Blinded By Love by Rebecca K. (booksvooks txt) 📕

I looked more carefully and saw it. "Yeah... Why? Wait- What are you doing?" He was standing up and pulling his hands into himself across his chest in a defensive manner. "Just keep quiet. Thank God we're in a restaraunt or I'd be fucked. And, no matter what he says, do not, and I repeat do not, say anything to try and defend me."
At that I was worried. First because it was in my nature to stick up for people. And second, this guy towered over him by at least a foot.

"Hey Sterling! How's it going buddy? We haven't seen you around school. What happened to you man? We haven't seen you out and about since you rolled that car." At that he looked at me. "Fucking moron rolled his car into a tree. Anyways, the guys are all over at the table. They wanted me to come see how you're doing. You know, since you can't see anything and you obviously haven't left your house in over a month."

I saw him flich at that last sentence. I knew what he had said, but one more comment about the eye sight, and I was going to use his own damn cane to hit this ass hole with. Suddenly I heard Sterling speak up, "I've been doing okay. And actually no I've been going outside more often for at least two weeks. Got myself enrolled in the new school here in town." I saw him shift backwards a little bit and then stood still again. I didn't know what he was planning on doing, but I didn't like it.

"Oh yeah. That new retard school? Man, I sure feel sorry for you. Maybe next time you try rolling a fucking car you won't fuck your self up so badly huh?" He leaned forward a little glancing at me and whispered something in his ear. At that Sterling tensed up and reached behind him and gripped the table. I saw this kid look at me and smile a little bit. As he walked back by he whispered in my ear, "Sure hope you like embarassing yourself in public sweety. Being out and about with somebody who can't see you could seriously kill your rep. Don't play up the pity me bull shit too long." He smirked and went to walk away but I stood up and blocked his exit.

"Say that again for me please. Because, I'm sure that everybody would love to hear it too. Oh, and another thing. Next time, you want to call somebody a fucking moron for rolling their car, go take a look in the mirror. Because I think you'd have to be an even bigger moron to tattoo a scorpion around their wrist... And do me a favor. Don't call me sweety again. I only have one person right now who's allowed to call me that." He towered over me and I couldn't fight at all. But this time he'd fucked with the wrong person. I didn't know what he would do, but there were plenty of witnesses.

He smirked and looked back at his table full of friends. They were all watching this. In fact, everyone in the restaraunt was watching. He leaned down towards me and I quickly stepped back. He just laughed and said, "I don't think you're my mommy. Get the fuck out of my way you little bitch. Go ahead and go play with the retard."

That's when I grabbed my bag from my table and bashed him over the head with it. I had a can of pepper spray in it. I knew I did. I was just starting to reach for it when he grabbed my wrist and pushed me backwards into a wall. I hit it hard enough to get a head ache. But I didn't go down. "Touch me again, and you're going to see how I handle people when they fuck with me."

Suddenly I heard Sterling speak up from behind him, "You fucking touch her again, Luke, and I'll have the cops all over you and everyone at that table back there. Get lost." This caused him to turn towards Sterling. He was reaching into his back pocket. I saw him retract a knife and open it up. Grabbing the nearest object I flung it at his head. It turned out to be a napkin dispenser. Not real deadly. But it got his attention.

"Okay. So that's how you want to play huh? He dropped his knife and strode towards me. He grabbed both of my arms and hauled me upwards. And, because I was actually thinking at some point during this, I kneed him in between the legs. He grunted and dropped me. I rolled out of his way as he dropped to the floor and grabbed my bag. Reaching inside I pulled out the can of pepper spray that I carried with me at all times. I was just getting ready so let loose a spray of it on him, but a voice behind me stopped, me. "I don't think you're going to need to do that. Go ahead and put it back inside your bag. I've called the cops and they'er on their way down here." I looked up to see the lady from before watching me. She had stepped protectively in front of Sterling and had a base ball bat ready.

