Chapter 6
Stephanie’s POV
I was so stupid! For the first time I got angry at my disability of being blind. I had bumped into someone, and didn’t even notice.
“Oh, I’m so sorry!” I exclaimed.
The person I had bumped into kept quiet. Oh no…was this the guy from last night?
Joe’s POV
I was speechless. This was the closest I had seen her, and she looked even more gorgeous up close.
At first her expression was sorry, but then, that expression came again. The expression from the last night…the fearful one.
I opened my mouth to say something, but nothing came out. “I’m sorry,” was all I could say.
Her expression softened. “No…I should be the one saying sorry.”
“No really…it’s absolutely fine.”
She ignored my comment, instead, said something completely different. “Have I ever…met you before?”
I started to panic. Did she recognize me? Well, not me, but…my voice? “N-no…actually…I was…the one who you ran away from last night…”
She nodded without a word, then chuckled. “I know I overreacted.”
“No you didn’t. If I was in the same situation, I would do exactly what you did.”
“You didn’t mean any harm.” It wasn’t a question.
I shook my head, and then embarrassingly noticed that she wouldn’t see me shaking my head. So I said, “No.”
“I’m sorry about acting like that last night. And bumping into you just now,” said Stephanie.
“It’s alright. After all, you’re---“ I stopped. Stupid Joe, I thought.
“Blind.” She finished, then rolled her eyes. “It’s okay if you say it. I don’t care. But I must say…you’re very observant.”
I didn’t know what to say. My only answer was, “Thank you..”
She smiled. “I’m Stephanie.” She extended her hand to shake mine. “What’s your name?”
Oh no. She was asking for my name. What was I supposed to say? I started to panic yet again. I looked around, hoping to find a random name.
Stephanie noticed that I wasn’t speaking. “Uh…do you have a name?” She laughed.
“Yeah, of course I do! What kind of question is that?”
“Well then, tell me.”
“Uh…”
She waited.
I just said the first name that came to my head. “Kevin.”
“Kevin?” She slightly frowned.
“Yeah…why..?”
She shook her head. “Nothing.” Then she started smiling that bright smile of hers. “Come sit.”
“So, do you live around here?” she asked me when we sat down on the swings.
“Yeah. I live right across the street.” Oops.
“Across the street?” She grimaced. Did she still remember that I had lived across the street from the park four years ago?
“Where do you live?” I asked, trying to change the subject of my house.
“I live right there.” She pointed to the left of the playground. There was a beautiful house standing on the spot, with a feeling so welcome you’d want to go further and further inside.
“Just like I remember it.” I murmured.
“What? Did you say something?” Stephanie asked.
“What?”
“What?”
“What?”
She shook her head. “Forget it.”
I laughed quietly so she wouldn’t hear.
“Are you laughing at me?” Whoa, she was good.
“NO..”
Her eyes narrowed. “Right.”
I shook my head in awe. And she called me observant! I remember hearing someone say that blind people were very observant. Maybe not by eyesight, but by all the other senses. I guess that’s really true.
“So, did you just move here? ‘Cause I never heard of you at school.”
She went to school? Oh, what the heck. Just because she was blind didn’t mean that she couldn’t go to school! “Actually, my family and I are here for the summer.”
Stephanie raised her eyebrows. “You pick New Jersey for a vacation spot? And plus, if you were here for a vacation, why would you move into a house? Shouldn’t you get like a hotel room or something?”
How was I supposed to answer this question? “Um…see, my family and me…we’re different…really different.” Yeah. WAY different. We were basically a rockstar family. Of course, I wouldn’t say that out loud.
She shrugged, not wanting to go into the conversation more. I sighed with relief. Stephanie heard me sighing, but thankfully, she ignored it.
“So…where do you live?” Stephanie asked.
“L.A.”
Her expression brightened up with a grin. “That’s cool! Do you ever go star searching?”
‘Why would I go star searching?’ I wanted to say. ‘I am a star myself.’ But instead I said, “Uh…no, not really. I don’t think star searching is so fun.”
She frowned. “Really? That’s weird ‘cause guys like you usually would want to go looking for Jessica Alba, or something.”
“Oh my god I love her.” I blurted out.
“Yeah…she was great in The Eye,” she said.
“She was? Oh. I’ve never seen that movie. What’s it about?”
“It’s about…” Her smile disappeared. “It’s about…a girl who’s blind.” I could sense that she was about to say something more, but she stopped.
An awkward silence brushed over us, filling the whole atmosphere with…well, awkwardness. We kept quiet for what seemed like years. It was realistically actually about a minute.
Finally, Stephanie broke the silence saying something that shocked me: “Can I know what you look like?”
I was speechless for a moment by her sudden remark. Then I said, “Um, sure…but…how…?”
She smirked. “Just turn your head towards me.”
I did as I was told.
Then, her hand swiftly moved from her knee and made its way up to…my face. Her hand searched for my face for a moment, and then her smooth fingertips found my forehead. Ever so gently, they stirred down my forehead to my eyes. Her touch sent shivers down my spine and gave me goose bumps. Now her fingertips were lightly touching my eyelashes.
“You have long eyelashes,” she whispered.
Was that supposed to be a compliment? I was trying to figure that out, but then she made my brain stop functioning. She was now feeling my eyelids, causing me to close my eyes. I smiled, enjoying her touch. Her thumb brushed my eyelids, moving left to right. Now she raised her second hand and placed it on my cheek. Her other hand whose fingertips were brushing my eyelids slid down to the other side of my cheek. Her hands were then cupping my face. If anyone had not known that Stephanie was merely a blind girl feeling my face to see what I looked like, they would think that she was about to…kiss me. Her left hand moved to the right, touching my nose. This was awkward, because her fingers were feeling my nose…really my nose. First they were on the top of my nose, and moved gradually down to the tip of my nose. The next part was the most awkward, because then her fingers went in the inside of my nostrils. I froze. Definitely awkward.
At last to my pleasure, her fingers moved from my nose to above my mouth. She brushed her fingertips across it once, and then they moved to my lips. The tip of her first finger traced the shape of my lips. I let out a small breath.
Finally, her both of her hands slid down back to her knee.
I opened my eyes, and found a concentrated expression on Stephanie’s face.
“So?” I said.
She said nothing for a while. I waited.
“You…” she started.
“I what?”
“I…better go. My brother will be waiting for me at home.” She stood up. “It was nice meeting you…Kevin.”
“I stood up, facing her. “Same.”
The concentrated expression did not leave her face. “See ya.” And then I watched her go back to her house for the second time.
