A/N: Hey guys. Look, I've got to hurry with this. I hope this chapter suits you all. I've got a proposition for you all at the bottom of the page so hurry and read. This chapter was light and funnier than the last few had been. It took me forever to get it out because I literally have about ten different variations, all of which are so very depressing. This one was the funniest and so much easier to write.
And if you all wonder why Edward is acting so brattish in this chapter, just think, "It's because he cares!" That's all you need to know.
Disclaimer: I do not own the Twilight saga or its characters. They are owned by Stephenie Meyer.
SURE AS HELL DIDN'T SEE THAT ONE COMING
"That's bull! How can he do this to you? The results should come immediately? The examination didn't even involve any tests that would need results! It makes no sense!"
I sighed and twiddled my thumbs as Edward made a show of pacing loudly on his carpeted floors. I really shouldn't have been able to hear his footsteps as loudly as I did. And his carpet was thick and soft, too. He must have really been angry.
"Relax, Edward. You heard what he said. He hadn't received a case like this before and it would take him a while to make some calls and do a little more searching on this particular…issue," I said calmly, trying to sooth him. It didn't work.
"He's an optometrist! He should know what he's doing! I don't like this, Bella. Maybe we should just find you another doctor. Dad should be able to find some doctors that deal with this kind of thing. I'm sure it's not as uncommon as he's making it seem. I mean, I've been looking all over for information on this kind of thing. Did you know that not all blind people have cataracts over their eyes?! That's got to mean something," Edward rambled on and on, his words coming out faster and faster as he seemed to lose the point of his original argument and went on and on about people with cataracts and the difference between blind people and legally blind people. He had been like that since the end of the appointment. Throughout it all he had been eager and ready to help answer the doctor's questions, helpful in every way possible while he politely pushed me from room to room.
But as soon as we left, he began complaining about the doctor, the way he spoke in an "unsure" manner, the facilities –when Edward couldn't think of anything else to criticize– and then began researching the terms that the doctor had said that he hadn't understood as soon as he had gotten home. Once words like amblyopia and retinal detachment started being thrown around, I tried to block it out. Edward had just continued asking more and more questions. He should have known that it would be impossible to actually block his questions out when he was saying them. That was blocking out the song of a siren. Impossible.
I hadn't said much to him since the appointment. Letting him rant and have his time to accept the little that had been said to him was all I could do. So much drama had passed through my once boring life that I wasn't quite ready for something as potent as a life-changing experience yet. But I would openly admit to myself that Edward was acting much more brattish than I had ever expected of him. Then again, I should have seen the potential before. He was rather spoiled.
Avoiding all topics relating to my eyes was impossible. Edward had made it a key factor in everything we did. Even when eating he had pointed out, "Carrots are good for your eyes. Would you like some in your salad?" And I had then silently declined by changing my order from a garden salad to a burger and fries –no carrots in sight.
I blamed myself for the rut in our relationship. Edward and I still spent most of our time together, whether it was sitting at my kitchen table doing homework (Edward always seemed to sneak away my paper afterwards and correct works that meshed together strangely) or lounging on his bedroom floor, looking through the numerous music albums that he owned, all ranging from all corners of the musical spectrum. However, the time we spent together wasn't enough. It was all clouded over by the same thing that clouded my eyes: doubt and questions.
What could possibly be left for me to take? The eyes were supposed to be the last thing I would lose in my book. But that chapter of my life seemed to have passed only to open more doors, all that led to unlit rooms that I couldn't see inside. So if I was correct in my predictions and I had looked at the signs correctly, there was something just around the corner, lurking and waiting for me to step out without my protector watching me before they attacked.
Anticipation was there, boiling in my stomach and making me sick, a strange counter to Edward's excited and anxious attitude. It didn't help. It was like adding lemon juice to the salt covered wound. It just burned more.
--
A father-daughter heart-to-heart wasn't my idea of a nice Saturday. A nice Saturday was a sunny one, sitting with Edward in that sweet, flower and dew scented place he had taken me for our picnic, a day where he forgot that I was blind and that there was a chance of him being unhappy with me being blind. But seeing as how Edward would never forget about my blindness and he would consider being unhappy being with me –even if only because I am unhappy being blind– and Charlie had finally decided to check up on me to see if I was still alive and that Emmett hadn't accidentally killed me and buried me underneath the overgrown moss in the trees outside our house, a chat with Charlie was all I had to look forward to.
"So," Charlie drawled awkwardly. "I hear you're going out with the Cullen boy. I thought he was dating someone."
I coughed into my hand, trying to cover up my discomfort. Edward's past escapades with the opposite sex weren't the ideal subject for me. "Umm…that wasn't true. He hasn't been dating anyone."
