William’s P.O.V.

“I’m sorry Mrs. Evans but there is nothing more we can do at this stage for William.” Dr. Mason says sympathetically, his hands clasped in front of him on his desk.

I blink automatically to clear the blurry image of his face before my brain reminds me that it won’t make a difference.

I didn’t have to try so hard to make out mother’s expression, because I could picture that in my mind with worrying ease.

Her light, green eyes would be filled with tears. She would, of course, let the tears build to the point where they were just about to spill over before dabbing at them with her napkin. The tears would never topple over, because mother didn’t believe in waterproof makeup and therefore, could not afford to spoil her own.

Her lips would we wobbling in an uncanny fashion, her wrinkles showing more with her distorted features. Through those tear-filled eyes, she would tell a story of a thousand years worth of pain, a fabricated story with pain that she somehow channeled in a single moment.

So as she sat sobbing in the chair beside me, I knew exactly what she looked like without being able to see it entirely. I didn’t even need to pull myself close to her to confirm it.

“N-No.” Mother argues her choked sobs the only sound in the room beside the ticking of the wall-clock on the right side of the office. The one which hung next to an abstract canvas of art I couldn’t comprehend even if I could tell the lines apart. “No. He can’t be.”

Tick. Tick. Tick.

“I can be and I am,” I say dismissively, forcing myself not to roll my eyes when she turns her head towards me. “I’m blind.”

“William!” She scolds as if I’d just sold my soul to the devil and fucked him while I was at it. At that, I can’t stop myself from rolling my eyes.

I follow the ticks in my mind as the hands to the clock continues to track time, the instrument completely undisturbed. I try to match my heartbeat to the rhythmic ticking, trying to keep myself stable.

“Sight challenged.” Dr.Mason inserts earnestly, acting like a desperate voice of reason between the two of us.

Dr.Mason was my eighth doctor and incredibly out of his depths, giving the same speech I’d heard seven times before. Just in a different fashion.

“You have not loss all of your eyesight William and there are no signs of your condition worsening from this point.” He finishes gently as if he wasn’t careful I’d break.

Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick.

I wouldn’t.

Silence sits between us, my mother’s soft sobs now sniffles as she clutches her handbag for support. As if the fucking handbag would make all her problems go away.

“Many others would do anything to have even a fraction of their vision back William.” He continues and I frown glancing in his direction. I couldn’t see his expression very well but I could make out how close his eyebrows were. “You are very lucky.”

I slip my focus from the clock and to my doctor. Sitting up in the chair as a singular emotion slipped through a small crack in me.

Annoyance.

“Don’t.” I grind through my clenched teeth, jaws tightly bound like my body. My nails desperately sinking into the leather of the armrest for support. For stability. “Please don’t do that. Don’t tell me I’m lucky to lose only a fraction of my eyesight. Don’t do that shit.”

“I only meant that a-”

“I’m not lucky.” I snap angrily. I keep my eyes down because I couldn’t meet his eyes even if I wanted to. “So don’t tell me that I’m lucky. I’m not. I’m nineteen and starting from scratch.

I’m not lucky, doesn’t matter if others would kill for this. I still can’t see my own fingers if it’s too dark, can barely find my way to the bathroom at night… this is not lucky. Neither am I visually impaired or sight challenged. I’m fucking blind.”

Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick.

Silence falls over the room for a single moment, nothing to be heard besides the ticking of the clock hand as it counted the seconds, timing moving on.

Then, my mother begins another series of sobs that make me sag back into my seat. My fingers relaxing on the armrest as I coaxed my mind into following the clock again. She didn’t stop though, her sobbing so hysterically I almost wished I was deaf too.

I look in the doctor’s direction before speaking again.

“Does this mean I can get a guide dog now?”

————-

I let my eyes follow the trees littered between the many buildings outside our car as our driver, Francis moves inch by inch in the unsettling traffic.

The once distinguishable leaves just looked like a blended, glob of green from here like many things did now. They all looked like globs and blobs.

If I went close enough that I could hold the leaves between my fingers and the sun was out, I could make out the separate leaves without a problem. But as I was quickly learning, you couldn’t get that close to everything.

To describe it best, everything looked blurry now, blended. I often blinked out of habit, as if… if I did it enough, then it would all become clear and everything would go back to normal. But it never did.

Things were always blurry…

The way I saw now meant that a lot of things changed for me. It meant that I couldn’t read other’s facial expressions unless I was very close, uncomfortably close. I was practically a bat at night, I don’t go out after seven. I couldn’t make out most street signs until I was just below them, goodbye driver’s license. I couldn’t read, even if I brought the book so close to my face that my nose was squished against the pages… I tried.

