Seven Years Ago
“So you could probably just be homeschooled, huh?” Erika—or, Rika—asked as we treaded down the school hallway slowly.
She led me as I held onto her arm, just above her elbow.
“The textbooks are on audio,” she went on. “And then the teacher sends you the lecture notes, and the computer reads them for you, so…”
“Yeah, my parents would prefer it,” I admitted. “Actually, they would’ve preferred if I’d stayed in Montreal. But I need to learn how to be around people.”
I’d been attending and living at Penoir, a school for the blind in Canada for over five years now, and while I enjoyed it there, comfortable around others who had to live life like I did, I wanted to come home. I wanted to learn to live here again and cope with being who I was now in an average environment. I missed the smell of the sea around our house and the ballroom at home where I always danced.
It was for my own good, too. I wanted to do more ballet and start regular classes again, maybe shoot for something professionally with the support of my family around me.
“Must have been lonely,” Rika offers.
Someone brushed my shoulder as they rushed by, and I took a moment to steady myself. This was the part of school I wasn’t going to like. The crowded halls, the shouts, laughter, and chatter, and all the eyes. I lifted my chin, hoping I looked relaxed.
“Uh, well…” I joked. “I didn’t really say I wanted to be around people. I just need to learn to be.”
She let out a little laugh and veered right. “Turning,” she whispered, alerting me.
“Actually, I had lots of friends,” I continued, following her. “It wasn’t lonely. It was comfortable. Too comfortable, I guess. I annoy my sister, so since she graduates at the end of the year, I thought it would be my last chance to be around for that.”
She chuckled again. “How fun. I’m an only child.”
I wonder if my parents might’ve kept me around if I had been the only one instead of tucking me away at some distant school for others to deal with.
My face started to warm as we walked, and I wasn’t sure if it was my nerves or what.
“Are people staring at me?” I asked her.
“They’re staring at us.”
“Why?”
I heard her inhale. “I think… they’re confused. We kind of look alike.”
“Do we?” I replied. “Are you hot?”
If she was hot, then I was hot.
But she just laughed.
“When I think about how I must look,” I told her, “I still see the kid I last looked at in the mirror when I was eight.”
“So you can think in…pictures?”
I blinked. Pictures?
She must’ve seen a look on my face, because she rushed to apologize. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. That was a dumb question, right?”
I shook my head. “No, I… I’m just used to being around people who understand, I guess. I’ll have to get used to questions.” And then I added, “And making people feel comfortable enough to ask. It’s fine.” I let out a small laugh and licked my lips. “And yes, to answer your question. My brain still works, just not my eyes. When I try to picture things I’ve never seen before, though, like you or the inside of this school, it gets more complicated. Sometimes I map it out in my head, and I can create an impression. Other times it’s just like a color or a feeling or a sound that helps me identify it.”
Then I went through some of the pictures in my head, reflecting on how I drew things in my mind.
“Sometimes,” I continued, “it’s a memory. Like when I think about trees or I’m in the forest around my house, I always picture the last trees I saw. No matter where I am. Every tree looks like the trees in that garden maze with the fountain. Tall hedges, dark green…” I trailed off, the memories of that day flooding me again. “A fountain…”
“Garden maze?” she questioned. “Not the one at Damon Torrance’s house…”
My face fell, and I almost stumbled. Damon.
She said his name so casually, like she assumed I knew exactly who he was, heard his name every day, and he was just any other boy, living and breathing right here in Thunder Bay. All of it so normal to her.
Of course, I knew he still lived here, but having her so casually confirm it all of a sudden reminded me that I’d let my guard down.
The truth was, I hadn’t heard his name in six years. It was never spoken in my house, not since the day I found him sitting in the fountain and ended up covered in blood. Everyone said it was an accident, but he’d scared me that day. He made me fall.
But I knew he’d be here. I just hadn’t let myself think about it, I guess. I was a freshman, and he was a senior, on his way to college in a matter of months. My father wanted me to wait until he was gone—start here my sophomore year—but I wanted to start now. My classmates would be transferring from their middle schools, just like I was transferring, so we’d be on an even keel. In that respect anyway. I wanted all four years with my graduating class.