"And your hand? Does that have something to do with him?" I shook my head jerkily, thinking up a quick story that wasn't exactly a lie…not.
"Oh, I –uh, punched a brick wall. It was just…there, you know? Not realistically placed and it just got in the way and it was annoying the heck out of me, so, yeah."
"Bells, you can't just go around punching brick walls! They don't talk and they definitely can't think." This all would have been much funnier had I been watching from the sidelines. Charlie and I, talking about "brick walls" –hint: I was thinking of a certain girl who had interrupted a special date of mine– was really just the strangest thing I could imagine at the moment. I tried to change the subject quickly to a more entertaining subject that Charlie definitely preferred to my current "unavailable" status and managed to keep him occupied on his next fishing trip, the one that Emmett would be accompanying him on –though I readily admitted that Emmett probably didn't even know he was scheduled for one of his bimonthly fishing explorations with Charlie.
Charlie avoided all conversation revolving my medical problems after the hand comment. That's what I liked about him. He didn't hover over me or ask me if I was alright all the time. And that was the difference between Charlie and Edward. I didn't appreciate it when Charlie asked me. I appreciated it when Edward did…but I still didn't like being asked so much. But at least he cared in a way that wasn't always so stoic and silent. It was nice to know he at least thought about how I was feeling.
--
There was so much going on. Another appointment with another doctor, an ophthalmologist, a doctor that sounded a heck of a lot like an optometrist, and another call from the first doctor that he couldn't be of much help because this case wasn't really in his field at all and he had only been hoping to be helpful in the first place. So Edward had practically been threatening to go and attack the poor yet optimistic man with a lawsuit as soon as he heard that we had wasted our time waiting for results for tests that had never been taken because the man was going against his own practice. I honestly just didn't care at this point. They could rip my eyes out and put new ones in if that helped. As long as Edward was fine with that, then I was too. But hearing him rant on and on about something that had long since been accepted into my life was like having to listen to him about his old girlfriends from school. I just didn't want to hear it.
However, on the drive to one of the ophthalmology offices in Seattle, I could feel the excitement radiating from Edward's very being. He had been humming along to a song, one of the many that I could remember hearing from his extensive collection, and every time there was a slight crescendo or an accented note, he would accentuate those points before speeding up happily. The humming just made me nervous.
What did Edward expect from this? A miracle? I hoped not. Maybe would could have the cataracts removed from my eyes. That would be nice. Then he would at least not be startled by seeing a milky white eye staring back at him when he looked up from his homework to see how I was doing. He would only have to see bland brown eyes. That was better than the freakish eyes I had now.
But I didn't expect much else from this experience. I'd probably be poked with some sort of metal instrument simply because that was silent agreement I had with all my doctors. If I'm going in and paying you, I must at least be poked by a metal instrument. I and my insurance company are paying you good money to look me over and grope me in uncomfortable but entirely appropriate ways. The least you can do is pretend you're doing something worthwhile and poke me with a metal utensil that has nothing but numbers in its name.
I stifled a giggle. No need for Edward to think I'm not taking this seriously.
--
"Hi, I'm Dr. Calgary. So, what seems to be the problem?" Edward was silent.
"I can't see," I said lamely.
"I think that's kind of obvious, Bella," Edward replied silently, a hint of humor in his voice. Good, at least he was getting something out of this. I was just feeling nauseous. This place…I wasn't sure what it was. It was probably just because of the atmosphere. It smelled clean in here, like I was in a completely sterile environment. I wasn't sure if that was a good thing.
"Well," Dr. Calgary interrupted quietly, a smile in his voice, "let's just see what we can do about that. Right this way." We were led into what I assumed was an office with soft carpet that crushed like flower petals beneath my feet. It smelled like cinnamon and reminded me that I needed to relax. I ignored that and remembered why I needed to stay alert. I may not have wanted to hear what was going to come next but I had to be here for Edward. Being pessimistic and comforting was difficult but I could do it. For Edward, I would do it.
After being seated, Dr. Calgary went on to explain how he was different from the previous doctor and how ophthalmology was different from optometry. Edward's hand always loosened around my own whenever he wanted to speak up and finish the doctor's explanation in his own words. I just squeezed back when his hand relaxed back into its normal place.
"So, Ms. Swan, how long have you been unable to see?"
I thought back. "A little more than a year, I believe."
"Sixteen months," Edward corrected. I just internally shook my head. Edward had looked this up to. The reports, newspaper clippings, everything from the accident. He knew it all. Damn that photographic memory of his.
"And you haven't had any other examinations specifically for your eyes besides the one performed by the doctor who referred me to you, correct?" I nodded.
"Alright then," he clapped his hands together. "Well, we'll run a scan of your eyes, take some pictures, maybe we can diagnose this problem immediately."
