Innocent Prey. Maggie Shayne

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СКАЧАТЬ she imagined looked like an undertaker. And they were still replaying in her mind every time she let herself drift.

      Coaching sessions were one of those times.

      Stevie had once believed that there was always hope, unless you were talking to a corpse. Well, Dr. Langley had talked to her just as if he were talking to a corpse that day. No hope, he’d said. No way it can happen, he’d said. It was time to begin accepting that this was her new way of life, he’d said. And it was like the light in her heart just blinked out. No hope.

      Everything she’d ever believed about the world, about herself, about everything, blinked out with it. No hope. A dark curtain lowered itself across the stage of her life. She felt its weight as if she’d been standing right beneath it. It was heavy and cold and black, and she didn’t think she was going to be able to keep going.

      “There are a lot of blind people who live productive, fulfilling lives,” Dr. Undertaker had said. “It’s only one sense out of five. You have four more to fall back on.”

      “Look at Rachel de Luca,” her mother had added.

      “Fuck Rachel de Luca” had been her reply. It had shocked her to hear herself sound that dark. And it had shocked her mother, too.

      That had been two months ago, and now it was May and her days were still as dark as her nights. She spent her mornings in one-on-one therapy with her shrink and group therapy with a bunch of other disabled people. Paraplegics, vets missing limbs, that sort of thing. No other blind people, though. And in the afternoons she had lessons with her coach, Loren Markovich, a mid-forties pain-in-the-ass who was constantly quoting self-help authors to her. Rachel de Luca had been one of her suggestions. The self-help author who’d been blind for twenty-some-odd years. Stevie’s mom and her blindness coach had been shoving de Luca’s self-help audio books down her throat since the accident. And she’d listened to them, eagerly sucking up the notion that she could change her reality. She’d believed it. She’d been sure she could positive-think her way out of this endless night. It had worked for the author, after all.

      It made Stevie want to vomit. Anyone who would say she had created her own blindness was an ignorant fuckwit. Who the hell would choose to be blind?

      Personally, she hated Rachel de Luca. Partly for the stupid message she’d wanted so badly to believe in, but mostly for getting the miracle Stevie wanted so much for herself. The one her gloom-and-doom doctor said she was never going to have. Rachel de Luca got her eyesight back. Stevie hated her for that.

      She also hated her shrink, her therapy group and her blindness coach. Yes, there was a rational part of her mind that figured she ought to be grateful her father could afford to buy her all this help. But she didn’t want it. It was all geared toward learning to live with being blind. Toward accepting it. And she would never do that.

      She was twenty years old. Her life stretched out ahead of her like an endless black pit. She didn’t want this. She just didn’t want it. She figured she’d give it a year, if she could stand it that long. It had been eight months already. So four more. Maybe she would even stretch it to five, because a Halloween suicide had a nice sense of flair to it.

      But dammit, she wanted to see Jake again before then. See him. That was a joke. She’d never see him again. But she wanted to be with him. Not that it mattered. He wouldn’t even answer her calls. Not that she blamed him.

      “Stephanie, are you listening at all?” Loren asked.

      Stevie turned her head slightly toward her coach. It was pleasantly warm outside, early May sun pouring down and bouncing off the sidewalk. They were practicing walking with the white cane. She felt like a sideshow freak, walking along beside Otsiningo Park, waving the stupid thing and tapping it to keep track of where the sidewalk was, probably weaving like a drunk. God, she hated this.

      “I’m listening.”

      “You need to stop drifting off into your own world,” Loren said. “You have to start keeping your senses attuned to what’s going on around you.”

      “I know. You’ve told me a hundred times. A thousand.”

      “Then why aren’t you doing it?”

      She shrugged. “I’m sorry. I’ll try harder. What did you say?”

      “I know it’s not easy,” Loren said.

      “You don’t know anything, Loren. No one can, unless they’re blind, too. I don’t care how many people you coach or how often you walk through the city with your eyes closed, you don’t know. Stop saying you do.”

      Loren let her breath out in a rush; then she was quiet for a moment. “You know, eventually, you’re going to have to stop feeling sorry for yourself and start living again.”

      “Really? ’Cause I don’t think I have to do anything. I think I can pretty much do what I want. It’s my life.” Deep down inside, Stevie winced at how bitchy she was being. But she squelched the feeling. She had a right to be angry. Her life had been stolen by a drunk driver.

      Loren didn’t reply and Stevie figured she’d pissed her off and didn’t care. But she supposed she had to cooperate if she wanted to get home and hide in her room for a while. Maybe try to call Jake again. “Just repeat your last instruction, will you? I want to get this damned session over with.”

      She could feel her coach’s anger rise up a little bit. And then she felt it vanish again. That was weird. When she spoke, Loren’s tone was calm, if a little bit cool. “Walk to the end of the block. Find the corner. Don’t step off the sidewalk into the street, and don’t even think about walking around the corner out of sight. Just locate the corner using your senses and your cane. Then turn around and come back here. Count your steps so you know how to find me. There’s a bench to your right. That’s where I’ll be waiting.”

      Alone? Loren wanted her to go alone? Panic seeped into Stevie’s veins. “I’m sorry I snapped at you.” She said it even though she knew the apology was too little, too late.

      “I’m not mad at you, honey,” Loren said softly. “This is not a punishment. It’s time for you to test your wings, just a little bit.”

      “I’m not ready.”

      “It’s a hundred feet, Stephanie.”

      “I don’t care. I don’t want to do this.”

      Loren moved, and Stephanie heard her, knew she was sitting down on the bench she’d mentioned.

      “Go,” Loren said. “I’ll be right here waiting. I’ll watch every step you take.”

      “You don’t even care how scared I am, do you?” Stevie accused.

      “Of course I care. But that fear isn’t going to go away until you face it and beat it. Stephanie, you can do this. You’re strong. You’re not helpless. Now go.”

      Stevie bit her tongue before the words I hate you could emerge. Yes, she was acting like a ten-year-old. She didn’t care. She was furious. And terrified.

      “Fine.”

      She tapped the sidewalk to get herself lined up, finding where it ended and the grass began on the right, and then she started walking, keeping herself in that area, so others could СКАЧАТЬ