It was nice, sweet even. I was grateful, but even after the mind-blowing sex with Vigo two days earlier it was hard to be happy because I still couldn’t see and I was starting to think my blindness wasn’t temporary.
Still, I had to try, for them if nothing else, so I took the sandwich placed into my hands by Hawk and forced a smile. “Thanks.”
They wanted me to be happy, and since I couldn’t give them anything else I could at least pretend to give them this.
I crossed my legs, bare under the sundress I’d chosen for the day. I had no idea what color shorts I might pull from my dresser, what color tank top or shirt, and since I was still trying not to ask for help more than was absolutely necessary, I’d taken to wearing dresses more often than usual.
It was one of many changes to my routine. I hadn’t been in to the coffee shop since the accident, although I had been in touch with Kaylee and Drew on the phone. I wasn’t ready to see anyone yet, or more accurately, I wasn’t ready for them to see me, but I’d given Kaylee a promotion and a raise for stepping up to manage the shop and everything seemed to be running smoothly without me.
I missed it, but I knew what I really missed was the way it had been when I could see. I missed unlocking the doors as the sun crept up over the mountains, lighting the sky orange, missed the way the coffee shop was illuminated a little at a time when I turned on the lights, missed the gleam of the stainless steel canisters filled with coffee beans.
I wouldn’t see any of that now.
I saw Bram — well, I didn’tseehim, haha — more than I ever had before my accident. In what was possibly the most awkward social interaction known to man, he’d taken to coming to the Hawks’ house every couple of days to check on me, bringing me chocolates and little gifts from Maeve that didn’t require eyesight to enjoy: a luxurious cashmere throw, lavender bath salts, a scented candle.
“Thirsty?” Jagger asked, breaking into my thoughts.
“A little.”
“Have a lemonade.” He wrapped my hand around a cold glass bottle. “I can take it when you’re done.”
I couldn’t even set a bottle of lemonade down on the grass and be sure it wouldn’t spill.
How depressing.
Still, I’d felt better since I had sex with Vigo. It had been a reminder that I wasn’t entirely broken.
There were still things I could do, still things I could enjoy.
And there was something else: as my mood improved I’d started thinking more about the day of my accident.
Someone had run me off the road, but I’d been too deep in the morass of depression to think much about it. What would have been the point? Whoever had done it had succeeded, not in killing me but in ending my life as I’d known it.
The thinking had made sense at the time, but now that the fog was beginning to lift from my brain, I could see how fucked up that had been. Was I going to give whoever had done this to me a pass just because I was depressed?
“You okay, Cass?” Hawk’s voice came to me from the world beyond my darkness.
He tried to keep his voice neutral with me but I’d gotten good at reading the concern in it, had gotten good at hearing the things he didn’t want me to hear.
“I’m good.” I unwrapped my sandwich, feeling for the edge of the paper wrapper, unrolling it carefully so I didn’t send the sandwich flying. “But there is something I want to tell you.”
I felt them freeze. Conversation had gotten harder for me too. I couldn’t read the visual cues in someone’s expression, couldn’t tell whether their pauses meant they were done talking or whether they were just taking a breath.
All of that meant I didn’t have much to say, and I’d gotten used to listening, letting them do all the talking.
Except now I had something to say.
“What is it, mouse?” Vigo asked.
“I remember some things,” I said. “From the day on the mountain… the crash…”
“You remember what happened before the accident?” Hawk asked.
He didn’t often sound excited — or anything else — but I heard the excitement in his voice now and understood why it was there. The Hawks weren’t the kind of men who sat around thinking about things. They were doers, men of action.
And don’t get me started on Bram.
The Hawks hadn’t pushed me to remember, but I knew the details of my accident loomed large in their minds. I’d even heard them talking about it once when they hadn’t known I was listening, Hawk wondering if I’d ever remember while Jagger told him to be patient — for me — and Vigo suggesting they pay another visit to Travis Dorsey with “my bat,” whatever that meant.
