Want You Back - River Laurent Page 0,32

that had been skirting around my brain came to the forefront. Something I’d feared but told myself it was irrational thinking. Punishment.

I’d not told anyone. Not even Amy but a part of me believed that I would get punished for taking Alex away from his family. I fought down a hysterical sob. I should have walked away from Alex. By now, he’d have been over me and he would have married his family’s choice.

Family was the most important thing in the world and I had taken him away from his. I knew that at one point, I was going to pay. That moment had come. I tried to be brave. Whatever the doctor was going to say was something I had brought on myself.

“You have a very rare eye condition known as peripheral vision loss,” Doctor Martin said.

I didn’t bother repeating the name of the disease. “Is it treatable?” I didn’t care about anything else other than whether there was a way out.

He didn’t answer for a moment. Panic filled my chest. Was I going to die at twenty-three from an eye condition?

The doctor shook his head. “Not at the moment, no. It is a degenerative disease, which affects your eyesight as time goes, eventually leading to blindness.”

Fear clenched a tight first around my chest. Blindness? I glanced around and noticed that my vision had narrowed and I couldn’t see as widely as I had seen, say three months earlier.

Tears filled my eyes. I was fucking twenty-three! I was not an old woman. I slumped in my chair and allowed the tears to flow from my eyes. How much bad luck could one person endure in a lifetime?

Just when I was settling into a semblance of normalcy with a great husband and a new family. My very own family. Something I’d never had, and was enjoying greatly. I spoke to Helen at least once every day. And now this?

I felt like smashing something against the wall at the unfairness of it all. My chest constricted with pain. I had so many questions but I couldn’t speak as sobs wracked my body.

“Should we call your husband?” Dr. Martin asked.

I snapped out of my misery and self-pity. “No! Please.” I fished a handkerchief from my handbag. “What causes it? Are you sure that’s what it is?”

He nodded. “We did a myriad of tests. I’m not sure as to what causes it. It has something to do with the deterioration of the optic nerves but we don’t really know.”

“How long until I go completely blind?”

“Two to five years,” he said. “Every patient is different.”

After asking a few more questions, I realized that no matter how many questions I asked, he was not going to tell me what I desperately wanted to hear. That it was a mistake and I was going to be fine.

Charlotte

I walked out to my car, entered and sat gripping the steering wheel. Poor Alex. Meeting me had been the worst luck of his life. I’d brought him nothing but trouble. And now illness. As I sat there, the beginnings of a plan started to form in my mind.

The best thing would have been if Alex and I had not met. But we had. The next best thing would be if I disappeared like a cloud of smoke from his life. I thought about never seeing him again and fresh tears filled my eyes.

My heart felt as if it was breaking into pieces. We’d had so many plans for the future. But that meant nothing. I’d taken so much from his life. His family, his career, his friends. It was time to let go of that dream.

People like me, born in the gutter, did not get their happily ever after. I’d lied to myself enough. I couldn’t keep dragging Alex down with me. He deserved better.

Without me, he could return to the family firm where he belonged and take his rightful place as his father’s heir. He would marry a girl that his family approved off. At that thought, my heart expanded to painful proportions.

I couldn’t imagine my Alex belonging to another woman. As long as I never saw it, I would be okay. I cried until I had no more tears. I drove out of the parking lot and headed home. I’d left work two hours earlier and I had some time before Alex came home.

Another thought plagued me as I took a shower. What about my best friend Amy? She’d become a big part of my life. So