The Eyes I Gave Her

Vivian Hart, the newly crowned Best Actress whose captivating eyes had made her a sensation, was accepting an award for her charity work when my doctor told me I had two months to live. It was stomach cancer, and the treatment costs was far beyond what I could pay. Then Vivian called me. "Do you regret it?" she asked. "Now that I've made something of myself, do you regret leaving me?" I held the hospital bill against my chest and made myself sound shameless. "Vivian, I could really use some money. Since you're so generous with your charity work, why don't you give me $200,000?" Her voice turned to ice. "Go to hell. I never want to see you again." She blocked me everywhere. What she didn't know was that when she lost her sight all those years ago, I was the one who secretly gave her my corneas. Chapter 1 Ping. The transfer notification came through. Vivian Hart had sent me the $200,000 after all. I managed a stiff little smile. Some things never changed. Beneath that sharp tongue, she still had the softest heart I knew. I was at the hospital cashier's window when a stir broke out behind me. Since losing my sight, I'd grown almost absurdly sensitive to sounds. Judging by the crowd gathering and the sudden flurry of footsteps, somebody important must have arrived. I unfolded my white cane and felt my way toward a quiet corner, where I settled down to wait for my specialist to call my name. A familiar pair of heels clicked twice across the floor. Then stopped directly in front of me. Thinking I was blocking someone's path, I lowered my head and started to fold up my cane. "I just sent you two hundred grand," a woman said. Her voice was unmistakable, even wrapped in contempt. "If you're going to sell yourself to me, the least you can do is look up and smile for your sugar mama." A pause. "It's been a while, Ryan." Vivian. My hand clenched around the handle of my cane. I'd imagined this reunion a thousand times over the past five years. Now that she was here, every word I'd saved up vanished. I settled for the most careless grin I could manage and held up my phone with my payment app already open. "Another fifty thousand and I'll smile a whole lot wider." My shamelessness infuriated her. The next instant she grabbed my arm and hauled me out of the chair. My body had already been ravaged by illness. The sudden pull sent a hot blade of pain through my stomach. "Ryan, do you have no shame at all?" she shouted. I didn't answer. Someone hurried over to soothe her. "Viv, calm down. Is this...your ex?" I'd heard that voice often enough on television to recognize it. Blake Prescott, the actor the tabloids had been linking to Vivian. I couldn't see him inspecting me, but I could hear the disgust in his polished voice. "He's asking for more? Fifty grand wouldn't even buy Vivian a pair of shoes. I'll give it to you. Consider it my thanks for you not marrying her." I gave a humorless smile. The offer didn't make it any easier to breathe. My mind slipped back five years. Vivian had always been warm and beautiful. Above all, there were her eyes, so bright and expressive that I could never find the right words for them. She'd been the standout student in our university's acting program. I was a penniless kid from a small town, with no family, no connections, and very little to offer. I never understood what she saw in me. But she loved me. Somehow, that had been enough. Even back then, the film industry had begun to notice her extraordinary eyes. I was working as hard as I could to build a career of my own, determined to give us a future. Then fate played its cruelest trick on us. Chapter 2 Vivian went blind the night before our wedding. Her loss of sight was caused by disease. The doctors told us it was irreversible. One blow followed another until she was on the edge of breaking. Proud, beautiful Vivian, whose acting career had only just begun, suddenly couldn't see the world she had worked so hard to conquer. The illness wore her down, and there were days when she spoke as if she didn't want to live anymore. So I knocked on her doctor's door and asked the question that changed my life. "Can I donate my corneas to the woman I love?" The rustle of a sleeve brought me back to the hospital waiting area. Vivian had caught Blake's arm before he could send the money. She patted his hand in reassurance. "Blake, don't. I've already given him a hundred and twenty thousand. That's more than enough to buy his whole miserable life." Hearing her speak to him so intimately hurt worse than the pain spreading from my stomach into my chest. So much for the extra money. I didn't want to hear another word. I found my cane, tapped the floor a few times, and tried to move somewhere quieter to wait for the doctor. Crack. Someone planted a foot on my cane and snapped it clean in two. Without it, I lost my balance as I stood and fell hard onto the hospital floor. My sunglasses flew off. I couldn't even tell where they'd landed. "Watch where you're going, Mr. Sloane," Blake said. Vivian was at my side almost immediately. Instinctively, she helped me sit up. With my sunglasses gone, my vacant, unfocused eyes were exposed. She frowned, confused. Something seemed to dawn on her. "Your eyes..." Blake heard the change in her voice. He wasn't about to let me have her attention. "Oh, come on, Ryan. Have you no dignity?" he snapped. "Vivian used to be blind, so now you're copying her to get sympathy and more money? I came in for a stomach problem and suddenly here you are, following us around. If you're really so concerned about her, why did you abandon her on your wedding day?" His