Copyright

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Children’s Books in 2016

HarperCollins Children’s Books is a division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd,

HarperCollins Publishers

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

Not If I See You First

Text copyright © Eric Lindstrom, 2016

Cover artwork © Liz Casal

Eric Lindstrom asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008146306

Ebook Edition © NOVEMBER 2015 ISBN: 9780008146337

Version: 2017-02-02

For all who love,

Especially

Shannon,

You got me started

Rachel,

You made me finish

Susan,

You keep me going

Be fearless

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Acknowledgments

Keep Reading …

About the Author

About the Publisher

y alarm buzzes and I slap it off and tap the speech button at the same time. Stephen Hawking says, “Five-fifty-five AM.” Just double-checking, like always.

I crank open the window and stick out my hand. Cool, misty, but not too humid. Probably overcast. I pull on clothes—sports bra, sleeveless shirt, shorts, track shoes—without bothering to check anything, since all my running clothes are black.

Except my scarves. I finger through them, checking the plastic tags, gauging my mood. I feel strangely unsettled, so I pick one that might help: the yellow cotton with embroidered happy faces. I tie it around my head like a blindfold, settling a smile on each of my closed eyelids.

The rising sun is warm on my cheeks; the sky must be clear, at least at the horizon. I lock the front door and slip the cold key into my sock. Where the path turns to sidewalk, I turn right and start to jog.

The three blocks to the field are programmed into my feet, my legs, my equilibrium. After seven years of this I know every bump, every crack, every exposed root in the sidewalk. I don’t need to see where I’m running; I can feel it.

“Parker, STOP!”

I stumble to a halt, waving my arms like I’m at the edge of a cliff. And if a backhoe came yesterday, I very well could be.

“I’m so sorry, Parker!” It’s Mrs. Reiche’s suffering-suburban-housewife voice calling from her porch. Now she’s trotting down the driveway, keys jangling. “Len’s brother came last night …”

I try not to imagine running into the side of his van. I walk forward, hands out, until I touch cold, dew-covered metal. “You don’t have to move it.” I trace my fingers along the slick car body as I walk around.

“Of course I’ll move it. It’ll be gone when you get back.”

I find the sidewalk again and continue as the van growls behind me. I wait at the corner until Mrs. Reiche shuts it off to listen for traffic. I hear nothing but chattering birds, so I step into the intersection.

When I touch the chain link fence of Gunther Field I turn right. Fourteen steps to the gap and a left turn through it, one hand slightly forward in case today is the first time in years I misjudged the distance. I pass straight through, like always.

The field is over a hundred yards across. If any new obstacles have shown up since yesterday chances are low I’ll find them with a single walk-through, but as crazy as it is to run here at all it’s even crazier without walking it first.

I reach the far fence at one hundred and forty-two steps. Pretty typical and all clear. After a few more minutes of stretching, I’m ready to run. Seventy-five strides at a fair pace, a couple dozen walking steps to touch the far fence, and back again.

After five turns, it’s time to sprint.

Sixty strides gets me within two dozen walking steps of the far side. Then sidestep a bit to line up again because of drift. The still air is warmer than yesterday but feels cool as I fly through it. The worst heat of summer is weeks away.

Ten sprints and I’m done. After crossing the street I jog to cool down, but I slow to a walk near the Reiches’ driveway. I heard the car move but once a problem occurs to you it takes a while to forget it. On the other side where the driveway slopes up to become sidewalk again, I speed up.

The instant I open the front door I know something’s wrong. I don’t smell any breakfast. Even cereal days include toast. In the kitchen I hear only the normal sounds of a sleeping house: refrigerator humming, clock ticking over the stove, my breathing, and when I stop that to listen more closely, my heartbeat.

I head for the stairs and stumble on something in the hall. I squat and find my dad lying on the floor, wearing flannel pajama bottoms and a T-shirt.

“Dad? Dad! Are you okay?”

“Parker,” he says, his voice oddly flat. Not strained or injured.

“Did you fall? What happened?”

“Listen,” he says, still sounding nothing like he should if he were really lying at the base of the stairs. “Everyone has secrets, Parker. Everyone is a secret.”

That’s when I wake up, like always, but it’s exactly what really happened last June third, the week after school let out and two weeks after my sixteenth birthday.

Well, except for two things. One, I really did almost run into the Reiches’ van, but that was a different day a couple weeks later. And two, my dad wasn’t lying at the bottom of the stairs. I found him still in bed, and he’d been dead for hours.

arissa is sobbing. Again.

“And then he … he … he didn’t …” Her deep voice almost sounds like grunting.

Pathetic. And she’s smart, too, except about Owen.

“Can’t you guys talk to him?”

I don’t reply and neither does Sarah. We offer good advice—for free even—but never get involved. We’ve told Marissa this countless times; it would waste oxygen to say it again. We just have to wait for her to dry out. There’s nothing to do till the bell rings anyway.

Last school year this scene repeated itself every few weeks. Marissa rarely speaks to me otherwise. I can’t clearly remember what she sounds like without wailing, snuffling, gasping, coughing on tears and snot, and really needing to blow her nose.

It’s a common belief that losing your sight heightens your other senses, and it’s true, but not by magnifying them. It just gets rid of the overwhelming distraction of seeing everything all the time. On the other hand, my experience of sitting with Marissa consisted almost entirely of hearing everything her mouth and nose were capable of in sticky detail. That’s what unrequited love sounds like to me. Disgusting.

“Parker? Can’t you do something?”

“I am. I’m telling you to find someone else.” I pause, per the usual script, so she can interrupt.

“Nooooo!”

I’m the reigning queen of not giving a shit what other people think, but Marissa’s indifference to a Junior Quad full of people—on the first day of school no less—seeing her imitate a shrieking mucus factory … it humbles even me.

“Marissa, listen, soul mates don’t exist. But if they did, they would be two people who want each other. You want Owen, but Owen wants Jasmine, so that means Owen is not your soul mate. You’re just his stalker.”

“Wait … Jasmine?” I enjoy a moment of peace as the surprise of this information, which we told her last spring, quiets her for a moment. “Isn’t she …?”

“Yes, Jasmine likes girls, but she hasn’t found one in particular yet, so Owen stupidly thinks he has a chance. That makes him following her around only slightly more pointless and sad than you following him around. In fact—”

Sarah clicks her tongue and I know what it means but at some speeds I have too much momentum to stop or even slow down.

“—the only thing you and Owen have in common is being in love with someone who doesn’t love you back, someone you don’t even know. Have you ever even looked up words like love or soul mate or even relationship in a dictionary?”

The silence that follows is the perfect example of the thing I hate most about being blind: not seeing how people react to what I say.

“But …” Marissa sniffs productively. “If we spent some time togeth—”

Saved by the bell. Her and me both. But mostly her.

*

“Well, if it isn’t PG-13 and her All-Seeing-Eye-Dog.” The familiar screech is to my left and accompanied by a locker door clattering open.

“Please tell me her locker isn’t right over there,” I say to Sarah in a stage whisper. “I found out over the summer I’m allergic to PVP. Now I have to carry an EpiPen in my bag.”

“Oh,” Faith says in her snippy voice. “I’m PVP? That’s … People … People …”

“Polyvinylpyrrolidone. Used in hair spray, hair gel, glue sticks, and plywood.”

“Well, I think PVP means People … who are … Very Popular.”

I laugh, breaking character. “Fay-Fay! Did you just think that up?”

“Of course I did! I’m not as dumb as you look.”

The odor of kiwi-strawberry tells me what’s about to happen and I brace myself. I’d call it a bear hug except Faith is too skinny to do anything bearish. I hold on a bit too long and then let go.

“Do you really have an EpiPen?” she asks.

“God, Fay,” Sarah says. “Do you even know what that is?”

“My nephew’s allergic to peanuts. And do you know you’re a pretentious, condescending bitch?”

“Yes, I doooof!” The rush of air and Sarah’s answer tells me Faith gave her a hug, too.

“Can you believe all these strangers?” Faith says, making no attempt to whisper. “This place is a zoo.”

“At least it’s them invading us,” Sarah says, “and not the other way around.”

All true. The town of Coastview can’t support two high schools anymore, so Jefferson closed and everyone came here to Adams. The halls are so jammed with people who don’t know The Rules, and not just the freshmen, that I had to hold on to Sarah’s arm to get through the chaos to my locker. Breaking in this many newbies will be messy, but at least I don’t have to learn the layout of an entirely different school.

“Oh, hey, here comes another one,” Faith says, closer and softer, this time remembering Rule Number Two, and she hugs me again. “I’m sorry I was stuck in Vermont all summer. You know I’d have come if I could, don’t you?”

“I’m fine,” I say quickly, hoping that will end the subject.

“Did I see you guys talking to Marissa this morning? Was she crying?”

“New year, same bullshit,” Sarah says.

“Please tell me it’s over a new guy. Really? No …”

I imagine various facial expressions and nods and eyebrow waggling filling in the gaps.

“That’s what you spent the morning talking about? Pretty selfish of her … Wait.” I can hear that Faith has turned to face me. “Does she even know? Didn’t you tell her?”

“Right,” I say. “Oh, Marissa, while you spent the summer crying over some complete stranger, my dad died and my aunt’s family moved here because my house is better than theirs.”

“So …” Faith says. “That’s something you just thought, or you actually said that?”

“Jesus, Fay. I’m honest but I’m not mean.”

“Some exceptions apply,” Sarah says.

“I have to go.” I unfold my cane. “With all these noobs in the way, it’s going to take a while to get to Trig.”

“Haven’t they assigned her a new buddy?” Faith asks Sarah as I tap down the hall. “Who is it? Didn’t Petra move to Colorado or somewhere?”

I’m grateful they can talk about my buddy without sounding awkward. It can’t be one of them—Faith is too busy socially (translation: popular) and Sarah doesn’t qualify because she’s not taking enough of my honors and AP classes. But there’s a girl from Jefferson who’s in all my classes, and she was willing, so the choice pretty much made itself.

*

As soon as I settle into my usual seat for every class—in the back right corner and reserved for me with a name card—it starts.

