His Blind Burden
I begged my mother to save him, lying that I needed a companion, someone to be my eyes.
Later, when we were alone, I whispered a promise in his ear.
“I don’t want a guide dog. You just have to live. Go wherever you want to go.”
But Leo stayed. After my mother remarried and left, he became the only thing I had.
He watched over me as I grew up, my constant guide, my walking cane, my eyes. For my sake, he even abandoned his breathtaking talent for painting to study medicine, to become an ophthalmologist.
But even after he became a brilliant eye surgeon, my world remained dark.
Then came my 25th birthday. That was the day Sloane, a woman Leo once called his kindred spirit, won a major national art prize.
He locked himself in his study. I could hear the rustle of paper, the sharp, angry sounds of tearing.
“Just writing you a birthday card,” he said, his voice tight, strained with an emotion he was trying to hide.
I smiled, wanting to go to him, to kiss the sadness away. But just as I took a step, a line of text scrolled across the darkness of my vision, stark and terrifying.
“Don’t be a fool, little blind girl. He’s tearing up his paintings. On the back of every single one, he’s written ‘Audrey, go die.’”
“Stop. Don’t take another step. There’s a frayed electrical cord on the floor in front of you. If you step on it, you’ll be electrocuted.”
I froze, just for a second. Then I lifted my chin, forced a bright smile, and took a confident step forward.
“Leo,” I called out cheerfully. “Whatever you wished for, I know it will come true.”
1
I walked carefully, deliberately, making sure I wouldn’t miss the frayed wire.
Suddenly, Leo’s voice cut through the air. “Audrey!”
It was a choked sound, thick with tears, but he didn’t say anything more.
I pretended not to notice, my tone light and soothing. “Is your head hurting again? Come here, let me rub your temples.”
The text in my mind flashed frantically. “Stop walking, you idiot! The wire is right at your feet!”
Good. Right where I can’t miss it.
But just as I was about to lower my foot, the doorbell rang, a shrill, piercing sound. It was followed by the violent scrape of a chair being shoved back.
“Watch out!”
A powerful force slammed into me, throwing me to the floor. My head cracked against the hardwood, my brain rattling inside my skull. The pain was a blinding white light in my endless darkness.
Leo’s trembling hands helped me up. “Audrey… I’m so sorry… there was a live wire.”
The text was a stream of curses. “What the hell is wrong with you, Leo?! You’re the one who wanted her dead, so why are you shaking now?”
My own heart ached. You fool, I thought. Why did you have to go soft?
I swallowed the pain and gave him a reassuring smile. “It’s my fault, I’m the one who can’t see. Don’t worry, it doesn’t hurt.”
The text exploded. “Is she crazy? Apologizing after he tried to kill her?!”
But I knew. I knew that right now, Leo was in more pain than I was.
I could hear his ragged, broken sobs. He opened his mouth to say something else, but his phone buzzed.
A woman’s voice, clear even through the phone. “I know you’re home, Leo. I’m not leaving until I see you.” A pause. “Please. Think of this… as the last time.”
I recognized her voice from the TV interviews. Sloane. The brilliant painter.
She and Leo had met years ago, volunteering at a community arts program. He told me he’d found a kindred spirit. Sloane once told me that Leo’s art had more soul than anything she’d ever seen.
But now, she was a celebrated artist, and he was a doctor trapped with a blind girl.
Leo hated being a doctor. After every long surgery, he’d be sick for hours.
His hand tightened on mine, a desperate grip, then suddenly released. He stumbled toward the door. The force of him pulling away sent me staggering backward. Disoriented, the back of my head connected with the sharp corner of the dining table. A warm, sticky wetness began to seep through my hair.
“Leo,” I whispered, my voice weak. “It hurts…”
The front door slammed shut.
My hearing has always been sharp, a small compensation for my lack of sight. Even with the door closed, I could hear their muffled, desperate voices from the hallway.
Sloane was crying. “Her eyes are a lost cause, and you know it! You can’t fix them! Those hands of yours… they have more talent than mine ever will!” she pleaded. “Come with me. Meet my mentor. It’s not too late, Leo, as long as you just…”
“Sloane,” Leo’s voice was shaking as he cut her off. “I owe her my life.”
He took a ragged breath. “She’s blind. If I leave her here… where would I go?”
Sloane’s voice was filled with sorrow. “What about your dream? What about… me?”
A long, heavy silence passed before Leo answered, his voice raw. “No matter what happens… we’ll always be kindred spirits.”
I heard her sob, then the sound of her running down the stairs. “I won’t come back again… If you change your mind, use this to find my mentor.”
Lying there on the floor, dizzy from the blow to my head, my mind drifted back to when I was thirteen. Some kids from the blind school had cornered me, and I’d come home with bruises blooming on my skin. Leo had been so furious, he’d insisted on transferring to the school himself, just to protect me. He, a brilliant student, giving up a normal high school to spend his days in a place that taught Braille and cane navigation. He stayed up all night, every night, just to keep up with the advanced curriculum of his old school.
