Page 9 of Yard Sale

So yeah, I had no idea what I wanted to do with myself. I’d stumbled into hockey as a means of coping with vision loss. I was told left, right, and center by occupational therapists and VI teachers that my best option was to file for disability early because companies weren’t likely to take a risk on a man who’d probably be totally blind before he was forty.

Shit advice, but I internalized so much of it that I gave up trying to figure out if I actually had any passions at all.

Right now, it was collecting coffee mugs with cats on them, making sure the two ferns I had growing on my bookshelf didn’t die, and carving out enough hours during my off time that I could keep ahead of the three shows I gave a shit about.

Which, god, sounded so pathetic.

“Can we talk about this later?” I asked. My voice was so hoarse I knew it betrayed me, but Tucker didn’t call me on it.

“Yeah, of course. I’m gonna step out and call Amedeo. He should have the keys to your new place by now.”

It took my brain, all fogged on painkillers, a few seconds to remember what he was talking about, but yeah, that’s right. I was renting a furnished apartment for a few weeks because my house had three floors and no elevator, and I wasn’t going to risk braining myself from a fall trying to get creative on the staircase.

By the time I looked for Tucker, he was out of the room, and the silence around me settled. I was off all my monitors finally, so the only mystery dings happening were from patients in other rooms.

I wasn’t a huge fan of silence. It made me feel very alone, especially with the static in my periphery slowly closing in. My vision had gone terrifyingly narrow after the hit on the ice, but things were looking a bit more normal for me.

Except…

When I closed my left eye, my right eye was down to a few pinpricks of sight in the center, but the fuzzy grey parts were so large now it was impossible to make out a single image. I was left-eye dominant, so I hadn’t noticed before.

But god, sometimes it was so hard to accept that this was an inevitability. That one day, I was going to wake up, and all I’d see was the strange, dark fog that never let a single bit of light in.

I swallowed thickly and opened both eyes. Breathing came easier when more of the room popped into view. I didn’t need to worry about this now. I had an eye appointment coming up, and I could face the stress of how much was gone then. It was a future Tiago problem.

It was a⁠—

“This place is a maze.”

I froze. I wasn’t expecting to hear my brother’s voice. My parents and my siblings tended to avoid me like the plague, especially during the season. They didn’t like being around other blind guys because it reminded them about what was coming.

Once, my brother told me I acted more blind around them, and I didn’t talk to him for three months because what the fuck was that supposed to mean?

But I guess I wasn’t surprised to see him. If my parents had come, I might have had a heart attack, but Thierry was their gopher. Their flying monkey. He did their bidding without question, no matter who it hurt or whose life it disrupted.

Pushing the button to raise my bed a bit more, I turned my head left to right until I caught Thierry in my line of sight. He looked like he always did—light brown hair, scowl on his face, a polo with a collar that was too stiff, and jeans that always needed a belt because he refused to wear one, always telling me that accessories were for men like me.

He was standing a few feet away from my bed, and I knew he wouldn’t come any closer.

“What are you doing here?”

“Is that any way to say hi to your favorite brother?” It was his favorite joke, but it wasn’t because he was my favorite brother. It was because Peter hated me more than Thierry did.

“Seriously, I’m tired and on a lot of pain meds.” I let my fatigue rest heavily in my tone. “Did Mom and Dad send you to check up on me?”

He hesitated, then walked over and pulled Tucker’s chair back against the wall and sat where he became a vaguely human-shaped blob. I didn’t mind it. I didn’t really want to look at his face.

“Everyone’s worried about you.”

I was too high to fight off a laugh. “Really? So they sent you? The family clown?”

“Tiago, do you really have to be such an asshole every time I see you?”

I waved my hand at him to go on. I was in no mood, and now all I wanted was a nap. “I’m being discharged soon. Get on with whatever you want.”

“Dad and Anne’s birthdays,” he said.

Oh my fucking god. I’d gotten the invitation. They always celebrated my sister-in-law and Dad’s birthdays on Banker Island, and five years ago, they had a vacation house built just for that.