“So you’re blind, huh?”

I cock my head toward the unfamiliar male voice, coming from the seat directly in front of me. Low-pitched, a bit thick around the vowels. The voice of a jock, but I just keep that as a working hypothesis awaiting more evidence.

“Are you sure you’re in the right class?” I say. “Calculus for Geniuses is down the hall. This is just Trig.”

“I guess you’re in Kensington’s class? Isn’t it kinda early for this?”

I don’t know what this means, or who Kensington is. A teacher from Jefferson, maybe.

“Hey, douchebag,” says a male voice to the left of Douchebag. “She’s really blind.”

Interesting. The second voice is softer, and calm in a way you don’t often hear insulting big heavy jock voices. It’s familiar but I can’t place it.

“No, Ms. Kensington does this thing where you need to pretend—”

“I know, and she doesn’t hand out canes. Besides, it’s first period on the first day.”

“But if she’s really blind then why would she wear a blindfo—”

“Trust me, dude; just shut up.” Harsh words but said with a friendly voice.

For my scarf today I chose white silk with a thick black X on each eye. It was that or my hachimaki with Divine Wind written in kanji, but I didn’t want to confuse the noobs with a mixed message. Either way, I know I made a mistake leaving my vest at home.

I usually wear a frayed army jacket, arms torn off, covered with buttons that friends bought or made over the years. Slogans like Yes, I’m blind, get over it! and Blind, not deaf, not stupid! and my personal favorite, Parker Grant doesn’t need eyes to see through you! Aunt Celia talked me out of it this morning, saying it would overwhelm all the people from Jefferson who don’t know me. She’s wrong, it turns out. They need to be overwhelmed.

I hear shuffling and the creak of wood and steel as someone sits down hard to my left.

“Hi, Parker.” It’s Molly. “Sorry I’m late. I needed to stop by the office.”

“If the bell hasn’t rung, you’re not late.” I try to sound casual but actually let her know that being my buddy just means helping with certain things in classes, not life in general.

“Hey, so your name’s Parker—” Douchebag says.

“Awww,” I interrupt him with my sweet voice. “You figured that out because you just heard someone say it. And I know your name for the very same reason. Douchebag isn’t very nice, though, so I’ll just call you D.B.”

“I’m—”

“Shhh …” I shake my head. “Don’t ruin it.”

The silence that follows is the perfect example of the thing I love most about being blind: not seeing how people react to what I say.

“I—” D.B. says, and the bell rings.

*

“The stairs down to the parking lot are ahead,” Molly says.

I sigh inwardly. Actually, I’m tired; maybe I sighed outwardly, I’m not sure.

Classes let out a while ago but Molly and I worked out a schedule to do our homework in the library after school for a couple hours and afterwards I call Aunt Celia to pick me up. Molly’s mom is a teacher who also came over from Jefferson—she teaches both French and Italian—and they carpool.

“Good,” I say. “Those stairs have been there at least two years now. I bet it’d be really hard to get rid of them with the entire parking lot being five feet lower than all the classrooms.”

Silence.

I consider reminding her of Rule Number Four, understanding that it hasn’t been long since I gave her the list, but it’s been a tiring first day and I don’t have the energy.

I don’t need a chaperone anywhere on school grounds. I know exactly where the handicapped parking space is and two years of Dad parking there trained the unhandicapped people to stay the hell out of it. Molly insisted she was walking with me just because, but I knew better. The combination of blind people, stairs, and cars terrifies the sighted, but it’s actually pretty safe. Cars are only dangerous when they’re moving, and they only move in certain ways and places, and they make noise you can hear, even hybrids. Stairs are like bite-sized paths that your feet can feel the size and shape of all the time.

“You know, Parker …” Molly blurts out with some energy, maybe impatience, but then doesn’t continue. She sighs.

“What?”

“Never mind.”

I want to let it drop, too. I haven’t spent enough time with Molly to know if I’m going to like her or just tolerate her—the amount of energy I’m going to put into this depends a lot on which it’s going to be—but either way we’re going to be with each other more than with anyone else, all day, every day, all year.

“You can’t take it back,” I say, just as a fact, not an accusation. “I know there’s something in there now. Spit it out before it gets infected.”

I can hear her breathing. Thinking breaths. I calculate whether to prod her more or wait her out.

“It’s just …” she finally says. “I know we only just met …”

Another breath.

“Do you want me to help you?” I ask. “Or let you flounder around some more?”

Molly blows air out her nose. I can’t tell if it’s the laughing kind or the eye-rolling kind.

“Yeah, sure, help me out.” I hear a little of both. A good sign.

Embedded in the concrete path under my sneakers is the bumpy metal plaque describing the founding of John Quincy Adams High School in 1979. I know exactly where I am.

“Here.” I hold out my cane. “Fold this up for me?”

She takes it. “Why?”

I turn and walk briskly toward the stairs, arms swinging, counting in my head … six … five … four … three …

“Parker!” Molly scurries after me.

… two … one … step down …

I march down the stairs, counting them, hitting them hard and confident, legs straight like a soldier, each time sliding my foot back to knock my heel against the prior step.

At the bottom I keep marching and counting silently till I reach the curb where I know Aunt Celia’s car will park. I stop and spin around.

“Cane, please?”

It touches my hand. She didn’t collapse it like I asked. I do and slide it into my bag.

“Maybe you’re thinking I’m a stereotypical blind girl who’s out to prove she doesn’t need anyone’s charity. But instead of being nice to people who are just trying to help her, she’s a bitter and resentful bitch because she’s missing out on something wonderful that she thinks everyone else takes for granted.”

Now I’m starting to wonder if Molly is just a loud breather, though I didn’t notice it in the library and it was pretty quiet in there.

“Am I warm?” I ask.

“Not very. But not everyone has to be.”

It takes me a moment to get it—which isn’t like me at all—and now it’s too late to laugh.

I smile. “Touché.”

Aunt Celia’s car pulls up and stops.

“I suppose you can tell if that’s your aunt’s car, just by the sound?”

“Pretty much, yeah.”

“My dog can do that, too.”

I turn my head to face her, something I don’t often bother doing.

“I’m starting to like you, Molly Ray. But believe me, it’s a mixed blessing.”

“Oh, don’t worry. I believe it.”

The car door thunks open. Aunt Celia calls out, too loudly, “Parker, it’s me, hop in!”

I sigh, definitely outwardly.

ey, Dad.

School was okay. Better than it could have been. Even though half the people didn’t know the other half, everyone knew enough people so it wasn’t too awkward. It’ll take time to get all the noobs up to speed on The Rules, but I have plenty of help.

Some people I don’t know very well were helping me with the noobs. Maybe just to be nice, or maybe it makes them feel important telling other people what to do. Or maybe they were protecting me like I’m the school mascot. That would really suck. I’m nobody’s poster child.

The ride home was quiet, just how I like it now. I don’t know what cars are like when I’m not in them but I get the idea people talk at me more because they think I’m bored sitting there without any scenery. My view never changes, but other than different people and cars on the street every day, I don’t think their view changes much either.

I told Aunt Celia a couple months ago she didn’t need to entertain me while driving; now she doesn’t talk in the car at all. She’s black or white about everything. I said it nicely—I wasn’t telling her to shut up or anything—but she clammed up anyway. Maybe her feelings got hurt but it’s not my fault if people don’t like the truth.

“Hi, Big P,” my cousin Petey calls down from the landing.

“Hey, Little P. How was school?”

He trots down and sits on the third-from-the-bottom step next to me.

“Boring.”

“You’re too young to be bored at school. You’re not supposed to get bored until the fourth grade.”

“I was bored in the second grade, too,” he says proudly.

“So was I,” I whisper.

“Why are you sitting here?” he whispers back, probably just because I whispered first.

This truth I don’t want to tell, not to Petey anyway. It’s a tough enough situation as it is, my house filled with relatives—who I used to only cross paths with every couple years—now sleeping in my dead dad’s room and home office. I don’t want to tell him how I miss talking with Dad on the ride home from school, or how we wouldn’t be done when we got home so we’d sit at the kitchen table and talk some more, drinking iced tea, until he finally had to get back to work. I don’t want to tell Petey how I didn’t think about this until I climbed into Aunt Celia’s car today, when the silence—which I created and now can’t break—sucked all the air out of the car until I thought I’d pass out. How I want to sit at the kitchen table and talk to Dad now, but if I do everyone will think it’s weird, me sitting alone in the kitchen doing nothing. I don’t care if people think I’m weird, but they would bug me with questions.

Like Petey’s doing now, because sitting on the stairs doing nothing is weirder than sitting at the kitchen table. But I don’t want to tell him that instead of sitting in my room having a one-sided conversation with my dad where no one can see, I want to do it in a place where I feel him: in the kitchen, in his office (off-limits, since it’s my cousin Sheila’s room now), or at the base of the stairs, where I never sat with him in life but sometimes do in my dreams.

“I’m just resting. It’s been a long day.”

“Wanna play Go Fish?”

Not particularly. But I can’t do what I really want to do either. “Sure thing, Little P. How about Sheila?”

“Her door’s closed.”

We both know what this means. Do Not Disturb.

“All right, you get the cards, I’ll pour the drinks. Last one done has to deal.”

He pounds up the stairs. I sit a moment longer. Aunt Celia makes Petey pick up his room every night before bed but he just throws everything on shelves and never puts anything in the same place twice. He has a few decks of cards but only one braille set he got from me, so it’ll take him a few minutes to find it.

I don’t know if they’re going to let me just sit quietly to talk to you every day, Dad, but I’m sure as hell going to try. I might need to go into my room and close the door like Sheila, because you’re right, everyone has secrets, and that includes me.

*

Dinner is pork chops—too dry like always—mashed potatoes, applesauce, and canned peas. All of Aunt Celia’s meals are cartoons, like something you might get if you were a captive in an alien zoo and they fed you what they thought people ate from watching TV.

I didn’t offer to help because Aunt Celia always says no thank you. Which would be fine except she only says it to me. She tries to be nice about it with different reasons, sometimes hinting that she’s cutting me a break since I’m “having such a hard time.” It’s really because the best way to help is chopping and she can’t stand seeing a blind girl holding a knife. Whatever. Everything we’re eating tonight is stuff I can prepare in my sleep. I’m glad to have less work if that’s what makes her happy.

