Love Is Blind, I’m Not Chapter 01

It was the fifth year of my secret crush on Harris Parker, kept carefully within the bounds of friendship, when he proposed to my best friend Nicole.

At the engagement celebration, someone turned to him and asked, “You lost your sight for three years after that crash. Was it her constant care that made you fall for her?”

Harris laced his fingers through Nicole’s and smiled faintly. “You could say that.”

Another guest egged him on. “What if it had been Felicity taking care of you instead?”

The whole table went quiet. I looked up at him too.

Harris’s voice stayed flat. “I’d have paid her three million as compensation.”

Then he turned and looked right at me. “Felicity, three million, or me. Which do you choose?”

I stared at him for a long moment.

“three million, obviously.”

…

The room fell dead silent.

My voice had stayed calm when I answered. My heart was already dead. The hurt didn’t even sting anymore—just sat there, dull and numb.

The wealthy socialites waiting to laugh at me were stunned.

Within their circle, Felicity Carlisle was a joke.

The girl who’d thrown herself at Harris for five years, ever since college, clinging on no matter how hard he pushed her away.

If he called in the middle of the night, I’d cross half of Blackthorn City to deliver his stomach medication, then trudge back home through pouring rain.

But now, given the choice between him and money, I’d picked the money.

Harris didn’t grow angry. He was used to standing above everyone, his emotions rarely showing on his face.

Those eyes—blind for three years after his street racing accident, then surgically restored—swept over me cold and unyielding.

Then he laughed. “Very well, Felicity. I’ll put that three million on your tab. Once you’re finally out of my life for good, I’ll pay you the full sum, interest included.”

The surrounding guests burst into mocking laughter.

“Nice reverse psychology trick, Felicity!”

“Yeah, you’re really gonna walk away? Tomorrow you’ll be right back begging for his attention.”

I ignored them.

Nicole, seated beside him, spoke quickly. “Don’t talk about her like that!”

Nicole was my closest friend, and the guest of honor tonight—Harris’s newly engaged fiancée.

I saw her hands tremble.

We’d both grown up in ordinary households, worlds apart from these wealthy heirs. Even so, she’d mustered the courage to defend me.

Harris’s expression softened as he squeezed her hand, his tone ambiguous. “Nicole, you defend her so fiercely. Aren’t you afraid she’ll steal me away from you?”

Nicole shook her head firmly. “She won’t. Felicity always knows where to draw the line.”

“Loving you for five years is the most reckless thing she’s ever done.”

She turned to me, her eyes full of concern. “Felicity, he’s just sharp-tongued. He doesn’t mean any harm.”

I looked at Nicole’s clean, earnest face, and my chest felt tight, like it was stuffed with wet cotton, making it hard to breathe.

She knew everything. And that left me with no right to feel angry.

Three years ago, Harris crashed his car and lost his sight. His temper turned vicious—completely unhinged.

I stayed up night after night tending to him. I bathed him, fed him, sat with him through rehab.

I’d never told a soul about it.

Harris came from immense wealth, and being waited on felt natural to him. He never once asked who I was.

I’d kept quiet too. I didn’t want it to look like I was trying to cash in on taking care of him—afraid he’d think I was taking advantage of him when he was vulnerable to worm my way into his life, and end up disgusted with me.

I’d thought once the bandages came off and he saw me, he would understand.

But on that day, I stepped outside to take a phone call. When Nicole came to visit, he mistook her for the one who’d been taking care of him.

Sweet, naive Nicole thought Harris had fallen in love with her at first sight.

She came to me right away and asked, “Felicity, if you don’t want this, I’ll turn him down.”

Seeing the anxiety in her eyes, I knew. She loved Harris too.

If it had been anyone else, I could have said I didn’t want this. But it was Nicole.

Back in sophomore year of college, my father was diagnosed with uremia. All our relatives abandoned us.

Nicole secretly took the deposit she’d saved to study overseas and gave it all to me. That money saved my dad’s life.

I owed her my father’s life. How could I bear to stand between her and Harris?

I’d planned to find the right moment tonight and tell Harris the truth.

Even if he didn’t love me, I wanted him to know he’d mistaken one person for another before Nicole got hurt later on.

But his words—If it had been Felicity, I would only pay her three million dollars—hit me like a slap in the face, waking me completely.

I bent to grab my coat, my tone light. “It’s fine. As long as he treats you well. I’m heading home.”

I pushed open the private room door and left without a backward glance.

Only once I stepped outside the hotel did my eyes burn with tears.

Five years. How many five-year stretches does a person get in a lifetime?

Even a dog would grow attached after that long. But Harris’s heart was stone. I could never warm it.

Back at my rental apartment, I rushed through a quick shower and collapsed onto my bed.

My phone buzzed twice. Messages from Nicole.

[Felicity, did you get home safely?]

[They were all talking nonsense about you tonight. I stood up for you.]

[With Harris here, everyone’s polite to me now. Felicity, I’ve got your back from now on.]

As I read her words, my gaze drifted down to my wrist.

An ugly burn scar marked the skin. I’d gotten it while caring for Harris, when the saucepan burst as I was making his oatmeal.

I knew Nicole wasn’t bragging. She truly thought of me as her sister and shared everything with me.

Yet it was the innocent ones that cut the deepest.

I stared at the ceiling for a long time.

The faint urge I’d held, to reveal the truth, faded completely.

I took a deep breath and typed my reply.

[Made it home. I’m okay. Get some rest.]

Five years of unrequited love. It wasn’t too late to let go.