Winter Hawk Star by Sigmund Brouwer Read Free Book Online Page A

us in shape.
    I felt like a Boy Scout helping an old lady across the street.
    â€œWe there yet?” he asked.
    â€œDon’t be dumb,” I said. “You can look for yourself.”
    â€œNo,” he said. “I can’t.”
    â€œHuh?”
    â€œTyler,” he said. “I have weird allergies. Sometimes they act up. But never this bad.”
    He stumbled a bit.
    â€œI’m scared,” he said, “real scared. I can’t see. It’s like the whole world is gray.”
    It took Riley an hour to get his vision back. Although he could see again, he was no longer the same person he’d been before. I discovered that a few days later as we were driving toward Youth Works for our next visit. Riley turned down the volume of the car stereo.
    â€œWhy you listen to country music is beyond me,” he said.
    I took my right hand off the steering wheel and turned the volume up again. “Because I can understand the words.”
    I braked hard to miss a truck that had suddenly slowed in the left lane.
    He took advantage of the distraction and turned the volume down again. “Words? That’s dumb. It’s called listening to music, remember? You jam a CD in your stereo and listen to music. Not words.”
    Safely past the truck, I turned onto Fifth Avenue, toward Youth Works. I also turned up the volume. Again. “It’s not music when the singers are screeching like they’ve slammed their fingers in a door.”
    He turned the knob down. Again. “Sometimes you act like an old man,” he said. “‘Screeching singers’ is something my dad would say.”
    I turned it up. “I act like an old man?”
    He turned it down. “Yeah, an old man. Like you don’t want to take chances.”
    I turned it up. “If I need a psychologist, you’ll be the first person I call.”
    He turned the volume down. It wasn’t funny anymore.
    â€œCould be I’m the one who needs a psychologist,” he said. His voice was quietand serious. “Do you ever think about dying?”
    I left the volume turned down. Maybe I hadn’t heard him right. “Dying?”
    â€œDying,” he repeated.
    I let the word hang in the air, trying to decide what to say. But I didn’t know what to say to Riley. So I just listened.
    â€œLook,” he said, “I trust you. But if you ever tell any of the guys on the team I started talking about this, I’ll kill you.”
    â€œI won’t say anything. But why are you thinking about—”
    â€œDying?”
    â€œYeah,” I said. “I mean, we’re hockey players. We’re not supposed to think.”
    â€œWe’re also not supposed to suddenly go blind for an hour for no reason at all.”
    â€œI agree,” I said. “That was weird.”
    It had been weird. Although a few days had passed, the doctors were still no closer to figuring out what had happened to Riley during practice.
    â€œTyler, I’ll admit I was scared when everything went gray. You know that.”
    For the next few seconds we both thought about him losing his sight as I slowed the Jeep in front of the Youth Works building. I pulled on the parking brake and half opened my door.
    Riley’s voice stopped me.
    â€œNothing like that ever happened to me before,” Riley said. “I’ve never felt helpless like that. I was blind for an hour, but I didn’t know if my vision would ever come back. Now I keep wondering if I’ll suddenly go blind again. And what if I stay blind?”
    â€œWell, you could always get a job as a referee.”
    â€œThis is not the time to be funny,” he said.
    I snapped my mouth shut.
    â€œSo I started thinking about my heart,” Riley continued. “I mean, there it is, pumping blood all by itself without me telling it to. What if it stopped all of a sudden, for no reason—just like I went blind for no reason. For that