Chapter 74 CHAPTER 74

Chapter 74 CHAPTER 74
My eyes opened to the pale gray light of early morning. The ceiling came into focus first, the familiar crack that i’ve been telling Alex to fix ran from the light fixture to the corner.

I could see everything and I was not dreaming. My breath caught once in my chest, then settled into a steady rise and fall. 

The ancestral knife still rested in my right hand, the leather wrap rough against my palm.

Alex’s face hovered above mine, his dark hair falling forward, eyes scanning my face. “Are you okay? Can you hear me?” He said loudly shaking me in the process.

“Jeez, you don’t have to be so loud. Just because I lost my eyesight does not me I will lose my hearing too.” I said laughing at him.

His hands stayed on my shoulders, fingers pressing firmly as if to keep me anchored. He stared at me his mouth still hung open, I could see he is choosing his next words seriously.

I slid the knife under the edge of the blanket in one smooth motion, pressing it flat against the mattress beneath my hip. He did not glance down. His gaze stayed locked on my eyes.

“You kept making these weird sounds in your sleep,” he said. His voice was low, rough with the early hour. “I got worried. You were thrashing a little.”

I pushed myself up on one elbow. The movement shifted the knife further under the covers. My pulse still thudded in my throat, slower now. He can’t see it.

The thin trails of blood that had run from the corners of my eyes had dried into tight lines along my cheeks. I wiped them with the back of my free hand.

Alex’s mouth curved. He reached for me, arms opening. I leaned into the hug laughing and giggling. I haven’t seen his pretty face in a long time.

His chest was warm against mine, the cotton of his T-shirt soft under my fingers. He held on longer than usual, one hand sliding up to the back of my neck. 

When he pulled back just enough to look at me, the light from the window caught the relief in the set of his shoulders.

“You can see,” he said. The words came out almost as a laugh. He hugged me again, tighter this time. 

The blanket shifted under me and the knife slid free of the mattress edge and dropped with a soft, dull thud onto the floorboards under the bed. 

Neither of us looked down. I kept my arms around his neck and let the sound disappear into the quiet of the room.

His mouth found mine. The kiss was brief, warm, tasting faintly of the mint toothpaste he always used before bed. When we separated, my breath moved easier in my chest.

“Make me breakfast?” I said. “I feel better. I’m starving, actually.”

He nodded once, already swinging his legs off the side of the bed. “I didn’t make
anything baby, but I will go to the kitchen and quickly make something.” He padded out of the room in bare feet. 

“Then you can tell me who dreamt of and what they did to make you better.” The floorboards creaked under his weight as he headed down the short hall toward the kitchen.

The moment the doorway emptied I swung my legs over the edge of the mattress. 

I dropped to my knees, reached under the bed, and closed my fingers around the knife’s handle. 

I stood, crossed the room in three quick steps, and slid the drawer of the nightstand open just far enough to slip the blade inside, beneath a folded scarf and
my diary. 

The drawer closed with a soft click. I smoothed the front of my sleep shirt, sat back on the edge of the bed, and waited for the sound of the frying pan to reach me from the kitchen.

An hour later the morning light had strengthened into full gold. I sat in the passenger seat of Alex’s car, the seatbelt strapped across my chest. Angel was driving, Alex’s instructions. 

Angel glanced at me once, then back at the road. “Alex told me that you could see again. That’s huge.”

I nodded, watching the way the sunlight moved across the dashboard. “I woke up this morning and everything was clear.”

She tapped a finger against the steering wheel. “I remember when he first told me about your eyes. He was so careful with the words. Like he was afraid saying it out loud would make it worse.”

The car slowed at a red light. A bakery on the corner sent the warm scent of cinnamon and yeast through the open window. I breathed it in.

“He worries a lot,” I said.

Angel’s mouth tilted. “He always has. Even when we were kids.” She paused, then added, “I was adopted, you know. When I was six. The twins was already twelve. Our parents—his parents—brought me home one afternoon and just that was it.”

I turned my head to look at her. The light caught the small silver hoop in her ear. “I didn’t know that.”

She shrugged one shoulder, the movement easy. “Most people don’t know that. It never felt like a secret, just something that didn’t need explaining. My brothers treated me like I’d always been there.”

“That’s really nice, having siblings to count is a blessing you should never take for granted. I never had that.” I said sadly
looking out the window.

“But you do have a sister.” She said looking at me confused. Oh Angel, ever so gullible.

“We are here.” I said when we turned into the quiet side street where the planner’s studio sat.

The studio occupied the ground floor of a converted townhouse. 

The wedding planner, a woman in her forties with silver-streaked hair pulled back in a neat twist. 

“Thank you so much for coming, please take a seat.” She gretted us with a folder already open on the long table. 

Angel and I took the two chairs opposite her.

We started with the venue layout. She spread a set of floor plans across the table the old conservatory with its glass ceiling, the adjoining garden terrace. 

My fingers traced the lines of the paths, the placement of the chairs, the spot where the arch would stand. 

Angel leaned in, pointing out “The string quartet could sit without blocking the view of the fountain.” 

The planner noted everything in a slim notebook, the soft scratch of her pen the only sound for a few minutes.

“Next came the flowers, we also have some sample boxes.” She said showing us: pale roses sprays of eucalyptus that released a sharp green scent when the leaves were brushed, 

small white ranunculus with petals so thin the light passed through them. I lifted one of the roses, turned it between my fingers, and set it back. 

The scallop tasted of the ocean and butter. The tart cut clean and bright across my tongue. Angel and I traded the chocolate square back and forth. “You can add the chocolate. please.”

The planner wrote the final selections in the folder, closed it, and promised the “We will have the updated proposal by the end of the week.” 

“Great, well thank you.” We said our goodbyes and walked back to the car without hurry. Angel unlocked the doors and we settled into the seats again.

When we pulled into the driveway of the house, the front door stood open and the smell of coffee drifted out. 

“Your mother inlaw is probably here,”Angel killed the engine. “How can you tell?” I asked unclipped the seatbelt, the metal buckle cool against my fingers, and stepped out into the late-morning air.

“The strong coffee smell at 12 in the afternoon.” the worst part is my social battery is extremely low.