words tore open the old wound between Vivian and me. Whatever concern she'd shown disappeared from her voice. She pulled me the rest of the way to my feet and released my arm. "Come on, Blake. We have nothing to say to him. Some people are blind in more ways than one. No amount of money will fix that." Their footsteps retreated together. The pain in my stomach sharpened until I couldn't remain standing. I collapsed onto a chair outside the examination rooms, suddenly certain my illness had gotten worse. I didn't even have the strength to call for help. The last sounds I heard before the darkness swallowed me were strangers shouting. "Help! He's passed out!" "Call the ER. Somebody bring a stretcher!" When I woke, I recognized my attending physician's furious voice before he said my name. "Ryan, how many times have I told you? You cannot put yourself through this kind of stress. Your stomach can't take it. You need rest." Dr. Graham Ellis sounded as though he wanted to shake some sense into me. "You've been doing reasonably well until now. What happened today? Keep this up and you won't even need that surgery. No surgeon in the world will be able to save you." I could only offer him an embarrassed smile. After another long sigh and strict instructions to rest, he left me alone. Chapter 3 I felt for my phone in my pocket. Before I could wake the screen, it began to ring. "Hello, Mr. Sloane? This is your bank. There was a deposit of two hundred thousand dollars yesterday. The sender, Ms. Hart, has since requested that the transfer be reversed. She said it was made in error. We're calling to notify you." I let out a bitter little laugh at my own expense. It was all I could do. Tears, however, rolled onto the backs of my cold hands, one hot drop after another. I really wasn't going to make it. Back in the run-down neighborhood where I rented a room, I checked my account. There were only three digits left in the balance. I didn't give myself time to rest. I changed into a cheap suit and got ready for work. I'd owned an expensive one once. It was the suit I was supposed to wear when Vivian and I got married. The truth was, I'd always been a coward where she was concerned. I wasn't clever with words or brave enough to face her tears. Vivian loved me. If she had known I was the cornea donor, she never would have agreed. I couldn't tell her. I couldn't let her know. So the last time we were together, I didn't even give her a proper goodbye. Instead, I picked a vicious fight. I told her I hated her damaged eyes. I complained that caring for someone sick would ruin my life. I even accused her of being useless now that she couldn't work and earn money. She held on to my hand anyway, crying and apologizing to me. So I ran away from our wedding. Fate wasn't finished with me. After the donation left me blind, I had to learn how to navigate the world from the beginning. Work and ordinary life became almost impossible. For a while, the only jobs I could get were simple physical ones. I had no money. No family. Some days I didn't know where my next meal was coming from. Then came the stomach-cancer diagnosis. I sat with the report in my hands, trying to make sense of everything I felt. The first thought that came to me was painfully pathetic. Thank God it was me. I had lived in darkness for years, but I had never forgotten how beautiful Vivian's eyes were when we first met. I smiled, my nose stinging. My phone buzzed again. This time it was my shift schedule from Doug, the spa manager. I was working as a blind massage therapist. On a good day I could make a little over a hundred dollars. That seemed like a fortune compared with my other options, but it was nothing against the cost of surgery. I'd stopped pretending I could save myself. Two hundred thousand dollars was impossible. Fifty thousand, though...maybe I could scrape that together. I supposed that was all my life was worth now. It was the price of a decent burial plot. I wanted somewhere nice to be buried. I just never expected to encounter Vivian and Blake again. "Ryan! Hey, Ryan, you know who's here?" Katie, the receptionist, was always overflowing with celebrity gossip. She bounced over to tell me the news. "Vivian Hart and Blake Prescott! They're the leads in that huge new series everybody's watching. Apparently Blake's been pursuing her. They're so gorgeous together. You've been working every minute of the day, so of course you wouldn't know." I listened quietly, the old familiar ache settling in my chest. "They're having their wrap party here tonight," Katie went on. "And Vivian's eyes? Absolutely unreal. I heard she nearly went blind once. Can you imagine? The world almost lost the chance to see those eyes." She fell silent, suddenly realizing who she was talking to. "Oh, Ryan. I'm sorry. I forgot you can't..." I forced a smile. "It's okay. From the way you describe her, she must be beautiful." Chapter 4 "Someone in Room 316 requested me," I told Katie. "I'd better get upstairs." It was a lie. No one had asked for me. I only wanted to run away before Vivian could find out I worked here. With my head down, I made for the stairwell leading to the fourth-floor staff lounge. I didn't get far. Someone stepped directly into my path and drove a shoulder into me. I hit the floor before I could catch myself. "What the hell is wrong with you?" Blake shouted. "You knock someone over and don't even apologize?" He'd done it deliberately. I knew it. But the familiar pain was already stirring in my stomach, and I didn't have the strength for another confrontation. I struggled upright and lowered my head. "I'm sorry, sir. I