I’d just avoid him and his circle, but he probably didn’t care to trouble himself with me anyway. I couldn’t imagine how he’d forget, because I never would, but it was possible. Given the time that had passed, maybe I was just a faint memory to him.
“Well…,” Rika began after I didn’t say anything else. “It might be nice to live in my good memories forever.”
I nodded, letting the misconception go. I wish I could remember any other trees but those trees.
We stopped at her locker, and I heard the hollow clunk as she dumped her bag of books into it before taking my bag, as well. Not that I had much in there. Some headphones, a digital recorder the school made me buy to record lectures even though I have an app on my phone for that, my wallet, and of course, my cell.
All of my text books and reading material were downloaded on Audible and on my phone, and I’d left my MacBook in my own locker before Biology, since I’d been told I wouldn’t need it for that class. The text-to-speech feature, where I could type out homework and hear it read back to me to make sure I’d typed correctly, had always been useful, but working in groups and having my earbuds in during class was going to be an obstacle I hadn’t thought of. The learning curve coming here would be steep.
“We’ll pick your stuff up after lunch,” Rika told me.
My locker was at the other end of the hall, and the cafeteria was right here. Something about the way she just took my bag into her space, and reaffirmed that we’d be together this afternoon, too, kind of comforted me. Like I had a place.
Lunch. I let out a breath. It was the part I was dreading the most. Even though the entire morning so far was a running contest for “most awkward.”
The whispers in Algebra.
The awkward silence in French.
The laughter in the science lab when the class president introduced herself and offered to be of any help she could in a really loud voice like I was deaf instead of blind.
The nervous verbal exchange with the P.E. teacher who’d forgotten to accommodate for me in her basketball lesson plan, so she ended up putting me on the treadmill for thirty minutes all by myself.
It was to be expected, I guess. I was the only visually impaired student, and I was the mayor’s daughter. People were curious, while others were just unaware or flustered as to how to interact with me. I supposed the learning curve applied to us all.
“Whoo-hoo!” Loud shouts descended down the hall, and I turned toward the noise, hearing a door swing open and closed a few times as it banged the wall.
Students jostled on both sides of me, squeezing between me and Rika and forcing us farther apart as they tried to get to wherever they were going.
Finally, she took my hand, leading me away. She hadn’t taken my hand all morning, and my mother had made her aware that I didn’t really like that. I preferred to hold on to them, not the other way around.
Plus, it made me feel like a kid.
“Ow, ow, ow!” someone howled, and I jerked my head toward the noise, wondering what was going on. It was lot noisier at this school.
My thumb brushed the cuff of Rika’s shirt as she held my hand in her slender one, and I continued my slow steps through the crowd.
Hadn’t she been wearing a short-sleeved shirt, like a Polo shirt? With a sweater vest, I thought? I felt them both as I’d been holding her arm all morning.
I narrowed my eyes.
And just then, I heard my name.
“Winter!” Rika’s voice called.
And it wasn’t coming from the person holding my hand, either.
I halted.
“Winter!” she shouted again. “Put your hand up, so I can see you!”
I yanked my hand out of the grasp of whoever had me and was just about to raise it, so Rika could find me, but the person grabbed me, I heard a door creak open, and I was shoved, stumbling into a completely different room with a tiled floor under my boots, humid air, and a strange smell, like a mixture of sweat, sporting equipment, and perfume.
Or…a body spray.
I shot my hands out in front of me, breathing hard and noticing the noise around me had changed, too. The distant shouts and chatter from down the hallway were gone, no doors opening and closing, and…no female voices.
“I think you’re in the wrong place, honey,” some guy said, chuckling.
“Whoo-hoo,” another boy cooed as he walked by me, and I heard some whistles go off around the room.
Oh, shit.
My stomach sank.