I recognized faces though, those who I was familiar with or those with strong, prominent features were easiest for me. I could make it around my day to day life without much trouble or help and I could still write because I could just about make out the blue lines on most pages.

I hate every day of it.

“William.” My mother says and I realize that she’s been calling me for quite some time now. I look her way and frown when I hear her sniffling.

How is it physically possible for someone to cry this much?

“We will find you a new doctor, a better one… we’ll fix this William.” She promises with such vigor that I almost wanted to believe her.

“He was the best one.” I remind her and clench my fist when I have to lean in a little closer to see her better. “We’ve been going from doctor to doctor for seven months now and I’m tired mother.”

“Will-”

“There is no fixing this,” I say firmly, cutting her off because I truly couldn’t continue. “There is no fixing this, money can’t fix this one. So can you please just…. accept it?”

She doesn’t speak. Her mouth running dry at my words, words I’d bitten back from sharing since the first day we started this. Because I owed it to her to try, I at least owed her that much. To let her try so that one day, she could tell herself that she did.

“No.” She replies and I turn away, moving back to my door. We don’t speak anymore and the car is silent, but not for long. It doesn’t take more than a minute or two until she’s crying into her phone and I already know it’s my father on the other line.

I try to convince myself to give her some slack. I suppose if I found out that my son was gay and lost his sight in one go when I was a known Republican married to a homophobe, then I may be crying too.

I didn’t bother telling her that she could cross out the first problem, that wouldn’t be a problem ever again.

After all, these were just problems weren’t they. Problems could be fixed – that’s how she saw it, that’s how my father saw it… it was how I was trying to see it.

I knew, knew from the first day what she was doing. But I wasn’t strong enough to stop her from doing so after the….i-incident. She wanted to fix my eyesight with all she had because it was a permanent reminder of what I was, who I used to be. It was as if she could fix my eyes, then she could fix that part of me too.

But so far, we had only hit hard, brick walls.

The car eventually pulls up at a large building, the sound of barking could be heard even inside the car. In a city so large like San Francisco, I wasn’t surprised that there was a center for guide dogs and that my mother had already found it.

“I want to go alone,” I say firmly as Francis steps out of the driver’s seat and stands outside.

“Absolutely not, I’m coming with you.” My mother replies, voice filled with annoyance.

“I want to do this alone mother,” I repeat and this time try to send her the message that I needed to.

“I won’t let you get hurt.” She insists.

“It’s a single building, I’m not going to break all my bones,” I reply sarcastically. “I still know how to walk.”

“It’s not safe William.”

“Mother, I do not need you hovering over me,” I argue despite the spike in my heart rate from her words. “I’ll be just fine, I can still see some. I’m not a bat.”

She chuckles briefly at this and that seems to relax her worry a fraction. She manages a nod and I release a breath of relief.

I knock the window to signal to Francis that I was ready. He opens the door instantly and I step out, circling the car and stepping onto the sidewalk.

“I’m going to head home. You call Francis when you’re ready and he’ll come right back.” My mother says after rolling down the window. I nod and don’t move, watching the vehicle until it blended in with all the others.

I immediately slide my phone out of my pocket and ask Siri where the nearest pet store or shelter was. I combine her help with google maps and soon enough, I’m walking down the street.

I walk past the hazed pedestrians and keep a close ear to my phone to hear every directing instruction, I couldn’t afford to make a wrong turn. After all, I didn’t know where I was.

My steps slow at that, panic stringing its way through me as I look around. Being in an unfamiliar setting allowed fear to fester inside of me like an uncontrolled virus, it did not help that mother’s words were repeating themselves in my head now.

It’s not safe William.

I got hurt last time I was alone like this. Last time I got hurt really bad.

It’s not safe William.

No. No. No. No. Fuck no.

I was not got to let myself have a fucking panic attack in the middle of the street. Absolutely not.

I try to block out the fear of the unknown with facts of the things around me.

I am in broad daylight.

I am safe.

There are people are all around me.

I am safe.

There are shops with cameras and staff. Witnesses.

I am safe. I am safe. I am safe.

Those three words had somehow become my mantra over the last few months. Three words I had to pound into my head sometimes to relax enough to breathe. Three words I whispered at night beneath the sheets, repeated in the car, clenched to in the grocery shops, ground out in the mall, cried out in the shower.

Three words that helped me keep walking forward, despite the fear that still lingered.

Three simple words.

When the sound of enough animal noises brings me to a very, crowded shelter, I relax. In front of the closed doors seemed to be a petting area, with many small and big dogs who were happily playing with those who were passing by, I would guess. The bring blue shirts which my eyes landmarked amongst the blurred people, suggested there was staff overlooking things out here.

