He turns my arm, studying it for a bit. And then he squints.
He needs his glasses, I think. I scan the counter, looking for them. He always left them lying around. By the sink or on the kitchen table or right by the bed. Wherever he happened to be reading. I almost crushed them once. He’d left them lying on a cushion on the couch, and I’d nearly plopped right down without looking. He’d bought some extra reading glasses that day.
“I didn’t break them,” I’d said, absolutely incredulous as he’d pulled four pairs, all in different colors, out of a plastic Walgreens bag.
“But you could have,” he’d said. “So I got backups. Just in case.”
After that, instead of one pair of glasses scattered around the house, there were four. At least he said there were only four. I could have sworn there were a lot more. It felt like the number just kept growing. Like they were multiplying. Spreading through the house like a plague.
But I haven’t seen any today. I twist, trying to scan the rest of the bathroom, but his grip on my hand tenses, holding me in place.
“Where are your glasses?” I ask.
The lines on his forehead crease. He lifts the tweezers. “You need to hold still,” he says. He places the slanted edges around a small piece of glass, and I force myself not to move, not to wince, as he lifts it away. But after it’s over, I realize it wasn’t too bad. I’ve had splinters that hurt worse.
“Where are your glasses?” I ask again. Because though I’m thankful he’s helping me get rid of these shards of glass, I’d prefer that he see clearly while he does it.
His mouth goes flat and thin. “I don’t need them.”
“You don’t need them?” I don’t understand. The man couldn’t read anything without them. He’d kept a pair in the kitchen because he couldn’t even read the labels on the spices. He’d once accidentally swapped cumin with cinnamon, and to date that black bean chili is the worst thing I’ve ever eaten.
“I got a procedure,” he says, using my distraction to weasel out another piece. And then another.
“What kind of procedure?”
He fishes out another bit of glass. He’s moving at lightning speed and I can’t help but appreciate the efficiency. “It’s similar to LASIK but has better results for people who need correction for their near vision.”
“Was it safe?”
He slants me a look, as if he wonders why I care. Or why I’m asking. And honestly, I’m not sure why I am either. It’s just…I never knew he wanted his vision corrected. The reading glasses had been cute. And each color had been a surprise. Dark green frames. And blue. And tortoiseshell. Though his red ones had been my favorite. I’d loved the way he’d looked in them. So intellectual. All wise and sophisticated.
He’d been wearing frames like that the first day we met. Eventhough it had been blazing hot that summer, I’d started taking daily mental health walks around lunchtime. Not because it was when the crew took their break or because I always spotted Nikhil from my window around that time, going to his car to grab his lunch and a book, then retreating to a shaded spot under the tree in our side yard.
I’d just needed some fresh air. Some time to stretch my legs and get out of my room. If I happened to leave out the back door so I could cut through the side yard and pass by Nikhil, well, that was just a coincidence. Not that I actually ever planned on talking to him. I was in full, awkward do-not-approach-me mode, with my clunky headphones clamped over my ears and my phone tucked into the embarrassing cousin of the now-trendy belt bag: a fanny pack.
For the first few days, he’d just dip his head when he saw me. A friendly nod. But then he started waving. The first time it happened I’d had a mini panic attack and nearly sprinted away, but I soon began to respond like a normal person and not a child with a schoolyard crush. About a week later, he’d spoken to me for the first time.
“What are you listening to?” he’d asked, sitting at the base of the tree, book open on his lap. I’d stopped right in my tracks. Then cringed.
I hadn’t wanted to confess that I was listening to an audio recording of a BARBRI course on property law at 1.6x speed, so I’d lied and just said, “Music.”
The right corner of his mouth had kicked up, and my stomach had swooped like I was on a roller coaster.
“What kind?”
I’d tried to come up with a generic singer, but finally gave in and told him the truth, explaining that it wasn’t music exactly. That I waslistening to lectures because I had a big exam at the end of the summer.
He’d stood up, dusted some dirt off his pants, then leaned against the side of the tree. It was criminal really. That lean. No one had a right to be that tall and handsome and devastating and somehow become even more attractive with just alean.
He’d asked me about my exam, and I’d told him about law school and the bar, and even though I’d worried that I was boring him several minutes in, he’d seemed genuinely interested, asking more questions whenever I paused. Slowly, my anxiety around him had faded.
I’d asked about his book and he’d shown me the cover:Turning Your House into a Home. It wasn’t what I’d been expecting.
“Why interior design?” I’d asked, and his face had lit up.
“I’m renting, but there’s still something nice about designing a space. Even if it’s only somewhere I’ll be for a little while, there are things you can do to make it feel more permanent. To make it feel more like home.”
“Like what?” I’d asked, genuinely interested, and he’d explained. Telling me about color theory, space planning, even the shape and size of furniture. He’d described pieces he’d made for his space—chairs and bookcases and floating shelves—and his passion had captivated me. He told me it was all just a hobby. That it had nothing to do with work. That it was just something he did for himself, and I found it fascinating. To see someone so moved by something they were doing just for fun. I didn’t quite understand it, but I wanted to.