“Parker, did you and Sheila see each other much at school today?” Uncle Sam asks.

“Dad!” Petey says, mortified. “Not cool.”

“What?”

I know what my junior protector means. “It’s okay, Little P. The word see can mean a lot of things, like bumping into someone, or dating them, or understanding them. So no, I didn’t see Sheila today. Maybe she did see me, though, if you see what I mean.”

Petey laughs. No one else does.

“We don’t have any of the same classes,” Sheila says in her why-do-we-have-to-talk-about-this voice. “And our lockers are nowhere near each other.”

Uncle Sam doesn’t point out the small size of the school or the possibility of sitting together at lunch or ask how she knows where my locker is if she didn’t see me. I’m glad. He usually knows when to stop.

“How’s Molly working out?” he asks.

“It always takes a while to break in a new buddy, but she seems promising. She has a lot of Rules to learn.”

Sheila snorts. Well, a burst of expelled air, definitely the eye-rolling kind. I let it go.

“Little P has a good story to tell,” I say.

“Yeah—” he begins, but Aunt Celia interrupts.

“Please don’t call him that, Parker. I’ve asked you before.”

“He likes it, don’t you, Little P?”

“It was my idea! Right, Big P?”

“He won’t like it later, and by then it’ll be stuck.”

“The day he asks me to stop calling him Little P, I will, that’s a promise. I only call him that at home so if anyone else hears it, it won’t be from me.”

“It’s just … it just doesn’t sound … It’s not appropriate.”

“Your concerns have been heard,” I say lightly. “Go on, Little P, tell your story.”

I expect a pause for everyone to have an eyebrow conversation about my defiance but Petey can’t hold back and jumps right in describing how a fishbowl in his class got knocked over. The fact he’s excited doesn’t necessarily mean the fish survived—it could have gone the other way and he’d have told the story in pretty much the same tone.

While Petey describes the drama of saving the tetras in chaotic detail, I map out my pork chop with short stabs of my fork and dull knife and then saw the meat away from the bone. I’d caused a minor uproar when they first moved in because after I cut my food I don’t switch my fork to my right hand for each bite. This is a concept that (1) had never occurred to me, (2) is common etiquette supposedly, at least among people who still obsess about things like this, and (3) is something I find utterly bizarre. Even stranger was how Aunt Celia not only disapproved of this, and my dad for letting me do it, but also had some half-baked notion of stopping it. Uncle Sam saved us from the most ridiculous argument imaginable by saying the way I eat is how they eat “across the pond.” While this didn’t make it optimal to Aunt Celia, it somehow made it legitimate enough for her to let it go and save face. It was my first glimpse of what it would be like living with Aunt Celia under my roof.

*

I’m on my bed with my laptop, reading with the help of Stephen Hawking’s voice. I rarely read actual braille books and only occasionally use a braille terminal. A lot of the time I listen to audiobooks or browse the web with text-to-speech software, and what better way to learn stuff than hearing it from the smartest guy in the world?

I’m on my nightly Wikipedia crawl, enjoying the irony of reading about cuckoo birds. They lay their eggs in other birds’ nests and then those birds raise the cuckoo chicks as their own, like nothing odd is happening. In my house it’s the other way around.

My phone rings with Sarah’s ringtone: quack quack quack …

I disconnect my earbuds from the computer and plug them into my phone. “Hey.”

“Hey,” she says. “Any fires tonight?”

“Nope. Just a few sparks when Aunt Celia told me again to stop calling Petey Little P.”

“It’s a terrible nickname.”

“Not appropriate, she said.”

“You know that’s Celia-speak for she thinks it’s perverted, and it is. He’ll hate it later when he figures it out.”

“Jesus, Sarah, he’s eight. And if you think Little P means his dick, then Big P—wait, never mind. Should have thought that through.”

She chuckles and it warms me. Sarah hardly ever laughs.

“Sheila still not talking to you?”

“No change there. None expected.”

“My theory’s holding; I figured she’d steer clear.”

“I’m not the best one to show her around anyway. I can’t point out much and I doubt she’s interested in how many paces it is from the cafeteria to the nearest bathroom.”

“True. How’s Molly?”

“Not sure yet. I’m hopeful. Probably won’t be a disaster. Ask again later.”

“Sure thing, Magic 8 Ball.”

“Okay, tell me what you know.”

It begins, our nightly recitation of what was observed and inferred throughout the day. My list is always much shorter than Sarah’s of course, since she’s the eyes of this operation and I’m the mouth, but no one can deny that when I shoot it off, it’s very well informed.

We used to be systematic, working through the day class by class, hallway by hallway; now we jump around without missing anything. She describes what people and things look like and I list times and places and describe voices and sometimes sounds and odors so she can zero in on who I’m talking about to get a visual and other info later. I tell her about D.B. from Trig because I suspect he’ll be a pain and I might need more tools to deal with him. I mention the calm voice that shut down D.B.’s heavy jock voice and how it sounded familiar yet still not anyone I knew, like how listening to someone with an accent sounds like the other person you know with that accent even though they have different voices.

During a pause where I expect Sarah to jump in, she doesn’t. I let the silence go to see how long it lasts. After a few more seconds I know something’s up.

“What?”

“I’m waiting for you to tell me about it.”

“About what?”

“You really don’t know?”

“Know what?”

“That voice? You don’t know who it was?”

“Do you? You weren’t even there.”

“Kay was. She said she was ready to hold up her math book like a shield but you were smooth as glass.”

“Kay said that? Smooth as glass?”

“Of course not—it was Kay. She had verbal diarrhea for five minutes. Do you want to hear all that instead of my perfect three-word summary?”

“Jesus, Sarah—”

“It was Scott.”

“Scott? Scott? It didn’t sound …”

The floor vanishes. My stomach twists and I’m falling and I slap both hands on the bed and push my spine into the headboard.

“His voice changed,” she says. “Last time you heard him was in the eighth grade. He was only thirteen.”

We’d talked about how we’d know some of the immigrants from Jefferson—quirks of geography had us going to the same elementary and middle schools but different high schools. Some of them had been on my shit list before but my list is so long I wasn’t worried about a few old names reactivating. Somehow all this didn’t include realizing Scott Kilpatrick would be one of them.

“Parker?”

I grab my phone. “Gotta go.”

“Wait! Don’t hang—”

I hang up and yank the cord to pull the buds out of my ears, too fast and at a bad angle and it hurts.

Scott Kilpatrick. Biggest asshole on the planet. Absolute top of my shit list. Exclamation points. ALL CAPS.

Quack quack quack—

I switch off the ringer. My throat is closing, aching like I have a cold, and my face is getting hot.

Scott Kilpatrick. Breaker of Rule Number One. Forever subject to Rule Number Infinity.

Bzzz bzzz bzzz …

I bury the phone under my pillow.

Scott Kilpatrick. Parker Enemy Number One.

he Rules:

Rule # 1: Don’t deceive me. Ever. Especially using my blindness. Especially in public.

Rule # 2: Don’t touch me without asking or warning me. I can’t see it coming, I will always be surprised, and I will probably hurt you.

Rule # 3: Don’t touch my cane or any of my stuff. I need everything to be exactly where I left it. Obviously.

Rule # 4: Don’t help me unless I ask. Otherwise you’re just getting in my way or bothering me.

Rule # 5: Don’t talk extra loud to me. I’m not deaf. You’d be surprised how often this happens. If you’re not surprised, you ought to be.

Rule # 6: Don’t talk to people I’m with like they’re my handlers. And yes, this also happens all the time.

Rule # 7: Don’t speak for me, either. Not to anyone, not even your own friends or your kids. Remember, you’re not my handler.

Rule # 8: Don’t treat me like I’m stupid or a child. Blind doesn’t mean brain damaged, so don’t speak slowly or use small words. Do I really have to explain this?

Rule # 9: Don’t enter or leave my area without saying so. Otherwise I won’t even know if you’re there. It’s just common courtesy.

Rule # 10: Don’t make sounds to help or guide me. It’s just silly and rude, and believe me, you’ll be the one who looks stupid and ends up embarrassed, not me.

Rule # 11: Don’t be weird. Seriously, other than having my eyes closed all the time, I’m just like you only smarter.

Rule # INFINITY: There are NO second chances. Violate my trust and I’ll never trust you again. Betrayal is unforgivable.

espite lying awake for most of the night after Sarah dropped the Scott bomb on me, I jumped out of bed when my alarm buzzed, not sleepy. Now, finally, halfway through my seventeenth sprint, I flop onto the dewy grass of Gunther Field, exhausted. I should cool down with a jog, or at least a brisk walk home, but I can’t force myself up. The knife in my ribs telling me I pushed too hard is nothing compared to the ache ping-ponging between my chest and my stomach, the ache that was there before I started running, the ache I was trying to drive away.

A charley horse stirs in my left calf—clearly my body will not be ignored. I sit up and pull on my toes with one hand and massage the unhappy muscle with the other. Not enough oxygen, not enough water, not enough time, not enough space.

I manage to avoid a major spasm and stand up. I don’t know how far I am from the fence; I don’t normally stop mid-sprint. After a few dozen steps I slow down and hold out a hand until I touch it.

Damn it, I don’t know which side of the gap I’m on. I choose left and walk, dragging my fingers along the chain link, bump bump bump bump bump. After a dozen steps I think I probably went the wrong way. I don’t like this—I don’t usually get disoriented here. I turn and walk back. Fifteen steps later I find the gap. I had just missed it.

I wipe my face with the bottom of my shirt—both are damp but the shirt less so and it helps. The air is cool but I’m burning up. I try deep breaths to calm my heart, my lungs, my stomach. It starts to work. I feel control returning.

He knew who I was but didn’t say anything to me directly. Did he realize I didn’t recognize his voice? Or did he just know I wouldn’t talk to him, smooth as glass?