Who the hell had grabbed me out there? Had Rika seen where I’d gone? Oh, my God. I whipped around, feeling for the door and finding it just a few feet away. But when I pushed on it, it wouldn’t budge. Laughter spilled in from the other side, and tears sprang to my eyes as I pounded on the door. It gave way just an inch, I thought, more giggles filtered in from the outside, and then their weight was against it again, keeping me in.
Goddammit. My heart pounded in my chest. I wasn’t in the locker room. I closed my eyes, praying. Please tell me I’m not in the locker room.
“Need a shower?” a male voice said behind me.
“I think she needs a cold shower, man!” another guy called from farther away.
Laughter echoed around the room, the noise level stinging my ears as more people turned their attention on me. I turned around, holding my hands up just in front of me a little, but blinking away the tears and straightening my shoulders.
The less I reacted, the less they’d react. There had to be a coach in here or a teacher or something.
Stupid me. I knew the teasing or pranking or even bullying was a possibility of someone in my shoes, but I arrogantly thought my status protected me. Or my father’s status, anyway.
But whoever pushed me in here thought of something I didn’t. If I couldn’t see them do it, there was no one to punish.
“Damn,” someone said, and I turned my head toward his voice.
“Is that…?” Another voice trailed off. Younger, like he was my age, maybe.
“Yeah, it’s the mayor’s daughter,” a raspy voice added. “The blind one.”
“Oh, shit. I heard she was coming.”
“She’s cute.”
Heat covered my face, but I kept my jaw locked to keep the panic from rising. I spun around again and tried the door.
I pushed my body into it, it gave way, but it was pushed closed again by the same weight. More cackling from the other side.
I shook my head. I was going to kill them. Whoever they were, I was going to kill them. I wanted to scream—to demand they open the damn door and let me out—but it would just entertain the boys behind me even more.
“It’s okay, babe. You can stay,” one of the same voices told me. “Not like you can see our shit anyway, right?”
“Shower’s all yours, babe.” A towel hit my body, and I caught it on reflex. “Unless you don’t want it all to yourself.”
Heat rose to my cheeks, and I swallowed a couple times to wet my throat. “Hello?” I called, hoping to alert a teacher that a girl was in the room so I could get some help. “Hello?”
“Hello!” a voice called, mimicking me.
And another. “Hello!”
“Hello!”
“Hello!”
Male voices around the room laughed and joked, and I gritted my teeth together, aggravated. I didn’t know why I was surprised. The guys in this town…
“What the hell’s going on?” someone asked.
“Winter Ashby wandered in, man.”
I backed up to the door, my hands at the ready as it sounded like more guys came in from the showers or the gym, I wasn’t sure.
But before I hit the hard doors, I hit something else. I stopped, feeling a body behind me.
“Hey,” he said. “I’m Simon.”
I jerked, but there was suddenly a body to my left and in my ear. “I’m Brace.”
And then another one in front of me. “I’m Miles,” he said, and I sucked in a breath and held out my hands.
I tried to slip in any direction I could, but they were everywhere.
“Guys, come on, leave her alone. Get her out of here!” someone barked from farther away.
“Oh, come on, Will…”
I stepped to my left, but there was someone’s bare skin there. I shot to my right, and I ran into someone in a towel. I growled and darted out my hands, pushing at the body of the boy who said he was Miles in front of me.
“You guys are assholes,” I said. “Let me out of here!”
Suddenly, a hand swung into me from the front as Miles grunted, and the boy behind me shoved into me as he was pulled away, knocking me forward a little. I lost my breath and held out my arms to brace myself, but they were suddenly gone. All three of them.
Someone took my hand, and I jerked on reflex, about to pull it away, but then he asked, “Are you okay?”
His tone was light and gentle and immediately put me at ease. Or at least more ease than I was. I stopped, letting his fingers hold mine by the tips.
It was a small gesture, but it didn’t scare me. Just more reassuring.
“I’m Will,” he said. “I’ll find someone to get you out of here, okay?”
I inhaled the fragrance of body wash and fresh laundry on him and nodded, his presence helping me calm down a little.
But then our hands were knocked apart.
