Merry Cherry Christmas - Keira Andrews Page 0,1
to shut up as he crouched. He stood again. “Yeah, uh, I stepped on your glasses. The frame’s broken in half and the lenses are cracked. Well, one is cracked and the other is, like…”
“It’s trashed,” someone said.
Hot and cold all over, Jeremy ordered himself not to panic. How was he going to get across campus to his dorm room without his glasses? He blurted, “But I can’t see!” and cringed at the terror in his voice.
It hurt to breathe. Oh God, please let this be a bad dream. But he wasn’t waking up. He was out alone in the dark and might as well have been blindfolded. The U of T campus was huge, sprawling over dozens of blocks in downtown Toronto. The thought of trying to cross busy streets without being able to see made him sick to his stomach. Even in daylight, he would have felt horribly exposed and unsafe, but at night?
He reached blindly for Max’s arm, almost pleading, Don’t leave me! He managed to bite his tongue to keep from sounding even more pathetic.
Max seemed to hear the unspoken words. He took hold of Jeremy’s shoulders again. “It’s okay, Jeremy. I’ll help you get home.”
“Are we going to this party or what?” someone demanded. “This ice pellet bullshit is hurting my face.”
“I’ll meet you guys there,” Max said. “I broke his glasses. I’m not going to leave him out here alone.”
There was some grumbling, but also agreement. One voice said, “Hope your night gets way better, kid.”
“Hey, you should come to the party!” the guy who’d punched his shoulder said. “Get your contacts or whatever and come get hammered. I bet you could use a drink.”
Another added, “This is why you were captain of the team, Maxwell—taking the clueless little frosh under your wing. Always so responsible.”
Max huffed. “Whatever, Honey.”
Honey? Jeremy squinted, wishing he could see more of this other guy. Had he heard right? Had Max called him that? Maybe Jeremy had a concussion after all.
Another voice called as it got more distant, “We’ll chug a few beers for you, bro! Hurry up!”
Jeremy braced on the slippery sidewalk, his sneakers no match for the ice, the mix of snow and rain—practically hail now—not letting up. He said, “I’m sure I’ll be fine. You should go to your party,” although he desperately wanted this Max to stay with him.
“I’ll get you home first. Do you live in res?”
“Yeah, on St. George.” The adrenaline spike of losing his glasses seemed to be dulling the pain in his back, at least. “I’m really blind without my glasses. Sorry.”
“It’s cool. Honestly? I don’t really want to go to that party. My ex is going to be there. You okay to walk? This weather sucks ass. Guess they haven’t had a chance to salt the paths yet. Need to bust out my real winter boots.”
“Me too. Well, I need to buy some.”
“Yeah, those Chucks aren’t going to cut it.” With a gentle hand on Jeremy’s shoulder, Max guided him off the path. “Better to walk on the grass. More traction.”
It crunched under Jeremy’s sneakers, crusted with a thin layer of ice. Jeremy blinked at the old buildings rising around the grassy area. They were looming brown shapes, and the path’s streetlamps were big pinwheel sprays of light. The holiday decorations and lights just added to the confusion.
“Um, can you tell me when we get to a curb or anything?” Jeremy asked. “The world’s like the crappiest Monet painting ever without my glasses.”
Max laughed. “Gotcha. Blurry lily ponds and shit.”
“Yeah. I’m really near-sighted. My prescription’s minus-nine if that means anything to you.”
“Not really. What are most people?”
“Zero is good. Twenty-twenty, I guess. I read somewhere minus-three prescription is the average for people who wear glasses.”
“Whoa. You don’t wear contacts?”
“My eyes are too dry. Lucky me.”
“That sucks. You have a spare pair of glasses in your room, right?”
“My old ones. They’ll do for tonight.” He’d have to get the copy of his prescription and—
Jeremy tensed with the now familiar clench of hurt and dread. His mom had always handled that kind of stuff, but their most recent text exchange had been awkward at best, and his parents were the last people he wanted to deal with. That the feeling seemed to be mutual didn’t help. At all.
“You okay? You look like you’re gonna hurl. Shit, if you’ve got a concussion after all, we should get to the ER.” Max leaned closer, but he’d have to get six inches from Jeremy’s face