I should like that, being smooth as glass, shouldn’t I? Unaffected, unconcerned. That’s exactly what I want to be. Why should I suddenly hate it that some people might think that about me? Why should I care what anyone thinks anyway?

I don’t. I was just caught off-guard, that’s all. And only Sarah knows it. Not that I’d care if anyone else did, because I wouldn’t. I don’t.

*

I sit down in the cafeteria with Molly, who also brings her lunch, and start eating. Thinly sliced turkey, Swiss, light mayo and mustard, like always. Sarah will show up in a few minutes after filing through the hot-lunch line with Rick Gartner, her Sort Of Boyfriend. I told Molly last period she was welcome to join us—I don’t know what she did yesterday since I spent that lunch period working out logistics with audio textbooks at the office. I warned her that a lot of people call us the Table of Misfit Toys but not in the ironic complimentary way. She said she wasn’t worried about labels. I said that was both wise and foolish. She agreed.

“What do you mean, Rick is sort of Sarah’s boyfriend?” Molly asks. “Is he or isn’t he?”

“Do they seem like boyfriend-girlfriend to you?”

“I met them yesterday for all of five minutes.”

“If I hadn’t told you, would you have worked it out?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

“There you go. You can call him Sarah’s Maybe Boyfriend. I know they’re sometimes more than friends so I call him her Sort Of Boyfriend.”

“They break up and get back together a lot?”

“Not exactly. So much for not worrying about labels.”

“It’s not the same thing. I’m not worried, just catching up. Here they come.”

“Parker. Molly.” Rick clatters his tray and silverware onto the table. Sarah does the same only quietly.

“Hey, Rick,” I say. “Have a good summer?”

“Not really. Hung out with losers mostly.”

“Me too.”

Molly must look bewildered because Sarah says, “We all spent the summer together.”

“Is that all you’re eating?” Rick asks.

“It is,” Molly says. “It’s not much or I’d offer you some. Do you like coleslaw?”

“He likes being an asshole,” Sarah says and almost sounds like she means it. “Eat your lasagna.”

“I was going to offer her some,” Rick says. “Not that I’d be doing you any favors, unless you like cardboard soaked in tomato sauce.”

“Thanks anyway,” Molly says.

“I haven’t seen Sheila yet,” Rick says, taking one of his classic conversational left turns.

“I haven’t seen her either,” I say.

“Hilarious. How about some new jokes this year?”

I smile. “It wasn’t a joke. You need some examples? This is a joke.” I grab a button on my vest, I think the one that says: Have I seen you here before? NO!

“You’ve truly opened my eyes, Parker.” Rick chuckles. “Now that I know what jokes are, will sitcoms make me laugh, ’cause, man, they just put me to sleep.”

“No promises. And no, I haven’t bumped into Sheila here. Only at my house. Don’t know why you care, though … she’s got a boyfriend … you’ve sort of got a girlfriend …”

“It’s just weird. I know you guys are, well … whatever. It’s just that you’re the only one she knows here.”

“It’s complicated,” Sarah says.

“You mean it’s a girl thing?”

“Rick,” I say with my tolerant voice. “We let you sit here because you’re sort of Sarah’s boyfriend, not because you’re one of the girls. If you don’t understand, just accept the confusion. Or embrace it.”

“Confusion requires giving a shit. Making nice with your stuck-up bitch cousin isn’t high on my list—it isn’t even on my list at all. I get it that she’s in a new school and that sucks for her but it sure as hell wasn’t your fault. She needs a sense of proportion or at least some fucking compassion.”

I smile. “I don’t care what you say, Sarah; this guy’s A-Okay.” I hold out a fist and feel a knuckle-bump. “Maybe he can be my Sort Of Boyfriend, too. Or all of ours.”

“I’m still window shopping,” Molly says. “No offense.”

“None taken,” Rick says. “I knew it already when you turned down my ketchup-covered cardboard. Which I need to wash down. Anybody want a drink?”

“My usual—a can of C-6?” I say.

No one else speaks and he leaves. I say, “I’m pretty sure I haven’t been complaining about Sheila. Not around Rick anyway.”

No replies.

“Sarah?”

“I didn’t tell him much. Just what you’d expect about moving to a new town in the middle of high school.”

I shrug. “There’s nothing else to tell. We also don’t get along generally but I don’t get along with lots of people.”

“Because they don’t follow The Rules?” Molly asks.

“Because they’re mindless overly complicated drones who don’t say what they mean and get bent out of shape when I do. And they don’t follow The Rules. Which shouldn’t even be called Parker’s Rules anyway. It’s just a lot of common sense that common people commonly lack.”

Rick sits back down. “Here.” He brushes my fingers with a cold can.

“Thanks.” I pull the tab with my palm over the top to block the light burst of foam and then take a sip. Mmmm … pure C-6 goodness. Cold Carbonated Caffeinated Caramel Colored Cane sugar. Completely delicious.

“I just saw Sheila,” Rick says. “Near the cashier talking to the Dynamic Trio—well, Faith and Lila anyway, I didn’t see Kennedy. She didn’t go sit with them.”

“It might take longer,” Sarah says, “with all the clique-clash-chaos.”

When someone new comes to school, they get tested, cataloged, processed, and absorbed pretty quickly, often into the same group they just left. With whole schools combining, however, it’s way more complicated. Every king-of-the-hill from Jefferson brought a whole entourage and we have no idea what will happen with the school clique-scape. Sarah and I think Sheila will become part of the Cream, topped by the Dynamic Trio—Faith, Lila, and Kennedy—but we don’t know whether it’ll be the Jefferson Cream or the Adams Cream, if they remain separate, which seems unlikely, or if they combine, which seems even more unlikely.

“We’ll see,” I say. “At least we’ve resolved Rick’s confusion.”

“Nope, still confused. Trying to embrace it.”

“Any one of the Dynamic Trio has more in common with Sheila in a random lunch-line encounter than I do after a whole summer with her. I couldn’t discuss designer jeans if you put a gun to my head. I don’t think it matters, though.”

“Still confused.”

“I don’t think Sheila will become a long-term member of the Dynamic Trio because under all that lip gloss and style and bitchy backstabbing, Faith’s a dark horse. She has hidden depth.”

“Still confused.”

“Well, go back to embracing it then. But if Sheila joins up and they become the Dynamic Quado or whatever, eventually she’ll say the wrong thing about me and when she does, Faith will burn her to the ground and salt the earth where she stood.”

*

Quack quack quack. I answer my phone.

“Hey.”

“Hey. It’s been exactly twenty-four hours. You ready to talk now?”

“Wow. How about a kiss first? And how was your afternoon, Sarah?”

“It kind of crawled by if you really want to know. So how about it?”

“You didn’t give me twenty-four hours. We just didn’t have any time alone.”

“Doesn’t matter. It’s been twenty-four hours. We’re alone now. What happened?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing. Nothing at all.”

“That’s right, nothing happened. I didn’t talk to him and he didn’t talk to me. I’m not sure he was even there. I never heard his voice today.”

“That’s …”

“Impressive, I know.”

“I was going to say a familiar song.”

“I have an advantage over you full-featured models: if you don’t make accidental eye contact, it’s not awkward.”

“What the hell do you know about accidental eye contact?”

“What you’ve told me many times. And don’t forget I had seven years of twenty-twenty before the accident. I had plenty of awkward eye contact in the second grade. Remember Patel?”

“We’re not going to talk about him. We’re talking about—”

“Nothing happened. Nothing’s going to happen.”

“He’ll be in your Trig class every morning from now till June. You’re just going to pretend he isn’t?”

“That isn’t as hard as it sounds—”

“It’s not hard, it’s crazy. He’s going to come talk to you eventually. Then what? Give him an Amish shunning?”

“It worked at Marsh.”

“For a couple of months till we graduated. You think it’ll work for the next nine months?”

“I …”

“Two years?”

And just like that, I’m not having fun anymore. I wasn’t actually having fun before, but I wasn’t having a serious conversation either.

“There are no guarantees in life,” Sarah says. “But I guarantee he’s going to talk to you. He’s going to apologize—”

“He already tried—”

“He’ll try again. He’ll say he’s sorry—”

“I don’t want him to—”

“That won’t stop him. He’ll find you alone and talk to you and if you think it won’t happen you’ll get caught by surprise and not know what to do—”

“I’ll know what to do.”

“What? Ignore him for days and weeks and months? That’s fine for thirteen-year-olds but we’re not kids anymore. He’s going to say he was just a kid himself and it was just a stupid thing and he’s sorry and he wants you to forgive him—”

“I can’t.”

“I know you can’t—”

“But you think I should.”

“I didn’t say that—”

“Jesus, Sarah, you’re on his side! You think I’m making a big deal over—”

“No, Parker, listen to me. I’m on your side—”

“Then why are you badgering me?” My voice quavers. This disgusts me and I harden it. “You weren’t there. It was unforgivable.”

“I know it was. Un-for-givable. I just want you to be ready.”

“If he tries any of that I’m-sorry-for-what-my-thirteen-year-old-self-did bullshit, I know exactly what I’ll say. I’ll say fuck you Scott Kilpatrick and your sad little story about being a stupid kid. When people do dumbass things everyone has to live with the consequences so get back to living with yours and I’ll live with mine and don’t ever talk to me again or you’ll just embarrass yourself because I won’t answer. There, how’s that?”

“That’ll do, P. That’ll do.”

swear to God, Rick, you better not be blowing on your food.”

Every Friday is Bar-B-Que Day and I hate it. Rick knows the smell of Boston baked beans and scorched corn turns my stomach and he likes to blow the smell toward me.

“It’s hot,” he says with his smiling voice.

“For two years now,” Sarah says, “the food here’s never been hot.”

“Even the hot salsa yesterday wasn’t hot,” Molly says. “The mild salsa was probably just chunky ketchup.”

“Yuck,” I say. “That’ll teach you not to forget your lunch.”

“Excuse me,” says a voice I don’t know. Sounds like a male teacher standing over us.

No one says anything. I can’t even tell if he’s talking to us. I sip my C-6.

“I’m Coach Underhill. Can I talk to you a moment, Parker?”

