There Should Have Been Eight Read Online Nalini Singh

Categories Genre: Contemporary, Suspense Tags Authors: Nalini Singh Advertisement1

Advertisement2

I touched wet fingers to the edge of one eye.

This was the part of my history I wanted to know.

Had other people in my birth family gone blind?

Could I foretell my future journey by examining theirs?

Dr. Mehta, my postdiagnosis counselor, had suggested I trace them to request medical records even if I didn’t want to make more personal contact. I couldn’t tell her why I hadn’t followed her advice, how I woke up sweat-soaked after night terrors in which I knocked on a door and the woman who opened it had my face—and no eyes.

The floorboards creaked.

I jerked, sloshing water over the side, and stared out the bathroom door I hadn’t closed. The fire I’d started flicked warm shadows on the walls while the wind whistled beyond the windows. Even the dull yellow light seemed softer, more golden.

Nothing else moved.

Exhaling quietly, I settled back into the water and pretended I was a pampered old maiden lazing away the day. I even summoned up the energy to read a chapter of the paperback I’d brought along for the trip.

I really should’ve switched to an electronic reader—or even to reading on my phone. It wasn’t that the printed text was difficult for me to see—not yet anyway. It was about preparation, about acceptance.

The idea of it made my breath speed up, my skin burn.

Books—heavy, physical books—had been an integral part of my life for so long that of all the small things I’d have to give up in the future, this was the one I’d mourn the most. Nothing Dr. Mehta could say could make me come to peace with the loss of my ability to read as I’d been doing since I was a child sounding out my first words.

My eyes scanned the print, my fingers brushing over the green ink Bea had used to make notes in the margins. I’d been horrified the first time I’d seen her do it, but she’d won me over to her side, made me agree that it was part of getting lost in the text. Becoming so caught up in it that I wanted to engage with it.

We’d begun to trade books—and margin notes. Hers in green, mine in dark purple.

My eyes burned, dry and gritty.

Dr. Mehta had suggested I learn braille, told me that I didn’t have to stick to audiobooks if that wasn’t my preference. I hadn’t even read the brochures she’d handed me, much less booked myself in for a lesson, but every time I was in an elevator or at a pedestrian crossing with the raised dots below the written text, I closed my eyes and brushed my fingers over them.

Trying to see how it would be to read through my fingertips.

I couldn’t tell one dot from the next, would soon open my eyes and give up on the small experiment. But one day, it wouldn’t matter if I had my eyes open or closed. The world would remain the same formless black. Full only of the ghosts that would float across my vision, echoes of past sight.

I shivered, realizing the water had cooled and my fingertips were wrinkled. Tugging the plug chain with my foot, I allowed the water to gurgle down the drain with noisy enthusiasm as I got out and quickly rubbed myself dry.

Afterward, I pulled on my pajamas. No fancy silky robe like Grace’s. The bottoms were a pair of fleece pants—pale blush with red hearts on them. New, for the occasion of this reunion, since I’d figured people were going to see me in them at breakfast. The top was a matching tee. Blush pink with a single red heart in the center.

I’d bought it for the texture, not the cutesy motif.

I’d become increasingly more aware of textures since my diagnosis, conscious that one day in the future, it was touch, weight, smell that would create the shape of my world, not colors and patterns. Dr. Mehta had told me that there were all kinds of assistive technologies now, including programs that would read out descriptions of items of clothing to me.

I didn’t have to fear ending up dressed in a chaotic mishmash.

But the doctor had also been harsh with my initial refusal to consider any changes in my existence. “You won’t be able to move forward until you accept that your life has changed on the most fundamental level.”

I’d frustrated her. I knew that. I’d acted the child, placing invisible hands over my ears and refusing to listen. Still, she’d tried. “Instead of trying to force your old life into a shape it no longer fits, you can choose to create a life that suits who you are now, today.”

The problem was that the Luna I was today was the same Luna I’d been yesterday and the same Luna I’d be tomorrow. The only thing that was going to change was my vision.


Advertisement3

Advertisement4