--
We spent an hour or two running tests, having light being flashed into my eyes, taking up-close pictures of my eyes, and Edward squeezing my hand whenever I felt uncomfortable. And when the doctor said he would look over his notes and try to figure things out, we told him we would wait. Edward was anxious and I just wanted things to be over.
The doctor didn't seem to feel awkward with us sitting in his office seats, and watching him read over the scans and looking over the pictures. I felt awkward though. I didn't know what he was doing but I could hear plastic sheets being brushed against each other and the sound of the doctor hm-ing under his breath. We were so lucky that we had been his last scheduled appointment for the day. Otherwise I think Edward would have had to be pushed out of the office kicking and screaming that we were paying good money for this appointment and that we had been scheduled and therefore had the right to wait for immediate results. Again, I would readily admit that this was all very humorous. Seeing Edward act like a child every once in awhile was kind of…cute. Endearing were Edward's many traits, a perfect combination that suited him well.
"Whoop, looks like I've gotten this down!" Dr. Calgary exclaimed suddenly, making me jump. "Looks like we've found the source of the problem. It's not as bad as I thought it would be."
"Really? What is it?" Edward asked excitedly.
"She's got cataracts," Dr. Calgary replied. I sighed. If this is how long it took him to figure out the obvious, we had obviously gotten an idiot for a doctor.
"Doctor, I think we could have guess that," Edward said heavily, his voice laced with annoyance. Calgary laughed (I had lost the need to call him "doctor").
"Yes, but I don't think either of us could have assumed why they had formed over her otherwise healthy eyes. It surprised me as well."
"There was a cause?" Edward asked.
I snorted. "Every effect has a cause, Edward. Duh," I said playfully. Edward didn't seem amused. Just excited to hear what else was to be heard.
"At first, I had assumed that maybe Ms. Swan's eyes had formed the cataracts due to damage done directly to the area beyond the crystalline lens, where her eyes are much more sensitive. From the scars around her eyes, that had been my first guess. Fortunately, I was wrong. That kind of damage would have left permanent scarring and would have led to a dead end full of only harsher surgeries. I prefer not to have to take you into that. There are always more risks with more difficult surgeries.
"But there is a big reason behind the cataracts forming. Your previous doctor had thought about it but seeing as he has little experience in this field of medicine," Edward snorted quietly, "he couldn't correctly diagnose the problem. Partial retinal detachment was the cause of your vision loss. The cataracts were forming because of this. They were doing their best to protect the eyes because the break. But you were lucky. It was only partially attached from the choroid membrane –the part that is connected directly to your eye– and nourishment was still allowed to pass through to the eye. If it hadn't still been partially attached, you wouldn't have been able to have it corrected after waiting an entire year later."
"Wait up. So…she's not actually blind?" Edward asked excitedly.
"Oh no, she's blind alright. Legally blind. But that can easily be fixed with a corrective surgery that will reattach the choroid membrane to the retina. And once we do that, we can remove the cataracts and replace the crystalline lens with an intraocular lens, which is an artificial crystalline lens that will do the same as the crystalline lens did. I've done both surgeries, though I admit that I've never had to do them simultaneously before. But you're in capable hands, Ms. Swan."
I just sat there, gaping at the empty sight that my eyes had been seeing for the past sixteen months. Cataract surgery and a simple retina reattachment. That was all. No exchanging of the eyes, no having to reassure Edward that I would survive (even if I really couldn't) if he left me, no reminding myself that I was the same person I had always been, that I didn't need my eyesight. Just a simple surgery. Nothing else. That just…
Sucked.
My mind blurred a bit before I heard the echoes of someone trying to call me back out of the cloud of darkness that seemed to be darker and more welcoming than the dark that I was accustomed.
A/N: Okay, the proposition, the proposition.
I know you all waited a hell of a lot of time for this chapter and it probably wasn't even all that good. I get that. I'm pissed too. But something important is happening in my head right now.
If you all review, I won't be checking my email until Wednesday, August 5th at around 1: 29 PM. Why, you may ask? Well, that is the exact time and date that I was born in 1992. And by that time, I have to have written a 25 chapter book. Why? Because when I started writing my book at the beginning of last school year, I told myself, "Hey, I'm going to finish this book before my seventeenth birthday!" But I procrastinated and I'm ashamed. So I need to finish it in less than two days. Sounds impossible, right? Wrong! I will do it and then I'll give you all a preview of it just to see if you all like it. But if you all can be supportive and review and stuff, I will personally send all of you an excerpt! I promise on my dying bladder (I've been dying to go to the bathroom for the past ten minutes). I won't check reviews until August 5th.
Oh, and if you review anonymously, please leave an email address. That is, if you want me to reply or you want an excerpt from my original story as well.
Thanks for reading. Please review!