I couldn't help but start laughing. It was just one of those moments where it's the only thing that makes sense. So you just go ahead and do it. And that's exactly what I did. After I calmed down I tried to figure out what had just happened. But gave up after the cops showed up and started taking statements. At this point, I wasn't quite sure I wanted to know anymore. I extracted myself and Sterling after about another twenty minutes and we headed down the street. I texted Jess and told her that we were going to go down the street a block to the park and just sit there and chill. "So... That was... Intense..." I was trying to think of a way to phrase what I wanted to ask. But couldn't decide how to do it without sounding rude and invade his privacy. So instead I just left it at that. He chuckled a little and leaned back and closed his eyes.

"If you thought that that was intense then you should have been with us on some of our stunts. Preferably one of the legal ones. Although seeing how you handled Luke I think you would have done just fine out running the cops." I couldn't help but blush at the small, quite possibly meaningless, compliment.

I looked over at him and just kind of took in his features. Unlike Jess, who was extremely sensitive to light, he was not wearing sunglasses. He had  light brown, kind of spiky hair that curled at the nape of his neck and around his ears. His clothes weren't designer. But they weren't from any hand me down stores. Most likely Wal-Mart brand. That's when I noticed his eyes. One of them I could tell was damaged.

That must have been the one he hurt when he rolled his car. The other one, though, seemed like it hadn't been touched at all. Tentively I cleared my throat. I was curious. Extremely curious. He looked over at me and let out a breath. 

"Okay. You want to ask me something. What is it? And don't say nothing. Let's hear it." His tone made it sound like he was serious. But I was still hesitant. So I started with the first thing I always started off with when I asked Jess something.

"I'm not meaning any offense or anything. And if you don't feel comfortable answering this it's fine. I'll understand. But, your left eye I can tell was damaged. Your right eye looks like it was never touched though..." He leaned his head back and was quiet for a moment. Then he took a breath and said, "If I tell you, you can't tell Jess. What I'm going to tell you is completely different then what everybody at the school knows. And Luke. Okay?"

"Okay. What is it?" I looked back at him and he looked scared now. Like, genuinely terrified. He sucked in a breath and said, "My dad... He did it." I didn't know how to say this so I just cleared my throat.

Without any confirmation that I had taken this in, or anything else, he continued. "September last year, my dad came home drunk from the bar. As you might have been able to tell from the house he's a drunk. Well, I was in the kitchen doing homework when he stumbled in. Normally it's my job to cook dinner, but I was loaded down because we were just starting the year and so the teachers had given us all a ton of review work. So I had forgotten. Well, Dad wasn't happy. He started yelling and slamming drawers and throwing things. Any other time I would have just got up and left before he could start wailing on me. But he was too fast for me. He grabbed my arm and jerked me around. After giving me a black eye and breaking my nose he grabbed my head and slammed it into the corner of the counter and then into the fridge. 

"After he calmed down some he stumbled into the living room and left me laying on a puddle of blood on the floor. I stayed there for at least twenty minutes before his girl friend came in and saw me. She knew what had happened. She knew how my dad was and wasn't surprised. She had seen the bruises, the burn marks, all the evidence that he had hit me before. Calmly she got me into the car and drove me to the hospital. She told them that she had been driving out on the interstate and had seen me stumbling down the road. Since she knew me she had gotten me into the car and driven me there. 

"Everybody just automatically assumed that I had rolled my car. Nobody wanted to deal with my dad so they didn't bother checking into it. I was in the hospital for a month. I had three busted teeth, a broken nose, my hand had gotten broken somehow, some busted ribs, three dislocated fingers, and then, of course, there was my eye. It damaged both of them. The vision in my right eye is messed up. But, as long as I'm wearing glasses, I'm just basically really near sighted. I can't see anything out of my left eye. As long as I'm wearing glasses I can drive as long as it's in places where people know me. Nobody asked the entire time why my dad never came to visit me. Nobody wanted to know..."

I was so stunned I didn't know what to say. He remained silent while I came up with something to say. Finally I found it. "I'm not going to say that I'm sorry. Because I've seen how Jess reacts to it. I will however say that if you ever need a place to stay let me know. Okay?" He didn't say anything for a few moments. When he did fnailly speak his voice was hardly more than a whisper. "Thank you. I"ll make sure to keep that in mind." I looked at him. It was no wonder he walked like he was waiting for somebody to strike out at him.

He looked over at me and then blushed I looked at him and said, "You can see out of your right eye fairly well?" He looked