I choke a bit and cough into the crook of my arm. “Me? I already fulfilled my P.E. requirements. Ask Coach Rivers—she’ll tell you.”

“It’s not that. I saw you running this morning.”

The hair on the back of my neck stands up.

“Running?” Molly says.

“Early this morning. I—”

“Way-way-wait a minute! Can we talk outside?” I stumble to stand up, grabbing my cane.

“Sure, of course. Sorry to interrupt.”

I lead him out into the hallway, moving slowly through the crowd. “Can you find a place where no one can hear us?”

A door squeaks open to my right. “This room’s empty.”

Once we’re inside, the door clicks shut.

“We’re alone? You’re sure?”

“Yes. Are you afraid of something? Or someone?”

Fear, no. Dread, yes. The thought of this P.E. teacher standing at the fence watching me run this morning is bad enough, and if word got out …

“Who told you?”

“No one. I live nearby, on Manzanita. Have you been running there for long?”

“Years. Please don’t … wait, have you told anyone?”

“No, but—”

“Please don’t!” Dread leapfrogs right over fear and lands square on near panic. Running in Gunther Field is a major ingredient in my sanity soup. If people find out and come to gawk, or worse, come in so I can’t even be sure the field’s empty … I’d have no way of knowing they were there. Like this morning. I’d have to stop.

“Is someone bothering you?”

“It’s just … private. And I’m not blind to the fact that it’s a freak show. I don’t want an audience. Please don’t tell anyone.”

“Okay, I won’t.”

“Why didn’t you say anything this morning?”

“You’d have had no reason to believe I’m a teacher instead of some random stranger talking to you with no one else around. I didn’t want you to feel unsafe.”

“I can handle strangers—I do it all the time. But I can’t see you so if you don’t say anything, I don’t know you’re there and it’s like spying on me.”

AKA Rule Number Nine.

“Isn’t that true of anyone walking by?”

“It’s different with people I know, or who know me.”

“I see,” he says, but I don’t think he does.

“It’s okay, you didn’t know. Just don’t tell anyone. Not even all my friends know.”

“It’s not a freak show. The only way anyone could tell you can’t see is that big blindfold flying out behind you like a banner. It’s quite a sight.”

“Exactly.”

“You’re a very confident runner. Have you ever had a guide dog?”

“Nope. Never needed one, not for what I do mostly. Maybe later when I graduate high school and need to get around in more strange and busy places on my own.”

“Do you mind if I ask who taught you how to run?”

I’m feeling better knowing the cat’s still in the bag, but this irks me.

“Why would someone need to teach me how to run?”

“Well, there’s running and there’s running. You look like you’ve had training.”

“Oh. My dad used to run. He taught me some things. How to breathe and stuff.”

“Have you ever thought about trying out for track?”

I laugh. “No. You understand why I run at six in the morning in Gunther Field, right? It’s big, it’s empty, it’s square. No lanes to stay in? No people around?”

“Plenty of runners have some degree of visual impairment. If you don’t mind me asking, how much can you see?”

“Um … I can’t see anything.”

“I understand, but I mean, you still see some light, right, but just can’t focus?”

I don’t like talking about this but decide to cut him some slack.

“Nope. All black. A car wreck tore my optic nerves. My eyes are fine, only … lights out.”

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have assumed—”

“It’s all right. Most blind people can see a little. You were just betting the odds.”

“No, I mean, I thought you had light sensitivity issues because … why else would you wear blindfolds?”

I laugh. “These are just clothes. Like wearing a hat. A fashion statement no one can copy because if they did, they wouldn’t be able to see.”

He doesn’t laugh, which is sad, but then I hear a smile in his voice when he says, “I was just curious. Actually, in Paralympics all visually impaired runners wear blacked-out goggles so those who can see a little don’t have an advantage.”

“That’s … terrible.” I laugh.

“Anyway, they all have guide runners. If you wanted to run track, we could work something out.”

“No thanks,” I say, and to give it some finality I reach for the door but I find only air. I step toward it slowly, waving my arm.

“There’s nothing to be afraid of.”

I snort and my hand finds the doorknob. “Did I look afraid?”

“Not when you were running. You did a minute ago, when you thought people might watch you do it.”

Ah, well, that’s something else entirely.

*

Molly sits with me on the stairs, waiting for Aunt Celia. It’s routine now for her to walk with me to the parking lot to hang out till my ride comes.

We’re not talking. I think about this, like always. We’ve either run out of things to say after only a week, or she’s in a mood I haven’t been able to detect, or she’s working out how to ask an awkward question, or she’s—

“Do you know Scott Kilpatrick?”

Damn.

“I used to,” I say lightly. “At Marsh Middle School. Why?”

“You know he sits in front of me in Trig?”

“Yeah, I heard his voice. Do you like him or something?”

“I don’t know him well enough.”

“Plenty of people don’t let that get in the way of a good crush,” I say.

“He looks at you sometimes.”

I stiffen. I don’t want to have this conversation, yet I also don’t want to draw attention to this.

“I’m sure people look at me all the time. The Resident Hallway Obstacle. The Bull in the China Shop.”

“And your blindfolds do draw the eye.”

I’m wearing tie-dye today. I sense an opportunity. I grab the tail and hold it up.

“You like this one? I made it myself. What’s it look like?”

“You don’t know? I mean, no one’s ever told you?”

“Tie-dye is hard to describe. It’s like a Rorschach test. What’s it look like to you?”

“Mostly blues and greens and some aqua. Blotches of red, streaks of maroon, some purple. Parallel stripes, vertical but probably just how you folded it. Looks almost like you rolled up a hippie version of an American flag. What does that say about me?”

“Practical, objective, nothing fancy. Faith says things like burgundy and fuchsia instead of maroon. Some people say it’s swirly or project a lot of dreamy feelings into it.”

“How do you know that’s what you’re wearing?”

“It’s tagged, see?” I show her the tag at the end. “I make these plastic braille doodads and sew them in. Most everything I wear is tagged.”

“That’s cool. But that’s not why Scott looks at you.”

Damn.

My throat tightens. I’m getting warm again. I think Molly and I are becoming friends, maybe good friends, so she’ll find out eventually. If that’s true, I don’t want to spend ten times more effort now avoiding what’s inevitable.

“We were best friends since fourth grade. Then toward the end of the eighth grade we … started kissing. That’s all. It didn’t last long. We broke up and then went to different high schools.”

“Must’ve been some really bad kissing.”

I snort. “It sure wasn’t. But it … I mean he …”

I take a deep breath.

“We’d only been together a couple weeks. Then at lunch one day we went into an empty classroom we would go to, you know … then I heard snickering.”

My breathing speeds up. I can’t explain this without feeling it all over again, like it’s happening right now. The suffocating panic of trusting someone so completely, drinking them in, and having it suddenly turn to burning hot poison. I deepen my breaths to slow them down.

“There was someone else in the room,” Molly says.

“Seven someones. At first it scared the shit out of me and I jumped and Scott and I bumped teeth and everyone in the room started laughing. Then they were all talking at once. I don’t remember what they said, mostly congratulating Scott and jeering about how I’d been scammed. I pushed Scott hard and he knocked over a bunch of stuff, and I was halfway down the hall before he caught up with me, saying he was sorry, that he told them because they didn’t believe we were a couple, and other bullshit I don’t remember anymore. I ducked into a bathroom and waited there till class started. Then I went to the office and called home and my dad came and picked me up.”

Silence.

“Scott kept calling me … I didn’t answer and deleted all his messages without even listening. He kept trying to say he was sorry in school but I wouldn’t talk to him and my friends helped keep him away, especially Sarah and Faith. Then he came to the door and Dad sent him away—chewed him out, too—I didn’t hear what they said. After that he stopped calling or trying to talk to me. When we were in the same room at school I just pretended he wasn’t there. Then we graduated and went to different high schools and that’s really all there is to it. Ancient history.”

There. All the gory details, nothing hidden, casually delivered. Done. We can move on.

“I don’t know what to say,” Molly says softly. “That’s awful.”

The unexpected tenderness makes my heart pound.

“No big deal—just kid stuff,” I say and immediately wish I hadn’t. I don’t want this to turn into a big thing so I’m trying to toss it off lightly but not dishonestly. Saying it’s no big deal isn’t honest. It was a big deal. Still is.

“Are you kidding? It’s a nightmare. It’s horrible. You say Scott was your best friend before that?”

“For years. Actually four years: one, two, three, four.”

I’m getting dizzy. If she shrugged off this story like a trivial childhood drama I’d be fine, but hearing her voice, agreeing that it means a lot more than it sounds …

“Kissing you with seven guys secretly standing around watching? I’d have killed him. I want to kill him now.”

My chest tightens some more. I can’t talk about this much longer. I didn’t want to kill him when it happened; I wanted to kill myself. I saw a side of the world I knew existed but thought I could protect myself from, and in that moment I saw that I never could. There’s no absolute safety to be found anywhere. Not the kind I want anyway.

“So, yeah.” I sigh. “I knew Scott Kilpatrick. Or I thought I did. Then I found out I really didn’t.”

Because no one can know anybody, really. Not completely.

Molly shifts and jostles me a little. I feel her hand on my shoulder. I get it that she nudged me first so her hand wouldn’t be a surprise, to touch me without startling me and also without having to awkwardly ask permission. I’m so grateful for her understanding Rule Number Two this well after only a week, I wonder if I can keep it together.

I don’t have to wonder for long. Aunt Celia arrives and saves me. The irony almost makes me laugh. Almost.

*

Hey, Dad.

Pretty typical week. Good things happened, bad things happened, like always. I’m sorry we don’t talk after school anymore; it’s too hard to get time to just sit alone. Petey thinks I’m bored or at least not busy. From now on I think I can only talk to you right before bed.

I’m also sorry I’m talking to you like you’re actually listening. I know the universe doesn’t really work that way. If it did, if you were really watching, you wouldn’t need me to explain all these things. Still, this is how my brain wants to do it.

Now I wish I knew what you said to Scott that day you sent him away. Whatever it was, it worked. I don’t think I ever told you how grateful I was for that. If he’d kept after me like we were in some pathetic romantic comedy, I think I might have unraveled.