I maneuver through the crowd as carefully as I can, avoiding all contact whilst not bothering to try and make out the breeds of the dogs here. I enter the building and walk aimlessly through the aisles of cages before I find someone in a bright, blue shirt that was free.

“So what exactly are you looking for?” The large man asks after we share a few formalities.

“A rot, if you have it,” I say instantly. “Or a pit bull, mastiff even.”

“Something with a bite?” He offers.

The man’s tone tells me that he wasn’t fond of the stereotype people like me had with those types of dogs. I nod sheepishly and he chuckles a little.

“We got pups for all those breeds and some even a little older, more grown.” He informs and I frown.

“Isn’t it better to get them young?” I ask mindlessly.

I’d never had a dog growing up despite how badly I wanted one because my father was deadly allergic to them. But seeing as he was currently refusing to live in the house with me there and I was leaving it soon enough, it wasn’t a problem anymore.

“Naturally, but all dogs need is a little bit of love and patience. All the dogs we have here are nothing to be afraid of.” He promises and begins walking a little further into the building. “We keep the five-week-old pups in the back.”

I freeze for a moment. Ice running up my spine as my feet refuse to go any further, heart racing and chest clamping down around it.

He turns and looks at me, I can’t read his expression and for once I’m grateful. I didn’t want to see the look of confusion or judgment on it.

“Is everything okay?” He asks and I nod instantly. Forcing myself to smile while I look around the people around us. There were bright blues all around, presumably customers and animal lovers walking the same path he was leading me through.

I was safe.

I take one step forward and then other until my legs are forcing me forward despite the irrationality in my mind. I could feel the man’s eyes on me as I approach, but he doesn’t say anything and then he continues on his path.

“I-I would like a pup,” I confirm and I barely catch the nod he makes of understanding.

I didn’t like telling people I couldn’t really see them unless it was absolutely necessary. They started acting differently when I did, their voice filled with sympathy and pity, they handled me like a fragile creature.

I hated it.

Hated the way something that I couldn’t change suddenly made me less human, irregular…different.

God, it was frustrating.

We enter a larger room than I expected which is filled with nothing but small, open-topped pens on the floor with several puppies filling each one. It seemed they separated them by breed, seeing as each pen had puppies of different colors that I could barely make out.

The room had other people in it which relaxed my nerves some as I continued to follow the man with less tension in my bones.

“We have four rottweiler pups left; two girls and two boys.” He says over his shoulder before he comes to a stop. I barely catch myself from crashing into him as he stops in front of a pen of black and brown pups.

My breathing picks up as I take a few steps back to distance us but he doesn’t seem to notice as he squats down to reach the pups.

They jump and yip for man as he got closer to them, offering a playful hand to pet them as they climbed over one another to reach it. I quickly knelt down beside him to get a better look, yet I only counted three near him.

I check four times, blinking foolishly to make sure I counted right. I had. Looking around the pen, I spot the last pup against a corner and wondered if she was sleeping or just not a people’s person.

“We call her Sassy, she’s got a bit of an attitude with people.” He says besides me and I assume that he saw where I was looking. I move away from him on instinct.

I offer a hand for Sassy but she doesn’t come closer. I don’t make a move to scoop her up and go any closer, just keep it there and wait. Yet, she still doesn’t move.

My arm begins to ache from the waiting and just as I’m about to pull away, a small, wet nose brushes my fingertips. I keep still as my chest fills with joy and excitement begins to pool inside of me. A prodding tongue licks my finger and I try picking her up, she comes easily.

I pull her to me and smile as I pet the mellow pup that wasn’t reeling from the attention or denying it. Almost like a cat, I chuckled at that. She was fluffy and big, black all over despite the genetically, placed brown over her eyes, mouth, and chest.

I knew Rottweilers weren’t the ideal guide dogs, but I didn’t want a guide dog. I didn’t need one. I didn’t want a dog meant to help me get around, I didn’t need that kind of help.

I didn’t need a service animal for that type of aid, I needed one to protect me.

I needed something that would hurt anything and anyone who tried to do the same to me. I needed an animal which wouldn’t let me feel pain. A dog to fight for me and love me all the same, one that would calm the fear.

I needed something deadly where I naturally wasn’t. Needed something viscous at my side if the time ever came again, something that wouldn’t let me get hurt again.

“I want this one.”

————-

Will! Mystery… what happened to him? I want to know – says the damn writer lmfao.

Before the dog lovers start attacking me, I have two rots mixed with bull mastiff and I had a pitbull before. They aren’t like Will is putting on but the kid is desperate.

Thoughts????

Are we liking Will? Think he’ll mesh well with Damon???

Hope you enjoyed andI’ll update when I can. Comment and vote and all that niceness.

Until next time,
Byeeeeeee humansssssss