I went rigid, stunned for a moment. What the—
“What?” Will asked someone.
“Get off her and go get dressed,” the new voice said. “I got it.”
I got it? Who was this?
“I wasn’t on her,” I heard Will say, but his voice faded away anyway.
Wait…
I backed up, pressing the door again and finding it still not giving way.
“Are you hurt?” the dark voice asked me.
I shook my head. His tone wasn’t taunting like the others, but there was something about it that gave me pause.
“Are you going to class?” he pressed, his voice growing closer. I couldn’t back up anymore, just kept putting all of my weight into the door.
I opened my mouth. “I have—I have lunch.”
He leaned in close, his body brushing mine, and I sucked in a breath and put my hands up.
“Let me get the door for you,” he said in a low voice.
“I…” I planted my hands on his chest to keep him away from me, feeling a crisp shirt, stiff collar, and skin. I let my fingertips linger a moment too long in the strip of bare chest where his shirt wasn’t buttoned.
Shit. I moved to pull my hands down, but just then, my thumb brushed an object—a little ball or…bead—peeking through the opening of his shirt.
Déjà vu washed over me.
Grazing it with my finger, I felt another and then another, tracing the beads on the chain—warm from his skin—down his torso where the two strains joined into one as it draped down his stomach.
Wood. I could feel the grooves under the gloss coating.
My stomach dipped. No, no, no…
I couldn’t help it. I followed the line of the beads, feeling his stomach tighten under my fingertips, and his breathing quicken.
Reaching the crucifix I hoped wasn’t there, I pinched it between my fingers, my nerves firing hot under my skin as I instantly recognized the carefully crafted definition of the fingers attached to the cross.
Oh, my God. I let the rosary go like it burned my fingers.
But he grabbed my hand, pressing it back on the beads and his skin.
“Oh, why stop when you were doing so well?” he taunted.
“Damon,” I murmured, trying to pull my hand away.
“Mmm,” he affirmed. “Missed you, kid.”
I tore my hand free, clenching my jaw.
Jesus. In my head, I still saw him how I last saw him. A kid, not much bigger than me, with a lanky body and a shaky voice.
But everything had changed. His hand in mine was bigger than I remember, his voice was deeper, he was taller, and he had a voice now. He wasn’t eleven anymore.
Why did I feel like I was just now realizing that?
And any hope that he’d forgotten about me was now gone, too. He knew exactly who I was.
But before he could say anything else, the door behind me gave way, I fell back, and he caught me, pulling me forward again and into his body. I didn’t have time to push him away before someone grabbed my hand, pulling me off him. I stumbled.
“Winter,” my sister snapped. “What are you doing?”
But she didn’t wait for my response. She hauled me out of the locker room and into the hallway, and the door slammed shut behind us as a trickle of sweat glided down my back. My head was swimming, and I could still feel him near me.
I jogged to keep up with my sister as my heart pounded painfully.
But my body buzzed with warmth, too. I frowned, rubbing my fingertips over my thumbs and still feeling the beads between them.
Ari was probably the one who stuffed me in the damn locker room in the first place. Or she had her friends do it. How else did she know where I was?
She was probably just pissed when I didn’t make it back out right away and she had to go in there and fetch me. Were she and Damon friendly?
They were in the same grade, but I had no idea if they hung in the same circles. My parents would’ve advised her to stay away from him, but it wasn’t like she would listen unless she wanted to. I had absolutely no idea what he was like anymore or about my sister’s life at this school. The former I couldn’t admit I wanted to inquire about over the years, and the other, I really didn’t care. My sister and I had been struggling through our growing pains for about ten years now, and I wasn’t sure why. There just seemed to be a layer to her I couldn’t crack, and we didn’t have much in common, either. Especially not anymore. She’d gotten used to life as an only child while I was away and obviously liked it.
“God, he’s looking at her,” Claudia, one of Rika’s friends, said across from me as we sat in the lunchroom.
