***
On the morning of the procedure, the nurses guided me onto a gurney in the operating room. Nigel squeezed my hand.
“You still have time to back out,” he said softly.
“I won’t,” I replied. “If this works, I want you to be the first thing I see.”
His breath caught. He kissed my forehead.
“I love you,” he whispered.
“I love you too.”
“Of losing you.”
The anesthesia crept through my veins, and the world slipped away.
When I woke up, my head felt heavy.
My eyes were wrapped in thick bandages. Machines beeped softly around me.
“Nigel?” My voice sounded small.
“I’m here,” he said immediately.
Something in his tone was wrong. There was no excitement. No triumph.
“Was the surgery unsuccessful?” I asked.
“It was successful. You’ll finally be able to see,” he said. But there wasn’t any joy in his voice.
My stomach twisted.
Something in his tone was wrong.
He began unwrapping the bandages from my head.
I felt each layer loosen, cool air brushing my eyelids.
“Don’t hate me. Before you see this, I need to tell you everything isn’t the way you think,” he said suddenly.
I let out a nervous laugh. “What does that even mean?”
But my heart was racing.
Light pierced through my eyelids.
I gasped.
“Don’t hate me.”
At first, everything was a blur of white and gold. It felt like staring straight into the sun.Tears streamed down my cheeks, and I blinked rapidly. Shapes began to form. Lines sharpened. Colors flooded in.
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