I bent over, slipping the first shoe off and stretching out the ache in my foot. “Did you like the dance?” I asked instead.
“I won’t stop you if you call for help,” he explained. “Not tonight. Go ahead.”
“It wasn’t choregraphed. I just improvised.”
“I could kill you,” he pointed out. “It would be over before you realized what was happening.”
“I want you to like the dance,” I continued, ignoring his one-sided conversation, because it would mean I would have to have answers for things I didn’t have answers for yet. “My parents think the idea of a blind ballet dancer is ridiculous, but it’s all I’ve ever wanted to do. It can be done.”
“You could die tonight,” he went on as if he hadn’t heard me.
I unlaced the other shoe and slid it off, letting it drop to the floor. “I could die ten times on any given day. I could’ve died when I lost my sight when I was eight.”
I was used to feeling endangered. Every step I took could lead me off the side of a building for all I knew. Maybe that was why I wasn’t as scared of him.
“What happened that day?” he asked.
When I lost my sight?
“I fell,” replied. “From a treehouse. I hit my head twice on the way down. Optic nerve damage. Irreparable.”
“Were you pushed?”
I closed my right fist, still remembering the terrible feeling of the boy’s hand slowly slipping out of it and knowing that was all that was standing between me and the ground far below.
I wasn’t pushed. Not exactly.
“I shouldn’t have been up there.” My voice had lowered to a mumble. “I wish I’d never met him. I wish I’d never gone up there with him. I…” How very different my life would be if I could change that one day and never step foot in that fountain. “I miss seeing things. Movies and the sea.” I paused before continuing. “Your face.”
Not being able to gauge his body language or expressions left me at a disadvantage.
I heard a chair scrape against the floor and then it was placed in front of me before I heard his weight sit down on it. He took my hand, but I jerked back, sitting up steel rod straight in my chair and suddenly alert.
He took it again, squeezing my fingers a little tighter. “Stand up.”
I guessed what he was doing, and I’d gone this far, so… Hesitantly, I stood up from my chair, every muscle still rigid and ready to run if I had to.
His hand was a bit bigger than mine, and his fingers were long and sculpted but so chilled. So cold. He took both of my hands and led me to him. To his face.
“What do you see?” he asked, placing my hands on him and releasing me.
My fingers splayed across both sides of his face, and I stood still for a moment, afraid to move my fingers, because he would feel how much I was shaking. Every inch of my skin that touched his buzzed underneath the surface, and I almost pulled away because it tickled so bad.
“You’re tall,” I said, clearing my throat. “When you’re standing, I mean. Aren’t you?”
I remembered the feel of his body pressed into mine last time, and even sitting now, the top of his head reached just above my breasts.
Moving my hands over his face, I took in the smooth skin, gently brushing his forehead, temples, cheekbones and brow with my fingertips.
“Young,” I continued, painting a picture in my head. “Oval face but a hard jaw. Sharp nose.” I lightly pinched where the bone met the cartilage, smoothing my fingers down the length. “How did you break it?”
It was just a faint curve the naked eye probably wouldn’t catch, but I could feel how it bent just slightly in that centimeter.
“I fell,” he answered.
I cocked my head, reading between the lines. I’d gotten pretty good and figuring out what people didn’t say.
“Yeah, my mom falls a lot, too,” I told him.
He was clearly punched and didn’t want to elaborate. Which meant he was either still pissed about it or…embarrassed and ashamed.
Moving on, I ran my fingers over his straight eyebrows, the cold, smooth ridge of his ears and lobes, and his thick hair that fell over his forehead and in his eyes a little. He was probably dark-haired, since fair people like me often had thinner hair.
I trailed my hands down to his chin, my heart pounding as my fingers danced around his mouth, but then I brought them up and traced the lines of his lips.
His hot breath fell across my fingers, and my whole body warmed. Was he looking at my face, too? Into my eyes? What was he thinking?
“I wish I could see you for real,” I told him. “I want to know what you look like when you look at me.”
He remained silent, and embarrassment burned across my skin. I shook it off, moving on.
“No piercings,” I added. “On your head anyway.”
His upper lip tilted up, and I half-smiled. “And he smirks,” I teased.
Of course, I didn’t need to feel his mischievous smile to know he was a bad boy, but it comforted me to know he had a sense of humor.
“Your neck…” I grazed my fingertips down his smooth skin and throat.
“What about it?”
I leaned in, surprising myself as I pressed my cheek into the skin there. He didn’t move a muscle.
“It’s warm,” I remarked. “Smooth.”
And the house was cold.
I inhaled, smelling his soap and shampoo, far too fragrant to be hours old.
“You just showered,” I guessed.
Pulling up, I took a step closer, holding his head right in front of me and sliding my fingers back into his hair.
“Tall, dark, young,” I commented on what I knew about so far. “Good personal hygiene, likes to fight, long eyelashes, kind of a pretty boy, I’m thinking…”
He snorted, and I smiled, too, but then my fingers grazed something on his scalp but before I could figure out what it was, I felt another one. My face fell, contemplating the raised pieces of skin. As I examined the rest of his scalp, I found several others. All about a quarter inch long.
Scars.
“I fell,” he said again, not waiting for me to ask the question.
I clenched my teeth for a moment. “That’s a lot of falls,” I said. “Do you have those anywhere else?”
“You wanna check the rest of my body?” he asked, sounding cocky.
I dropped my hand, trying not to roll my eyes. Thanks for the offer.
“How old are you?” I asked.
But his guard stayed up when he replied, “Older than you.”
What was he doing here? Really? Was he just a prankster, pulling another joke for Devil’s Night, or did he actually have more sinister intentions when he broke in a week ago, before he saw me dance and got suddenly smitten? What would happen if I refused to dance again? What did he really want?
“What’s one thing you’ll never be able to do but really want to?” he asked.
I nearly laughed. One thing?
“Are you kidding?” I shot back. “I have a whole list.”
“Just tell me one.”
I pondered it for a moment, thinking about how I missed all the things I would never see again. Films, plays, mountains, trees, waterfalls, dresses, shoes, the faces of my family and friends… I didn’t know what it was like to leave the house alone or do simple things like go hiking or for a stroll in the woods by myself. I would never be able to escape, run away, or experience the freedom of a spontaneous getaway all by myself without anyone knowing or being there to help me.
“Drive,” I finally answered him. “My dad used to have this old stock car in the barn at our ski lodge in Vermont, and I would sit in it and shift the gears, pretending I was racing. I’d love to be able to drive.”
He was quiet for a moment, and then finally, he rose, and I could feel him right in front of me.
“Would you really?” he asked.
There was a sneaky smile in his voice that made my heart skip a beat.
“Let’s get out of here then.” And he grabbed my hand and pulled me along.
“Huh?” I stumbled, perplexed but letting him take me even though I had no idea what was going on. “And go where? I can’t leave!”
I remembered my mother upstairs and closed my mouth, shutting up immediately.
“I can take you if I want,” he said, pulling me into the foyer toward the front door. “Or you can scream now and the fun has to end.”