I perked my ears, an earbud still stuck in one as I half-listened to music and half-listened to the conversation. I didn’t want to be rude, and I should’ve been concerned with making friends on my first day, but after the locker room debacle, I needed to recharge for a few minutes.
“Who?” Rika asked.
But no one answered her—at least not verbally. It was times like this when I realized how aware people were of my disability. Answering with nods or body gestures I couldn’t see.
My disability.
I hated that word.
But it was what it was, and people, without meaning any harm, used it to their advantage. They could communicate with their eyes, their hands, their gestures…all in a possible attempt to keep me out of the loop.
Who was looking at who? Someone was looking at me?
“His attention has been on her for longer than seven seconds,” Noah, another of Rika’s friends commented, “and longer than seven seconds is not good.”
Who and who?
But Claudia cursed in a whisper. “Oh, shit.”
Rika shifted on my left, and the next thing I knew someone sat down on my right, their knees blocking me in, like they were straddling the bench and facing me.
“What are you listening to?” a deep voice asked.
I had a moment to process whose voice it was before the earbud was plucked out of my ear.
Damon. They’d been talking about him. He’d been staring at me in the lunchroom. The scent of tobacco and cloves wafted off him, and I searched for ways to get rid of him.
He was bold. A lot bolder than I remembered, and I wasn’t used to it.
He was quiet for a minute, and I guessed he was probably checking out my playlist. The oldies I listened to when I needed something fun, light-hearted, and peppy to get me out of a mood. The same mood he put me in this morning.
The earbud dropped back in my lap, and his voice was low but sure. “It won’t be like that with us.”
Like that?
Like what?
And then I realized what song had been playing. “Then He Kissed Me” by The Crystals.
He and I weren’t going to be like that couple in the song?
I tightened my jaw. Yeah, no shit. There was no ‘us’.
“Leave her alone, Damon.”
“Suck me, Fane,” he shot back.
I stopped breathing for a moment, registering the sudden sharpness to his tone. God, he was different.
I swallowed the lump in my throat. “I don’t want to talk to you. And you’re not supposed to talk to me.”
He didn’t say anything for a moment, and he didn’t move. Was he staring at me?
I faced forward, ignoring him.
After a few seconds, he cleared his throat. “I was Winter’s first kiss, ladies,” he told everyone, despite that we had another guy at our table. “I was eleven. She was eight.”
I felt him nudge closer, and his voice dropped a hair. “I wonder how many guys have kissed you since. But then, I guess I don’t really care, because I was first, and that’s all that matters.”
I balled my skirt in my fists. I wanted him to go away. “Don’t think for a second that you were any good at it, either,” I replied.
“And don’t think I’m going to go easy on you just because you’d trip over a speck of dust if someone wasn’t holding your hand to walk ten steps.”
I heard a snort from somewhere farther away, my lips tightened. “I’m not scared of you.”
“It’s early.”
I shook my head. “What do you want?”
“To pick up where we left off.”
Where we left off? He nearly killed me when we were kids. There was no moving forward.
“Honestly, I don’t know,” he mused. “I have a short attention span, and you interest me at the moment. I have questions. Like, can you see anything?”
I narrowed my eyes.
“Anything at all?” he pressed. “Shapes, light, dark, blurs…? And is it true that when you lose one sense, the others heighten? Your sense of smell, hearing, …” he paused, his voice dropping to almost a whisper. “Your sense of touch?”
The little hairs on the back of my neck rose up, and my blood heated under my skin. Everyone was watching us. I knew they were.
Just ignore him.
“And since you don’t have the use of your eyes,” he kept going, “do you have the reflex anymore to squeeze them shut? Like when you’re in pain or…when you’re excited?”
Another little laugh somewhere down the table. I turned away a little, worried they could all see how hard my heart was beating.
His words were filled with innuendo. I almost forgot he was older for a moment, our age difference at eight and eleven seeming much bigger now that we were in high school. I was too young, and he was being inappropriate. I kind of got the impression—judging from how he spoke to Rika—he was like that with everyone, though.
“Do you remember what I look like?” he asked. “I’m bigger now.”