Then, when I was fifteen, my mother came to say goodbye. She was getting married again. She clutched my hands, her own tears splashing onto my face.
“Audrey, your new stepfather… he can’t help me raise a blind child. It’s been so hard, you have to understand, don’t you?” Her voice was a pathetic whine. “Besides, I found Leo for you. He should be the one to take care of you!”
She left with her suitcase, leaving me the old house and Leo.
He was only eighteen, taking care of a blind girl, and the stress wore him down until he was a bundle of nerves and exhaustion.
I used to cry and beg him to leave, to save himself.
But he would just smile and stroke my hair. “Little crybaby. Look at the swallows nesting under the eaves. They always come in pairs. One can’t make it without the other.”
But now, the little swallow was tired. He deserved to fly away on his own.
I was just a blind girl nobody wanted. If Leo hadn’t held my hand all these years, I would have died a long time ago.
I just had to make sure I died somewhere he’d never find me. Otherwise, the guilt would crush him.
2
I pressed a hand to the back of my head, smearing the sticky blood, and managed to pull myself to my feet just as the door opened.
“What happened to you?” Leo’s voice was hoarse. “Where did all this blood come from?”
The text flashed in my vision. “Is he serious? He’s the one who knocked her over!”
I tried to smile. “I’m sorry. I can’t see, I must have tripped over something.”
The words were barely out of my mouth when a glass shattered at my feet.
“Audrey! How many years have you lived in this house? You still don’t know your way around?”
I could hear his heavy, ragged breathing. I clutched the hem of my sleeve, my heart sinking. “I’m sorry, Leo. I’m just useless.”
He went to the hall closet and pulled out the white cane that had been gathering dust for years. He grabbed my arm and started dragging me out the door.
I couldn’t keep up, stumbling, nearly falling down the porch steps several times, but he didn’t slow down.
“Leo, where are we going?” I cried, pulling back in fear.
He stopped so abruptly that I slammed my face into his back. I felt a warm trickle from my nose.
As I fumbled to wipe away the blood, I heard his voice, frayed and broken.
“Audrey! There are millions of blind people in the world! Why can they live normal lives with a cane, but you can’t?” His voice cracked. “I’m not your guide dog! I can’t be your dog forever!”
A fist seemed to clench around my heart. He gave me a hard shove from behind, and his cold words drifted back on the wind.
“If you don’t learn how to walk the sidewalk on your own tonight, don’t bother coming home.”
Then he was gone. His scent, his presence, everything vanished.
All I could hear was the wind, the rush of traffic, and the murmurs of passersby.
“Is she blind? What’s she doing out here? Trying to get hit so she can sue someone?”
Darkness and panic swallowed me whole. I clutched the cane, fighting the urge to scream, and whispered his name under my breath.
“Leo, I’m so scared.”
When I was little, right after I lost my sight, I could never get used to it. I’d wake up to a world of black and start crying hysterically. Leo would always be the first one in my room, his hand finding mine in the dark.
“I’m here. Don’t be scared, I’m right here.”
Now, only the wind answered.
The text in my mind was a torrent of fury. “Unbelievable! He was the one who swore she’d never need a cane, that he’d be her eyes forever! That bastard!”
I wiped away a tear. No, it’s not like that.
I’d long forgotten how to use a cane, how to feel for the textured paving of the sidewalk. A blind girl like me… I must be such a burden to him.
I walked blindly, tapping the ground, moving toward the loudest sound—the blare of car horns at a busy intersection.
Maybe if a car hit me, Leo could finally be that free swallow.
But the impact never came. Instead, strong arms yanked me back, pulling me into a fierce embrace.
Leo’s body was trembling. His voice was laced with despair.
“Audrey, you’re blind, not stupid! Why can’t you learn?” His voice broke. “Out of everyone in the world… why did a blind girl have to be the one who found me?”
Why?
You fool. Then why are you still holding on to me?
I finally broke, the sobs tearing out of me. “You’re right, I’m not stupid! So just go! I don’t want you taking care of me anymore!”
When I was five, my parents were getting divorced. They fought every day about who would be stuck with me. They were so busy fighting they didn’t even notice I had a fever high enough to burn away my sight.
A child nobody wants can’t even keep her own eyes, I thought back then.
That’s why, when I saw Leo abandoned in the snow, my heart broke for him.
I didn’t want there to be one more unwanted child in the world who couldn’t even keep his eyes.
Leo’s arms tightened around me, his grip weak. “Okay, I’m sorry. Don’t say things you don’t mean.” His voice was a hoarse whisper. “If I don’t take care of you, are you going to let a car kill you?”
He led me home. He never mentioned the cane again. But I knew he spent more and more time staring silently at the canvases locked away in his study.
