Total pages in book: 84
Estimated words: 78483 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 392(@200wpm)___ 314(@250wpm)___ 262(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 78483 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 392(@200wpm)___ 314(@250wpm)___ 262(@300wpm)
Dr. Martin was his name and he’d told me to return after a week. I was a mess and a part of me wished that I’d told Alex. But I’d chosen not to tell him as they had a big case coming up at work and he was knee deep in research.
I tried to bother him as little as possible. He had made so many sacrifices for us and he deserved to have a little peace in his life.
A gray haired, bespectacled woman left the examination room. The receptionist stood up and went into Dr. Martin’s office. My insides turned to jelly. Please help it be something that can be resolved with eye drops.
She returned a minute later. “You can see the doctor now.”
“Thanks,” I managed to say. My legs trembled as I entered the office.
The doctor was stooped over sheets of paper, which was not reassuring at all. He looked up at me grimly. Or was it my imagination. I didn’t know what was real and what wasn’t. My imagination had taken over, fear in the driver’s seat.
“Hello Charlotte,” he said. “Please sit down.”
No, it wasn’t my imagination. He was definitely more serious that he had been the previous week. My palms grew wet and I rubbed them over my pants. What could be the worst thing that could happen? Maybe an eye surgery, I thought, answering myself.
“So, do I need a prescription?” I said.
He looked at me and nodded his head. “Unfortunately not. It’s a lot more serious than that.”
My heart dropped to my feet. A truth 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.