The scream comes from deep in my belly, but it doesn’t ease my frustration.
It feels like it’s growing, hot, angry, restless in the pit of my stomach.
Like it’s an actual entity. Fuck…This…Shit!
How many steps was it from the kitchen to the porch?
I’m so furious that I take my chances. Fuck it. What’s one more bruise?