Except I did unravel. I know that. Mostly on the inside. Maybe you did, too. I could hear it in your voice, how after that you knew you couldn’t always protect me. I tried to get you to believe that it wasn’t your job. I don’t think I tried hard enough.

I cross my room and take the plastic pill bottle out of my scarf drawer, like every night. It’s the bottle of Xanax that was sitting empty on Dad’s nightstand the morning I found him. The bottle I didn’t know existed until that moment but had been hiding in plain sight for a while. The bottle the insurance company used to deny paying out his life insurance that would have kept the house in my name instead of Aunt Celia’s. The bottle I wanted back so much I punched the police detective over and over again until he promised to give it back once the case closed, which happened only a week later. The bottle Aunt Celia claimed proved what she’d always believed, that Dad was the weak one even though it was her own sister who drank too much wine that night and drove the two of us into that bridge support, killing her and making sure her screaming face would be the last thing I ever saw. And most important, it’s the bottle that taught me everyone has secrets. Everyone. No matter how much you love them and think you know them and think they love you back.

I open the bottle, take out a gold star, lick it, and press it firmly on the poster board hanging on the back of my door. A clean white rectangle filling up with stars that, when anyone asks me about it, I just say is tactile art, my Star Chart. Every night I get to add a gold star if I earn it. Tonight’s makes eighty-one gold stars. Eighty-one consecutive days without crying.

I know it was an accident. Oxycodone for your back, then some more when it didn’t work, along with some ibuprofen for swelling, plus some Xanax, and then a couple beers that made you forget you already took them and you took more, and extra Xanax because you were having a bad week, all adding up to stop your breathing sometime between one and three in the morning. I know you wouldn’t have left me here alone on purpose, no matter what the cops or the insurance people or my closest relatives say. I know it.

But I also know you kept your feelings inside, and they were bad enough to need all those pills. I don’t think it would have changed what happened, because I’m sure it was an accident, but maybe if I’d known I could’ve helped. Maybe you wouldn’t have needed the pills in the first place. Maybe.

I take off my scarf and tuck it and the pill bottle in the drawer and slide it closed. I brush the light switch to make sure it’s down—sometimes people don’t turn it off when they leave because it’s too weird for them to turn off the light when someone’s in the room—but it’s down so I know the room looks the same to everyone else now as it does to me. Or maybe not. I dimly remember how the moon and stars and streetlights keep everything from being as completely dark as it looks to me now.

I crawl into bed.

Good night, Dad.

etey has an endless fascination with anime, which isn’t great for me. I’m told the appeal is mostly visual and all I get is hearing bad actors reading badly translated dialog of badly written Japanese scripts. But it’s Sunday morning so I’m wearing my hachimaki while he wears his karate gi and the new purple belt he earned yesterday.

Someone walks into the living room and flops down hard on the leather easy chair. It’s Sheila; she’s the only one who would throw herself down nearby without saying anything. Now she’s texting. I sit with my head back on the sofa, not really listening to the show. I’m not even sure what it is anymore but it doesn’t matter because I can tell by the sudden crazy electric guitar and synth explosion that it’s the closing credits.

Aunt Celia calls from the entryway, “You girls ready?”

“Going somewhere?” Petey asks, sounding hopeful.

Even Sheila can tell he’s angling to come along and she says in her bored voice, “The mall. Shopping. Clothes. You’d hate it. Then we’d all hate it.”

“You’re coming anyway,” Aunt Celia says. “Dad took his car in for an oil change.”

Petey groans.

“It’ll be fun,” I say. “I need new running shoes. You can help me get them.”

“But I don’t want to stand around for hours while Sheila tries on a million pants.”

“Nobody does, sweetie,” Aunt Celia says, walking into the room. “That’s why we’re dropping her off. We’ll come home after we buy Parker shoes.”

“Shotgun!” Petey shouts as we leave the house.

“Uh-uh, in the back,” Aunt Celia says. Dictators don’t follow rules they don’t like. “I’m up front with Sheila.”

“But if—” Petey says.

“It’s a provisional license,” Sheila says. “I can’t drive with anyone in the car unless Mom’s there sitting next to me. Get used to it.”

In the back with Petey, I hold out my hand and whisper, “One, two, three, four …”

He grabs my hand in the proper grip and whispers back, “I declare a thumb war.”

*

In the Ridgeway Mall parking lot, we meander around. I can’t tell if it’s crowded or she’s just trying to save walking five extra feet.

Aunt Celia says, “I thought you were meeting your friend at the food court? That’s way at the other end.”

“Yep,” she says. I have no idea who this new friend is.

Sheila parks and almost before the engine is completely off, she’s gone.

“Can I go to the video game store?” Petey asks.

“We’re not buying any video games today.”

“Just to look?”

Petey likes helping me but shopping is apparently a step too far, even for him.

“We need to help Parker get shoes, then we’re going straight home.”

“I don’t need help, actually,” I say. Not to stir up trouble; it’s just true. “We’re coming up on the door where the pet shop is, right? Once we’re inside, I’ll meet you back here in half an hour.”

“Great!” Petey says.

“No, no. Of course we’ll help you, Parker.”

“Thanks, but there’s really nothing for you guys to do. I know where I’m going and what I’m buying, and I have my credit card. I’ll text you if anything changes. If I get back to the pet shop before you guys, I’ll play with the puppies till you show up.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

That’s where it tips. I confess that suggesting the pet shop was a dig—the only thing more exhausting than Petey trying to get a video game is Petey trying to get a puppy—but the rest was an honest attempt to give her a chance. She blew it.

“I can’t buy shoes on my own for half an hour but Sheila can wander around all day?”

“It’s not the same, Parker,” she says in her world-weary voice.

“It’s exactly the same.”

“I’m sorry, but it isn’t. You don’t want to talk about it—”

“No, I absolutely want to talk about it. Why, exactly, do you need to be with me?”

“Well, it’s just easier when we—”

“I don’t need easier.”

“How are you going to pick what you want?”

“I already know what I want. I tell them, they get it, I give them my credit card, it’s done.”

“What if they overcharge you? Shouldn’t you pay in cash?”

“No. They scan the box and it goes straight to the credit card. If you pay cash, the register can say sixty bucks but the guy tells you a hundred; then he puts the extra forty in his pocket and you’re screwed with no proof of anything. With the credit card I check online when I get home and see if it cost what the guy said, then I only pay if it’s right.”

Silence.

Aunt Celia’s only been living with me three months and there are lots of things we haven’t run into yet. I didn’t figure today was the day to have a showdown over shopping alone, but I also didn’t figure on Petey pushing for the video game store, which he has every right to do.

“I only want to help,” she says.

She sounds like she means it. Like I’m hurting her feelings. But if someone’s feelings get hurt when they insist on giving me something I don’t want, I don’t see how that’s my fault. It doesn’t get us anywhere, though.

“Tell you what. Follow me if you want and you’ll see I’m fine. It won’t be any fun for Petey but it wasn’t going to be anyway.”

“You want us to follow you?” she asks. “Like ten steps back?”

“No, but I can’t stop you either. Do what you want. Just don’t interfere unless I’m doing something life-threatening. Either way, I’ll meet you back here in a half hour or I’ll text you.”

Sigh. “Fine.”

I cane my way over to the wall. In all the arguing I almost lost track of where it should be, but the sound of puppies to my left orients me. I know there are no benches or other protrusions along this wing of the mall so I cane along it easily, tapping hard enough for people who aren’t looking to hear me coming.

There are seven stores ahead. My cane hits the side wall, and then not when I pass a store entrance, and then wall again. After seven gaps, I know I’m in the center hub.

This is the first time I expect Aunt Celia might intervene because I’m heading straight for the fountain. On purpose, but she doesn’t know that. It’s only shin high and she probably thinks I’ll plow into it. My cane strikes the rim and I stop. No one says anything.

Except a little boy nearby whispers loudly, “Mom! Mom! Look!”

Who knows what that’s about. Maybe me or maybe a turd floating in the fountain. Now comes the tricky part: orienting to the shoe store from here.

“She’s pretending she’s blind!” the boy says in a whisper loud enough to echo.

It’s always a question whether or not to ignore these things. I can tell he isn’t far away, so I lean toward him a bit.

“I’m not pretending,” I say in a loud whisper. “I’m really blind. And not deaf.”

He gasps and I hear scrambling. Maybe he’s hiding behind his mom.

“Then why’re you wearing a blindfold?” he asks.

“Come on, Donnie,” says a young woman. “Don’t bother her.”

“I wear it because it’s pretty. And because Japanese pilots in World War Two wore them when they crashed into things on purpose. Sometimes I crash into things too, though not on purpose.”

I realize this might be offensive, even if they aren’t Japanese. Too late now.

“Kamikaze!” he shouts, followed by plane noises, bullet noises, and an explosion noise, all of which probably adds several ounces of spit to the air.

With that taken care of, it’s time for the tricky part. The wing of the mall with the shoe place, Running Rampant, is opposite the fountain, which is round. It works best if I tap my way around by sidestepping, always trying to face the same way without pivoting, or else it’s hard to keep track of my direction. As I do it, the airplane noises diminish. When I think I’m there, it’s time to see if I got it right.

I walk far enough forward to know I’m generally in the main wing, and then I start trending toward the right, where I know the store is. I manage not to bump into anyone, like people who are probably just facing away, gawking at the window displays or whatever, and don’t hear my taps.

When I reach the doorway I pass through and walk straight until I tap a barrier that should be a shoe display. I reach out and touch canvas and shoelaces. Success. Now it’s a waiting game, and usually a short one.

“May I help you?”

It’s a guy’s voice. Maybe my age. I don’t recognize it.

“That depends. Do you work here?”

He chuckles. “Yeah, I’m an employee. Want to touch my name tag?”

“Not until we know each other better. Unless it’s in braille.”

“It’s not. It says Jason. Are you looking for someone?”

“Nope.” I lift my right leg a bit and turn my foot to the side. “Can I get a new pair of these in an eight?”

“Hmmm … I don’t think we carry those anymore.”

“The closest thing is fine. I’m not that picky.”