The next day, I hid in my room and made a call. The person on the other end exploded as soon as she heard my voice.
“Why are you bothering me? I have no legal obligation to you anymore!”
I sniffled, my nose burning. “Mom… I don’t need you to take care of me. Could you just… pretend to take me in? Just for a little while?”
After I swore up and down that I wouldn’t be a burden, she finally agreed, saying that for old times’ sake, she’d pick me up after my half-sister got back from summer camp.
I hung up the phone and smiled.
It was good. My mother had a new child to love.
And Leo could finally get rid of me.
3
When I knocked on Leo’s study door, I heard him frantically putting something away.
“What is it? Did you lose something again?” His voice was sharp with irritation.
I swallowed hard, then forced a playful smile. “Leo, my mom called. She said she’s doing really well now and feels terrible about everything. She wants me to come live with her. I said yes.”
Disbelief colored his tone. “Do you have any idea what you’re saying?”
“I want to live with my mother,” I repeated, my voice steady.
He exploded. “Audrey, have you forgotten what she did to you? Haven’t you had enough of her cruelty?”
Of course I hadn’t forgotten. In the years after the court gave her custody, she was always out on dates. Sometimes she’d be gone for days, forgetting to even leave money for food. A young Leo would go out in the dead of winter to collect empty bottles, using the change to buy a piece of bread that he’d feed entirely to me. He was just a boy, his own stomach cramping with hunger, but he’d pat my back and lie through his teeth. “It’s okay. I just ate too much.”
I found Leo because I wanted him to live. But chained to me, he hadn't had a single good day.
I stood my ground, and Leo’s anger boiled over, but he refused to give in.
Sighing inwardly at his stubbornness, I called Sloane.
“Please,” I begged her. “Try talking to him one more time.”
The day Sloane called him, I had just returned from another fruitless eye exam. The doctor’s sigh was heavy with finality.
“This eye condition… if even Dr. Evans can’t do anything, I’m afraid this is how it will be for the rest of her life.”
Leo’s fists were clenched so tight his knuckles were white. “Audrey, why do you have to be so useless?”
Guilt washed over me. All I could say was, “I’m sorry.”
Later, I heard Sloane’s heavy voice on the phone with him. “Leo, I’m leaving with my mentor in a few days. Once I’m gone… there won’t be another chance.” A pause. “Is this really… how you want to live the rest of your life?”
Leo stared at me, his gaze so intense it felt like he could see right through me. Suddenly, his control snapped. He stormed into his study, grabbed something, and ran out of the house.
Listening to the door slam, I felt a strange sense of peace.
A day passed, and Leo didn’t come back.
Sloane sent me a voice message. “Thank you for letting him go. He’s a natural. My mentor is incredibly impressed.”
I was so happy.
But I hadn’t eaten anything all day, and the hunger was becoming unbearable. This time, when Leo left, he’d forgotten to leave snacks out where I could easily find them.
I used my phone’s voice command to order takeout, but the front door was locked from the outside.
Night fell, and Leo still wasn’t back. Acid churned in my stomach.
I fumbled my way into the kitchen, trying to find something to eat.
But this is how useless a blind person is. I don’t know what I knocked over, but the kitchen caught fire.
I scrambled to put it out, but I couldn’t even aim the water in the right direction. The flames spread, and thick smoke filled my lungs. I collapsed, my skin growing numb to the searing heat.
“You worthless thing, Audrey,” I sobbed, crawling desperately toward where I thought the door was. “Don’t you die in here!”
If Leo came back to find my charred body, he would never, ever recover.
The text in my mind screamed directions. “This way, blind girl! Crawl this way, to the left!”
I scrambled in the direction it told me, but the smoke was too thick. My consciousness began to fade.
When I woke up, I was in a hospital. Leo arrived soon after, with Sloane right behind him.
“I was only gone for one day,” Leo murmured, his voice ragged with exhaustion. “Why do you always manage to do this to yourself?”
My hands twisted in the starchy sheets. “I’m sorry…”
A police officer stood by the bed, his voice stern as he addressed Leo.
“How can you call yourself her guardian? How could you leave a blind person home alone?” He gestured at me. “Do you have any idea how close she came to burning to death?”
I opened my mouth to defend him, but then I heard Leo’s hollow voice.
“Is this it? Every time I try to take a step forward, you pull a stunt like this to remind me that I can never leave your side?”
At that moment, Sloane shrieked. “Audrey!”
Her voice was sharp with accusation. “You deliberately had me call him, and just when he was about to agree, you do this! You wanted him to feel guilty, to trap him here forever, didn’t you?”
I couldn’t see the raw anguish in Leo’s eyes, but I could feel it. And suddenly, I started to laugh.
“So what if I did? As long as my eyes are like this, he owes me. He has to be my dog for the rest of his life. Why else do you think I rescued him in the first place?”
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