"Yes," he says. "One night, the stars went out for me, and they'll never return. The night sky has gone dark."
I'm glad for the darkness now, hiding the emotion on my face. My heart feels like it's breaking for him.
"I'm thankful I saw you, at any rate," he murmurs. "Before it all goes black."
My eyes overfill. I don't know how he knows, but he does, his free hand smoothing the tears away from my cheeks. "Don't cry, Summer," he whispers. "Not for me."
I do anyway. "How can you bear it? How do you keep from despairing?"
He kisses my temple and pulls me close. "I don't," he says, the sound like a confession against my hair. "You just haven't seen it yet."
I reach for the glass of scotch on my coffee table and nearly knock it over. The slippery thing has moved since I put it down last. It's safer to keep it clutched tight in hand.
It burns going down my throat as I drain it.
It's been a while since I last sat here, in this chair, in my own living room, downing booze. Racking my brain through the splitting headache is hard, but not impossible.
It was a few weeks before I met Summer.
Not terribly surprising, that. She'd been bright enough to drown out the darkness. Concentrating on anything else, including my own misery, was difficult with her around.
But she's not around now. No elephant lamp in the corner of her apartment, no thick oriental rugs or the chamomile tea she makes.
Tea. I'd bought that for myself.
I look toward the kitchen, but making it feels like too much effort. It would help me sleep, but so will the scotch, and it's closer at hand.
Perhaps it'll also help me forget.
Accelerating. That was Dr. Johnson's word this morning. Accelerating. I prefer it when it's used in relation to fast cars and not mentioned in the same sentence as retinitis pigmentosa, vision degradation, blindness.
It's like I'm in a fight, and I'm swinging, but my arms are getting tired. And I'm losing. And I know I'm losing, know failure is the only outcome, but I can't for the life of me give up the fight.
Not yet.
I pour myself two more knuckles' worth of scotch and lean back in the chair. Close my eyes. Blackness behind my lids. Will I see that, then, one day?
The doctor doesn't know. There's a ton he doesn't know, as it so happens. Not how quickly I'll lose my eyesight. Not how much of it I'll lose. If I'll retain the ability to differentiate between light or darkness. If I'll maintain tunnel vision. Or if I'll be blind as a bat before the year is out.
But he does know that it's accelerating, oh yes. He was very sure of that. You've noticed the deterioration in your night vision?
Yes.
How is reading for you these days?
It works if I increase the size of text. And have a very bright light. Up the contrast.
And printed text?
I'd shifted in my seat. If it's big enough, I'd said.
Dr. Johnson had done what he always did. Looked into my worthless eyes, taken notes on his computer, returned to my eyes. Gone through a series of tests, all of them already confirming what we both know.
I'd made a joke to the good old doctor. You know, I'd told him, as he peered at an enlarged photograph of my eye. All of my worst memories include you.
He'd laughed, because he meets people like me daily, sorry fuckers who are losing life one day at a time.
I drain half of my glass. Going too fast, too fast, both the drink and my eyes. Too fast. I'm supposed to have more time. More time with Summer. More time to tell people. To fucking adjust, as Dr. Johnson keeps telling me.
Adjust. As if anyone could.
Summer's out with friends tonight and I'm glad she is. Mostly. Jealous, too, if I'm being honest. I push up from the armchair and make my way to the en-suite by my bedroom in search of a little white bottle with pills. Painkillers. Blessed relief-bearers. They help with the migraines.
I get the twist cap open and pour out two into my empty hand. Look at the glass of scotch in my right.
I know this is a bad idea. But the part of my brain that cares is locked away. I can see it, but I can't feel it, and it sure can't reach me.
So I swallow the pills and drain them with alcohol. Set the glass down on the marble. Make my way to my bed and stretch out on the linens. They don't smell like Summer, because she has never been here. They smell like laundry. The cleaning lady must have been here recently. It's off, the smell.
Like I'm in a hotel or a rental.
I twist over on my back and close my eyes. Decide to see how long I'll last in the blackness before the crushing sense in my chest gets too much.
It's not a fun game, but it is preparation. And wasn't that what Dr. Johnson wanted me to do? Adjust.
Look at me trying, Doc.
I wake up to a room cast in sharp, painful light. The curtains. I hadn't drawn the curtains last night.
The pressure grip around the crown of my head feels like a steel vise. The alcohol, probably. Its wondrous effects are always short-term.
The sound of a doorbell being insistently pressed rings through the house. Was that what woke me up?
Summer.
I'd invited Summer here today. It's Saturday. I'm supposed to show her my place. Walk around the neighborhood.
Fuck.
I push myself out of bed and run a hand through my hair. Stop in the bathroom to brush my teeth. Close the door to my bedroom on the way out.
I hadn't forgotten. But it had been pushed to the back, too painful to touch, along with the realization that I have less time with her left than I thought. Accelerating, accelerating, fucking accelerating.
I reach the front door. Try, and fail, to take a deep breath before I open it.
"Good morning," Summer says. Her wheat-colored hair falls in waves around her face, bouncing as she holds up a paper bag. "I brought us bagels."
"Right. Nice."