“In black?”

“Definitely. I am picky about that. No stripes or colors or any wacky stuff. If I run at night I want to get hit by a car because they can’t see me.”

“You might as well run at night since you don’t need any light. I’ll be right back.”

He leaves. No reaction to me running at night, or running at all; he even made a crack about it. I could like this guy. Except I don’t know if he’s seventeen or twenty-seven and that’s a tough thing to ask, even for me.

I say “No thank you, I’m being helped” to three different people before Jason returns.

“There’s an empty bench about three steps to your right,” he says.

While I tap over and sweep my hand, he keeps talking. “I don’t know if you care about brands—”

“I don’t.” I find the bench and sit down.

“Okay. They discontinued the shoes you’re wearing and replaced them with these, which are close but they put in more arch support and some B.S. spring-foam technology in the heel that doesn’t help but doesn’t hurt either. Do you want me to lace them for you?”

He asked me. He’s racking up points now.

“Give me one and you do the other.” I hold out a hand and a shoe lands in it.

“Sure thing.” He sits down next to me. “We can race.”

I have lots of experience lacing shoes but he works here so I’m guessing he’ll win.

“Are you a runner?” I ask. “Or is this just a job?”

“Why not both? But yeah, I run.”

“You ever run track in school?” I ask. Very smooth.

“Still do. Well, if I make the team, which seems likely. Tryouts are next week.”

“Where do you go?”

“I’m a senior at Adams, now. What about you?”

“Ah, you’re one of the immigrants. I’m a native.”

“Really?”

Now I wonder if he’s playing me. Not to be conceited or anything but what are the odds that he’s never seen me and my blindfold tapping around school?

It’s too much to let go. “You haven’t seen me around?”

“No, I guess we don’t have any of the same classes.”

“Or walk the same halls, or eat in the same cafeteria.”

He laughs. “I just walk the track with a granola bar at lunchtime.”

I finish lacing. “Time. You finished already?”

“Uhhh …” he says. “Yeeeeeaaaaaah … finished … Here.”

“I won, didn’t I?”

“You’ll never know.”

Wow, taking advantage of my blindness in a safe, playful way in the first five minutes.

I put on both shoes and stand.

“You have about three or four clear steps in front of you. If you want more, I can clear out an aisle for you.”

“No, this is fine.” I bounce on my toes and run the shoes through some paces. They feel odd but in the usual way new shoes do. Otherwise good.

“How much?”

“Seventy-nine ninety-nine.”

I pull the credit card from my pocket and hold it out. “I’ll take them. I’ll be up to the counter in a minute.”

“No need, we just got these portable scanners.”

While he scans the shoe box (beep) and types (click click) I change back into my old shoes and pack the new ones away.

“You sign on the screen. I’ll put the tip of the pen where it goes.”

I hold out a hand and it finds a pen. I grab on and he’s holding the other end in space until it clicks on a hard surface.

“There.”

I sign my name and he takes back the pen.

“I tucked the receipt in the box.”

“Thanks.”

“If you check it later, which you should, it actually cost only sixty-eight dollars, or seventy-three seventy-eight with tax.”

“They’re on sale?”

“No, I have a Friends and Family discount. I think we’re friends now. It’s just a code we enter—we don’t flag your account or anything—so whenever you come here you have to ask for me, Jason Freeborn.”

“Cool—thanks, Jason.”

“But if my boss asks, I’d better have a name to give him.”

“I’m sorry?”

“What’s your name?”

Oh. What an idiot. “Parker. Parker Grant. Just like on the credit card.”

“I didn’t want to assume. A lot of people use their parents’ cards.”

“I wish.”

“Here are your shoes. Promise me you won’t run at night, even though you can.”

“I promise.”

“Good. Maybe I’ll see you in the halls at Adams. And since we’re friends now, I want to see you run in these sometime.”

Strangely enough, I’m thinking I might let him.

he Doctor is IN.

Except there are no patients in the room, or rather the table where Sarah and I are sitting outside in the Junior Quad. We provide easy access to our patients but not much privacy. Sarah says we can’t be overheard if we talk softly but people still have to struggle with whether they want to be seen with us since most people know why we’re out here every morning. Well, most Adams natives know, not the Jefferson immigrants.

“Lori’s talking to someone I don’t know and looking over here,” Sarah says. “Either gossiping about us or working up the nerve to come over. Oh, here comes Molly.”

“Hey, what’s up? You guys usually sit out here in the morning?”

“Every day,” I say. “Doing the good work.”

“It looks like sitting around to me.”

“Looks are deceiving. We provide a rare and valuable service—”

“Here they come,” Sarah says with an edge to her voice because Molly’s here.

Before I can say anything, Lori says, “Hi, Sarah. Parker.”

A girl I don’t know says, “Hi, Moll.”

“Hey, Reg,” Molly says. “How was your summer?”

“Okay.”

“This is Regina,” Lori says. “She has a problem. I told her she should talk to you.”

“Have a seat,” Sarah says. “Um … Molly?”

“It’s okay,” Regina says. “She can stay. She already knows most of it.”

There’s some scuffling as people sit down.

“Go ahead, Regina,” Lori says. “It’s okay.”

“So … I was going out with Gabe last spring, but we broke up right before school let out.”

Silence.

“Regina …” Lori says.

“He dumped me. Then he went to Spain for the whole summer on an exchange program.”

“Hang on,” I say. “How’d he do it? In person, phone, text?”

“When I was at work he texted me We need to talk and I texted back About what? and he said We should talk in person and I said You’re freaking me out, what’s wrong? and he said I could call him if I couldn’t wait and I said I was at work but I’d call him on my break. Then I called him and he broke up with me.”

“Did he say why?” Sarah asks.

“He said we were growing apart. That we both knew things were cooling off and he didn’t want to drag it out when we only had one more year at school.”

“Was he right?” I ask. “Were things cooling off?”

“I didn’t think so, but …”

Silence. This is what I need from Sarah later, whether this girl is looking at her hands, looking up at the sky trying to find words, glancing at all the faces not wanting to share with a crowd …

“We can’t keep entire conversations confidential because honestly it’s too hard to sort everything out,” Sarah says. “But if there’s anything specific you want us to keep to ourselves, we will. Just tell us.”

“It’s not that. It’s just … well … I guess things weren’t that hot in the first place?”

“You’re not that into him, or he into you?” I say.

“Oh, we’re great together, but … maybe he wants to go faster than I do?”

I say, “He said things were cooling off but he actually meant things weren’t heating up fast enough.”

“Maybe.”

“Did you two talk about it?” Sarah asks.

“No. I didn’t say much. I was at work, and I really didn’t expect it. I dunno. I just felt like I blew it somehow. I didn’t want to make it worse by trying to figure out what went wrong and promising to fix it or begging or whatever. I just wanted to hang up. So I did and that was it. Well, until last week. He started calling me again.”

“He wants to get back together?”

“He didn’t say that. And I didn’t ask. He just said he misses me and wants to catch up.”

“And you don’t know whether you want to?” Sarah asks.

“I don’t know if I should.”

“There is no should,” I say.

“Parker’s right,” Sarah adds quickly, which tells me to let her follow her line so I clam up. “I asked whether you want to. That’s what matters.”

“I dunno. I do, I guess. We really get along and stuff. I miss hanging out … but … after he broke up with me … I dunno … I think it’d be weird.”

“Weird how?” Sarah says quickly. To emphasize the importance of the question and to get it out before I go off on her, which Sarah must know is about to happen.

“I dunno. Just weird. I didn’t see it coming the first time so it could happen again anytime without me expecting it. I’d be thinking that all the time. I guess that’s true with anyone, though. I just wasn’t thinking about it before.”

“So what do you want to do?” Sarah asks.

“I guess … I want to be with him. I just don’t want to be looking over my shoulder all the time, you know?”

“Yes, definitely,” Sarah says.

“So … what should I do?”

“We don’t tell anyone what to do—”

“Except when it’s obvious,” I say, unable to hold back any longer. “You just said it. Go find someone to be with where you don’t have to look over your shoulder. Is that this guy, what’s his name?”

“Gabe.”

“Gabe. Is Gabe a guy you’ll have to look over your shoulder with?”

“I guess so.”

“Problem solved.”

“But I miss hanging out …”

“He said things weren’t hot enough for him. Give the guy points for breaking up before he went to Spain to have a fling without cheating, but he loses them again for trying to worm his way back to you now that he’s back, to see if a summer alone—were you alone?”

“Yeah.”

“To see if losing him for three months might have changed your mind about whether you wanted to put out to keep him.”

“He never said that. I don’t think he’s trying to be sneaky—”

“We already know he’s sneaky. He was your boyfriend; didn’t he know your work schedule? And he texts you while you’re at work saying We need to talk. He knows you have to reply to that. And when you do he says you guys should talk in person, knowing you won’t be able to wait. Then he breaks up with you on the phone, saving himself the awkwardness of doing it face-to-face but making it your fault. If he wasn’t sneaky, he would’ve just waited till the next time you were together.”

Silence.

“The point is,” I say, “if he wasn’t happy before, why would he be happy now? Either he’s changed or he’s hoping you have. Have you changed?”

“I don’t think so.”

“He hasn’t either, sorry to tell you. People don’t change. They just learn from experience and become better actors.”

More silence.

Sarah says, “I don’t know if this helps, but we’re here every morning if you want to talk.”

I hear shuffling and footsteps.

“They’re gone,” Sarah says.

“How’d it end?”

“She looked confused. The usual cognitive dissonance. She wants to get back what she thought she had, knows it’s not really there, really wants it to be, and is struggling with how much to rationalize to get it back.”

“Wait, what the hell just happened?” Molly says. “Regina walked up and told you all that and you’ve never even met?”

“It’s something we do,” Sarah says. “Everyone at Adams knows. We listen to anything without being judgmental—”

I snort but Sarah ignores me.

“—and we offer unbiased observations and advice. We do a pretty good job of keeping things confidential …”

“Is she looking at me?” I say. “I keep the sensitive stuff quiet, but part of the value we provide is knowing things about other people. For instance, we were helping—”

“Parker!” Sarah snaps.

