"Hi," Lauren answered. She drew closer to him and when she was close enough to him, she recognized him immediately. "You're the guy who bumped into me a while back."
Landon's eyes darted to the direction that the voice was coming from and he asked, "You remember that?"
Lauren nodded still not knowing that Landon was blind. "It's not that easy to forget. Look I'm really sorry about that. I didn't mean for you to get hurt or anything."
"It's fine, really. I'm the one who should be sorry. I mean, I practically almost blew up on you. It was beyond mean and I should have been nicer."
"I still think that I should have been more careful."
"No, it's fine. Really." Lauren looked down and she realized that she was nervous. His jade green eyes were looking in her direction and it made her feel weird. Then she realized that she hadn't even introduced herself. She offered him her hand and and said, "I'm Lauren, by the way."
Landon hesitated but he knew that she had offered him her hand. He couldn't just leave her hanging like that. He raised up both his hands and felt the air until his right hand found hers. "I'm Landon. Nice to meet you."
Lauren had frozen a few moments before when she saw Landon feel the air. It seemed like a funny thing to do. But she didn't mind it, It was weird but it didn't make her feel uncomfortable. And then she realized that he had said his name was Landon.
"Landon?" she repeated.
"Yes..ma'am. That's me."
"I'm Lauren, the neighor who was at your house the other day for dinner."
At the mention of these words, Landon stiffened. He had not been at the dinner precisely because he did not want them to know he was blind. He didn't want to be subjected to the stares and the judgements.
Lauren noticed that his eyes looked beyond her, just like that time when he bumped into her. She didn't understnad it until she remembered a soap opera that she had watched. The protaganist of the soap opera had that same look. When she looked at someone, her eyes would always look beyond the person and they would wonder all over the place. They would never focus on the person she was looking at. At that moment, she remembered why the protagonist did that. She had been in a car accident which left her blind. That was why she would never look directly at the person who would approach her. Then she looked up at Landon. She studied him, especially his eyes and then she realized that blindness was the perfect explanation. Wow, she thought, he's blind and I never noticed. He's so brave though. I don't know if I would be able to be this strong, to isolate themselves from the rest of the world because I knew that they would never accept me. I admire him already. Crazy, but it's true."You're... blind." Lauren said slowly, waiting for his reaction. He was still frozen in his stiffened state. And the response to her statement was barely above a whisper," Yeah, ever since I was four."
"Is this why you weren't downstairs at the dinner?"
"Yes. I usually get the 'you're a freak' reaction, or something in between."
"There's nothing wrong with being blind. It doesn't make you a freak of any kind."
At these words, Landon began to feel better and he let out the breath he hadn't realized he had been holding. In fact, he was surprised."Really?" he asked her.
"Yeah. I believe what I said."
"You're the first."
Lauren heard these words and she thought about that. "I'm the first to think what?"
"You're the first to think that there's nothing wrong with me just because I'm blind. Everyone else thinks I'm a freak and they don't even turn my way. They avoid me on the street and school...don't even get me started on school. People are not very nice to me. They don't give me the chance," he answered back.
"Well," she said. "I'm not everyone else. I am Lauren Reyes and I am not anything like the other jerks which you have mentioned. Trust me. There are still good people in the world."
"Yeah...I guess you're right."
Lauren looked at him, studying his facial expression. She assured him that what she said was true. "Trust me, Landon. There are good people in the world. You just have to find them."
~~~~~~~~~
"Mom, I'm home." Landon yelled.
Laura came hurriedly to see her son. She touched him as if to make sure that he was made out of flesh and bone. And when Laura confirmed this, she let out a sigh of relief.
"I'm fine, Mom. Don't worry. I'm alive. I made it back. Is Lance home?" Landon replied.
"Yes. He's upstairs in his room."
"Okay. Thanks, Mom."
Landon walked up the stairs using his cane. He felt for the edge of the stairs and when he was sure he had found it, he would lift his foot and reach the next step. When he was upstairs, he walked eight steps to his left and one step to the right. He found Lance's door and he knocked on it.
"Come in." Lance's voice reached his ears.
Landon turned the doorknob and entered his brother's room. "Hey, Lance."
"Oh, hey Landon. What's up?"
"I have to talk to you about something that just happened."
"Sure, bro. Sit down. Talk to me."
Landon, using his cane, sat down on the bed. "I met her."
"You met who?"
"Lauren."
"What ?! When ?! Where ?!"
"I was taking a walk in they park today, like usual to my favorite spot. And as I'm sitting there, I hear a twig break. I turned around immediately and I asked who was there. It took her a while but she answered. She told me that her name was Lauren and she recognized me as your brother. She hadn't noticed that I was blind. But she kind of figured it out. To my surprise, she didn't run like most people do."
"Wow, bro. What can I say? That's great."
"Lance, she's amazing. The sound of her voice...it was so melodic. And did I mention she didn't mind I was blind? I think she's an angel from heaven. I might actually have a friend, Lance."
Lance could hear the excitement in Landon's voice. It was amazing, how in one instant his hope had been renewed and it was someone who he had barely met a few days ago. But it made him happy to know that there were still good people out there. "I'm glad, Landon. I told you that you would find somebody."
"Yeah, you did. She's pretty cool. And she might actually become her friend."
Lance came over to his brother and hugged him. Landon hugged him right back because for the first time since he had become blind, he found someone who didn't mind him being blind. Lauren was right. There were still good people in the world and she was one of them.
"Okay, man. Thanks for listening. I'll just leave you now." Landon said as he got up, using the cane to guide him. When he reached his room, he turned on the light. It was a habit and he had never stopped turning the light on, but he turned it off because he realized that it was still day. He kept thinking back to the park, kept thinking back to the encounter with Lauren. She even has a pretty name, Landon thought. But as soon as he had that thought, it disappeared. You're being biased Landon, he thought, the only reason I think she has a pretty name is because I'm biased. I mean, she is the only person who hasn't run from me when she realized I was blind. She was the only one who had figured it out and didn't run. That makes me biased already.