I turned toward him, knowing my eyes wouldn’t meet his. “I remember everything. And I don’t hurt as easily anymore.”
“Oh, I’m counting on it.”
The edge back in his voice spread chills up my arms, and every inch of my skin felt electrified. I could feel his eyes on my face, watching me, and there was a mixture of dread and anger inside me, but also anticipation.
Excitement.
While he hurt me years ago, and there was no doubt he was now ten times the asshole I knew back then, a small part of me liked that he didn’t tread softly around me. He didn’t coddle me. He didn’t ignore me.
He didn’t act nervous, scared of me, or treat me like I was fragile. Maybe he thought I was an easier target, or maybe he didn’t scare as easily as some. Whatever it was, part of me kind of liked it.
And part of me wondered how he would respond if he found out I didn’t scare so easily, either. It was obvious from the others that no one liked to deal with him. He was used to having things his way.
“What are you doing?” someone spoke up, making me blink.
I turned my head away, coming back to the moment and registering that Ari had come up behind me. Before I could figure out who she was talking to, though, Damon slowly rose from where he straddled the bench next to me.
“Just saying hi to your little sister,” he said, and I could hear the smirk in his voice.
I felt him leave, and Rika shifted next to me, blowing out a long breath like she’d been holding it.
“He’s not supposed to come near you,” Arion said, and I guessed she was talking to me.
“Tell him that,” I muttered, feeling for my sandwich where I’d left it on the table. “I didn’t make him come over here.”
“Don’t tell the administration or Mom or Dad. The basketball team needs him, and I’m not having him get in trouble because you can’t deal.”
I picked up a half but didn’t take a bite.
“He was here first,” Arion pointed out. “You get him expelled, and everyone will hate us.”
Yeah, no doubt. I knew about the order Damon got to stay away from me this morning before school started, but I hadn’t entertained the possibility he’d actually disobey it. Was he stupid?
Or maybe he just thought he was that untouchable. He came right over here and sat down, knowing that at least half the eyes in the cafeteria would be on him and witnesses to what he was doing. And he did it anyway. Maybe he was overly confident, purposely reckless, or…uncontrollable.
Uncontrollable. That was the boy I remembered.
But my sister was right. He’d been here longer, and no matter what he did, they’d blame me if he got in trouble. For now, I’d handle him myself if he didn’t quit. And I’d do it quietly.
It still pissed me off that my own sister’s first instinct was to protect the basketball player, though.
I lifted my chin a little. “Thanks for your concern,” I told her. “It’s touching.”
“Oh, gimme a bre—”
“You can go now.”
“What are you—”
“Jesus, you’re still here?” I blurted out, cutting her off. “Well, make yourself useful then and open this.”
I reached for the bottle of O.J. on the edge of the table where I’d left it, found it, and handed it to her over my shoulder.
Juice splashed out from where the cap wasn’t tightened properly, and I heard her gasp.
“Ugh, Winter!” she yelled.
I winced. “Oh, it was already open? Sorry. I’m so blind.”
Laughter broke out around the table, and she let out a growl, her mumbled curses fading away as she stomped off. Or I pictured her stomping off. Not sure if she actually did.
“Oh, shit, girl,” Noah said, knocking me lightly in the arm. “You are my hero.”
I gave a half-smile, a little pleased with myself. Also a little aggravated that Arion and I were at war at all, but like Damon, I kind of appreciated the normalcy of it. Arion didn’t put on airs to protect my feelings. She just treated me like I was stupid, as if learning how to live all over again six years ago didn’t make me tough and quickly adaptable to change and new challenges with a hard heart ready to fight for all the things they told me I couldn’t have and couldn’t do.
Maybe that’s why Damon treated me like I wasn’t made of glass. Maybe he knew.
I thought back to the boy in the fountain, bloody with a silent tear streaming down his face, because something—or many things—happened to him that he didn’t want to talk about, and now he was nearly a man who would never cry again and only made other people bleed.
I hated him, and I would never forgive him, but maybe we had that one thing in common. We had to change to survive.
