Chapter 5
No one in my family had poor eyesight.
I deliberately ruined my eyes.
Back in school, my mom would always scold me whenever I looked at her.
“Why are you staring with those big eyes? Do you think big eyes are pretty? Don’t you know you look so naive and uncultured like that, only attracting street thugs?”
I was terrified of her and never dared to argue that I wasn’t staring.
I could only read in the dark, writing with my face very close to the paper.
Finally, I managed to develop nearsightedness and astigmatism, and I got to wear glasses as I wished.
My mom picked out the most old-fashioned black frames with thick lenses for me.
She finally seemed satisfied. “Now you look like a diligent, studious child.”
But she was always contradictory; she never liked me wearing glasses on blind dates.
That’s why it took me until now to realize that Dr. Wyatt was the same person I mistakenly thought was my blind date yesterday!
How could it be such a coincidence?!
I was so embarrassed I wanted to curl up and disappear.
He wouldn’t think I tried to hit on him yesterday and then deliberately came here to harass him today, would he?
And also, was Wyatt nearsighted too? Otherwise… otherwise, how could he say I was pretty?
Wyatt picked up a large round mirror from the desk and held it in front of me.
“My vision is perfect, 20/20. Don’t you ever look in the mirror?”
Huh?
I said what I was thinking out loud again?
Today was truly mortifying.
I instinctively looked at the mirror.
My mom’s voice automatically echoed in my ears.
“Your eyebrows are too thick, like a man’s. Your eyes are big but lifeless. Your nose is too small, your lips too thick. Your face is pale as a ghost, and your chin is too pointed, you look like you have no luck in life…”
I’d heard those words for nearly twenty years.
Every time I looked in the mirror, I’d think, maybe she was right.
I really wasn’t good-looking.
That’s why boys always teased me in school, and why so many blind dates after work never worked out.
I lowered my head again.
“Dr. Wyatt, I apologize for bothering you twice. Please don’t tease me.”
Seeing my disbelief, Wyatt raised an eyebrow.
“How about we make a bet?”
I put my glasses back on, asking dumbly, “Huh? A bet… about what?”
Wyatt’s handsome, thin lips opened and closed, glistening.
I was mesmerized, instinctively nodding.
When I came to my senses, I wanted to crawl into a hole and hide.
Wyatt’s slender, defined fingers tapped the desk.
“Alright, if you lose… you have to grant me one wish.”
“If I lose, I’ll perform your surgery for free.”