He knew that what he felt about her was because she was the first to interact with him when others wouldn't. And yet, he felt an attraction to her that he couldn't quite explain. He thought back to the moment he heard the twig break. There was a long pause and then he heard her sweet voice. At first, he became afraid because it was likely that she had been there since the beginning. Maybe Lauren had even heard him cry. But it wasn't possible. Landon was sure that Lauren would have mentioned it if she had. She probably would have asked him what was going on. But out of the whole conversation that they had had, he could only think of one thing that she had said at the end of the conversation: "Trust me, Landon. There are still good people in the world. You just have to find them."
He walked over to the window. He felt for the curtains so that he could part them, but he realized that it was better if he had just pulled from the outside hem of the curtains so that he wouldn't damage them in any way. When he did that, Landon reached in front of him and he touched the glass of the window. He felt around with his hands and he found the lock. He lifted up the lock and he pushed the window open. At once, he felt the cool breeze caress his skin and he felt happy and full of strength again. The encounter with Lauren helped him in so many ways. And someday he hoped that he could tell Lauren how much that conversation really meant to him and how much her kindness helped him and brought hope back into his life. Lauren came into his life when he was just about to give up. All of his life since he was four, since he lost his vision had been full of emptiness. No one was there for him, no one gave him a chance. Instead they turned all their hate on him. He had to go through so many insults and he had to stand all of the isolation on part of his other classmates. Usually in his classes, he was a loner. No one wanted to sit next to a blind person and it hurt him more than he let on. But then he met Lauren. Call it fate or destiny, or just pure coincidence, but he had met Lauren and she was the one who had given him hope again. Maybe it was just one person but it meant more to him than anybody could ever know. He couldn't stop thinking about her voice and her presence.
It made him think back of his father. Before the accident, he remembered how his father acted towards his mother. He remembered how his father looked at his mother. He remembered all of the little details that his father would give to his mother. He remembered that one time, his father cooked a special dinner for the both of them. At that time, Landon and Lance should have been sleeping but Landon sneaked out and he saw everything. They were in love and what he loved most about them was that they didn't take the small things for granted. Every time they were together, Landon's parents told each other that they loved each other and they would always hold hands wherever they went. They were in love and even though Landon had been relatively young, he understood the meaning of love through the way his parents treated each other. It was something he decided to look for in his own life. But then he became blind and that hope of finding someone who would love him in that same way vanished.
He came back to earth and he smiled. He couldn't help but smile at the thought of his father, Liam. He thought of his mother and realized that she was a much stronger woman than she appeared to be. And when he thought of the girl he had just met, an even bigger smile crossed his face. "This is unnatural," he thought. "I just met her. I haven't even known her for a day. This is crazy. You're going crazy Landon. This is not normal.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Lauren couldn't believe that she had had an encounter with the young man that she had collided into a while back. And in the place that she had never thought she would find him. She had stumbled upon that piece of heaven by accident, but she was glad that she had found it. She didn't know that a place as beautiful as such could have been hidden in the most common place that she had ever seen. When she first had seen it, she thought that this place would bring her some sort of happiness. And it had. First, it was the perfect place to go and paint, and the second, well, it happened today. She had a friend. It was her first friend, and she didn't mind one bit that he was blind. It had hurt her to hear how his voice was filled with pain when he told her how he was treated. It made her mad just thinking about it. How far would someone go just to make themselves feel better? How evil do you have to be to isolate someone for something they had no control over? Sometimes the world pissed her off but what she had told him was true. There were good people in the world. The hard part was to find them. She had said it from experience. She, too, had thought that there was no hope left. After her brother had left, she was devastated, but when she learned that he was never going to come back home, a part of her died. Her brother had been her best friend. Ever since she could remember, he was always with her taking care of her. When she was twelve and Brett was still around, she remembered it was him who held her while she cried. Brett was the best brother anyone could ever have. "And now he's gone." she thought. Her eyes filled up with tears and she decided not to talk about it. It was her ex-boyfriend's best friend who helped her after the whole cheating incident. It was the last person she expected to help her, but she was glad he had. He had turned into her best friend, almost like a brother. Shane was his name. He was one of the friends that she had left behind,
But anyway, back to Landon. Lauren couldn't stop replaying the conversation over and over again. The one thing that she remembered about Landon were his eyes. Those eyes had something she couldn't quite explain. When Lauren was looking at him, she couldn't keep direct eye contact for more than a few seconds at a time. It wasn't something she could explain and if she were talking to Shane, Shane would have said that she was crazy. It was at times like these when she missed Santa Barbara.
She got up and took her easel, her paintbrushes, her palette, and her paint. She started painting right in her room. This time though, it was her hand that was doing the painting. Even she herself had no idea what she was painting. It was sometimes like that: she felt the urge to paint but her hand was doing the painting and she was one step behind. It was one of those things that she loved about painting. It was her soul that was guiding her hand. She knew it. And it took about forty-five minutes to finish the painting. When she looked at it, she was amazed by what she saw. It was Landon. Landon as he was in the park sitting on the bench talking to her. What surprised her even more was that the whole painting was in black and white....mostly gray. Except for one thing: Landon's eyes. The intensity of Landon's green eyes were conveyed in the green in the painting. "What did I just paint?" she thought and looked at her hand with amazement.
"What am I going to do with this painting?" she talked out loud in her room. "Hmmmm...maybe I can give it to Landon. Lauren please, that's crazy."
She looked out her window and she saw him standing in the window. And in spite of herself, she smiled.