didn't mean to bump into you. I'm very sorry." My meek response apparently caught him off guard. "Sorry? That's it?" he demanded. "You think an apology makes everything fine? Get your manager. I'd like to know how this place trains its staff." His voice carried down the hall. Doors opened, and guests began gathering to see what was happening. Then Vivian spoke. "Ryan?" Blake made a show of suddenly recognizing me. He tore the sunglasses from my face. "Well, look who it is! Couldn't find a rich woman to support you after you ditched Vivian? Is this where you come looking for the next one? Or did you follow her here so you can pretend to be blind and squeeze more money out of her?" The crowd needed no further encouragement. "That's Vivian Hart's ex? Look how scrawny he is. He ran out on their wedding because she couldn't see and wouldn't be able to make money anymore." "Karma. The tables have turned." "Watching a fake-blind sob-story creep get what he deserves? So satisfying." I bowed my head and said nothing. Explaining myself had never brought me anything but fresh humiliation. Doug, the manager, arrived in a rush. He didn't ask who had bumped into whom. He grabbed my shoulders and shoved my head down. "Mr. Prescott, I am so sorry. He's one of our massage therapists. He's visually impaired, and another VIP client has been waiting for him. He must have been in a hurry. Please forgive us." Vivian turned her anger on me. "Ryan, have you absolutely no pride? You're that desperate to meet your next rich patron? When I won't give you attention, you immediately find somebody else?" The whispers around us grew uglier. I kept my head down, and my silence seemed to confirm every accusation in her mind. She grabbed my arm and dragged me to the stairwell. "You wanted money, didn't you? And you want me to believe you're blind? You've got more acting talent than I do." Her voice rose. "Fine. Make it all the way up these stairs and I'll keep you from now on. Whatever you need." Everyone went quiet. I could hear the change in Blake's breathing. He understood that Vivian still had feelings for me, even if she was hiding them behind anger. He started to protest, but one cold look from her stopped him. The staff lounge was on the fourth floor. The staircase was narrow, built that way to save space. Even when I had my cane, I'd stumbled on those steps more times than I cared to remember. Now the cane was broken. And my stomach was in such terrible condition that one bad fall might be enough to make my stomach bleed. Chapter 5 After a long silence, I managed a shameless little smile. "You don't need to keep me. I wouldn't want to damage the great Vivian Hart's reputation. Just give me fifty thousand dollars. Cash." For a moment, I heard nothing but her sharply drawn breath. When she finally answered, she sounded as though she had forced the word through clenched teeth. "Fine." I put one hand on the wall and began feeling for the steps. Vivian might have meant to give me a chance, but the people around her had already decided I was a greedy fraud. Blake, in particular, wasn't going to let me climb in peace. I'd gone only a few steps when my foot landed on something slick. Chopped fruit. Someone had scattered pieces across the stairs. I lost my balance instantly. My knee struck the edge of a marble step with a dull crack. I couldn't hold back a small groan. Vivian moved toward me. I heard her shoes scrape the floor, quick and urgent. Blake caught her before she reached me. "If he can't do it, he can walk normally like everybody else," he said with a laugh. "Why is he pretending to be blind? Did he think fifty thousand dollars would be easy money?" Vivian stopped. Her silence gave everyone else permission to join in. More fruit hit the stairs. Then oil. Small pieces of jewelry. Blake even hurled a glass. It flew past my face and shattered against the steps, spraying fragments everywhere. Even Doug sounded frightened now. But no one stopped them. I couldn't remember how many times I fell. Each time, I dug my fingers into the steps and forced myself back up. Each time, another slip sent me crashing down. My elbows and knees struck the marble over and over. The blows jarred my stomach until the pain became almost impossible to separate from the rest of my body. At first, I still made sounds when I was hurt. Soon, I didn't even have the strength for that. I couldn't stand anymore. So I crawled, feeling for one step at a time. Glass bit into my palms. Tiny sharp edges opened cuts along my arms and legs. Blood made the stairs slippery beneath me. All I could do was keep moving. Then Vivian shouted. "Enough, Ryan!" I heard her running toward the staircase. Whatever composure she'd been clinging to had finally broken. "Are you really willing to die for that money?" There was one piece of good news. Somehow, I'd reached the top. I hauled myself upright. My entire body hurt so badly it was starting to feel numb. I barely knew what I was saying. "Because...that's all my life is worth. Fifty thousand." I turned my head toward her voice. She was running up the stairs now, desperate to catch me before I fell again. Then she stopped short. Her breath caught, and she made a small, terrible sound. I could hear her scrambling faster, hands and feet against the steps, calling something I couldn't quite make out. Maybe my name. The repeated falls had finally done what I'd feared. Pain surged from my stomach, bringing a metallic taste with it. I bent forward. Blood poured from my mouth. My knees gave way and I hit the floor in a widening pool of red. The last thing I heard was Vivian screaming. "Ryan!"