“Fine!” I say. “I wasn’t going to say any names.”

“You guys …” Molly says. “Well, I was going to ask if you’re serious, but Regina … I mean …”

“She said you knew about her breakup,” I say. “She talk to you?”

“A little.”

“What’d you tell her?”

“I mostly agreed with whatever she said. It seemed like what she needed.”

“Of course. When he’s dreamy, he’s dreamy; when he’s a jerk, he’s a jerk. A lot of people need that, but they also need the truth they usually can’t get from friends. Talking the way we do is tough for people to do and stay friends.”

“She means the way she talks,” Sarah says. “And yes, it’s absolutely hard to stay friends with her talking the way she does.”

“Ouch,” I say. “But it’s what people need; that’s why they come to us. They don’t have months or years to do it the old-fashioned way, professional-like. So Sarah starts it off right and then I cut to the chase.”

“How did this even start?” Molly asks. “You guys sitting out here … How do people know?”

I wait for Sarah to answer. She doesn’t.

I pivot my head to face her. “Go on, Sarah. Tell her.”

“God,” Sarah says in her eye-rolling voice. “The bitchiness I have no problems with … but the smugness … ugh …”

I grin.

“Fine,” she says. “One of the unexpected side effects of Parker going blind was how she got … less and less sensitive about what she said to people because she couldn’t see them flinch. Then freshman year a few people came back and thanked her for being so blunt, saying they later realized she was right and it really helped them. And here we are, two years later.”

“See, that wasn’t so hard, was it?” I turn back to face Molly. “She even sold herself short. We’re a team because those things I say to people, most of them I wouldn’t even know if Sarah didn’t tell me. It’s like I said, she’s the eyes and the brains, I’m just the loudmouth.”

“Wow, you’re like Good Cop, Bad Cop Psychologists,” Molly says. “You should charge people five cents a session.”

“Yes!” I say. “We used to put out a coffee mug with Lucy on it saying The Doctor is IN, but it broke a while ago.”

“Maybe it’s time for a confession,” Sarah says without sounding at all remorseful. “I broke that mug on purpose.”

“You did?” I’m genuinely shocked. “Why?”

“She’s right about what she says to Charlie Brown but she’s totally heartless about it. That’s not us. Lucy’s a bitch.”

“But that’s perfect for you guys,” Molly says. “Each of you are half of Lucy. You’re the insightful psychologist half, and Parker, you’re …”

I laugh. Can’t deny it. Don’t even want to.

*

My locker combination is easy: zero-zero-zero, and there’s a bump on the dial by the zero. I have a separate padlock that takes a key since I can’t tell if someone’s looking over my shoulder. I asked them to disable the combination lock but they said they couldn’t without damaging it—which I don’t believe—so I asked if they could at least make it the easiest combination. Now I get the joy of unlocking two locks every time I want in my locker.

“Hi, Parker.”

It’s Faith. She doesn’t normally just say hi out of nowhere anymore so I wonder what else she wants. I’m not worried, though; school’s out and Molly has plenty to do in the library till I get there.

“Hey, Fay-Fay, how are you today?” It’s an old rhyme from when we were kids. She probably doesn’t like that nickname anymore but I’m in a good mood and she’s never told me to stop using it.

“You want to go to the mall this weekend?”

There were ninety-nine things I thought she might say—that wasn’t one of them.

Faith and I don’t hang out, mainly because we have almost nothing in common anymore. We act like we don’t get along but we’re the opposite of frenemies; we’re friends who pretend to be enemies. I guess that makes us enemends. We share a lot of serious history without any bumps in the road and were there for each other through the worst of it, just not so much day to day.

“It’s only Monday,” I say, buying time. “You really plan ahead.”

“I go to Ridgeway every weekend. I just thought maybe you’d like someone else to pick out clothes with besides Sarah ‘Sweatpants’ Gunderson for a change.”

“I guess she’s not invited.”

“She can come.”

“We don’t shop together,” I say. It’s never really occurred to me to wonder what Sarah wears all the time. “Does Sarah wear sweatpants a lot?”

“Only on days ending in y. Do you want to go?”

I don’t. And, well … I kind of do. I don’t want all the hassle, or pressure to get clothes that are too showy or aren’t my style, but … since Dad died I haven’t done any shopping besides the shoes yesterday. Shoes are about the only things I don’t need some amount of help with.

“Don’t you usually go with Lila and Kennedy?”

“Not always. It’s okay if you don’t want to.”

I wonder if this is one of those times I should just go with it without overanalyzing everything.

Nope.

“Why are you asking now?”

“What do you mean?”

“We’ve never been shopping together and suddenly, on a random Monday afternoon, you want to go, but not till next weekend. What made you think of it?”

“Like I said, if you don’t want to …” she says.

“I didn’t say I didn’t want to.”

Silence.

“Nothing’s easy with you, Peegee. Not one thing.”

She sounds resigned, not angry. I feel a twinge because I know she’s right. Then a thought occurs to me. “Is this because I’m an orphan now?”

Sigh. The kind that tells me how burdensome my friendship is to her.

“Yes, Parker, it’s because you’re a hopeless charity case.” She closes her locker. “You just have to dissect everything around you like dead frogs.”

I laugh. “Today’s the first time since we met in kindergarten that you ask me to mall crawl and you’re surprised I want to talk about why?”

“Did I say I was surprised?” she says. “Fine, I saw you in the mall yesterday buying shoes.”

“Oh, you … Why didn’t you say something? Ah … the Dynamic Trio.”

She clears her throat—she hates that name. “I was alone. You were talking to a cute guy. I didn’t want to break the spell.”

“He was cute?” I say.

“Do you care?”

“Ha! See, you do know me. Wait, you were shopping alone?”

“There’s a time for everything. But I bet you think all shopping should be solo because you don’t want anyone’s help. Am I right?”

No way I’ll ever admit that. “You’re telling me you trust Lila and Kennedy’s opinions about clothes more than your own?”

“It’s not just about being helped. It’s nice. It’s fun.”

“Nice? Fun?”

“You know what? I’ve changed my mind. You do have to go. Sarah and Molly, too. You can’t walk around claiming to know everything if you’ve never even gone out shopping with friends. We’re going this Saturday—it’s decided.”

Nobody, but nobody tells me what to do. Nobody.

“All right, then,” I say.

hen I hear Aunt Celia’s car I say goodbye to Molly and walk to the curb. I open the door and plop my bag on the floor and hop in. “It’s me,” Sheila says. “My mom couldn’t come. My dad has work people coming over, so she’s making a big dinner. Not for us, though—we’re eating pizza in the living room.”

It bugs me the way she always says my mom and my dad. I mean, whenever I talk to anyone about my parents, R.I.P., it’s always my mom or my dad because it’s not their mom or dad; but Sheila and I are cousins and even though her mom and dad aren’t mine, I know them and we live together now and it just sounds weird. I don’t know, it just bugs me.

“I’m surprised,” I say. “Driving me without your mom here means you’re breaking the law, but your mom’s still an accessory if she knows about it. I always thought of her as someone who doesn’t break the law for convenience.”

“Your convenience. I told her you could walk home. It’s too bad she said no—you could take your buddy Molly with you. She could lose a few pounds.”

“What?”

She puts the car in gear and hits the accelerator. “Anyway, it’s not against the law if it’s to or from school and I have a signed note. Which I have. Wanna see it?”

“I can’t … heyyyy, wait just a minute here,” I say. “Are you kidding? You must be, since you know I’m blind and all, so I can’t see notes or how fat or skinny anyone is. Or are you just being mean?”

“I was being sarcastic.”

“Oh, really? You know what that word means?”

Silence.

“School’s only two miles away,” she says. “You really can just walk if you don’t want anyone helping you.”

“What I want is to be treated like everyone else. Until you start walking home from school every day, I’m perfectly happy getting picked up, too.”

Silence.

“Thanks for the ride.”

“You’re welcome.”

Our moms and dads would be so proud.

The radio turns on. News radio. Commercials. Sheila changes the station till she finds music. It’s nothing I recognize but that’s no surprise; I don’t listen to music much.

“Who’s this?” I ask.

“What?”

“The singer, who is it?”

“Ha, ha. We don’t have to talk, you know. That’s why the radio’s on.”

“Okay, you don’t know either. You could have just said so.”

“What are you talking about? It’s Kesha. ‘We R Who We R.’ Everyone knows that.”

I flop my hands a little—my equivalent of rolling my eyes—but I doubt Sheila understands. “She’s the one who used to have the typo in her name, right? A dollar sign instead of an s?”

“God, Parker, you’re just … so …”

My stomach tightens and I know why. It’s this place I go that’s somewhere between wanting to wind someone up because of their stupid assumptions and actually feeling bad about missing out on something. There’s plenty I miss because I’m blind but a lot of things I don’t. I saw rainbows when I was little—I know what they look like—I don’t need to see them over and over. But there’s plenty of new stuff I just can’t keep up with.

“I’m just saying not everyone knows this song.”

“You’ve never heard of Kesha.” She says it flatly, like it’s so inconceivable she has no idea which emotion to apply.

“You mean Keh Dollar Sign Ha … Yes, I’ve heard of her.”

I don’t have anything else to do—and it’s playing loud now—so I listen. We pull into the driveway and stop but Sheila leaves the engine running till the song ends.

“Recognize it now?”

“Nope. Never heard it before.”

“Wow, you’re serious. How is that even possible?”

“What, you think everyone on the planet’s heard that song?”

“No, but in every high school in America, yeah. I just figured … Never mind.”

“What?” I hear in her voice that it’s one of those feeling-awkward-around-the-blind-girl moments. “It’s fine, just tell me.”

“It’s just … if I was … you know … I just figured you’d know more about music than anyone.”

I shake my head. Where do I even start?

“How often do you just listen to music and nothing else?”

“I don’t know. A lot.”

“I mean no leafing through a magazine, no surfing the Interwebz, doing nothing but listening.”

“I don’t know—does it matter?”

“Not to you, but when you say all the time you really mean you read magazines, Web surf, do homework, with music on in the background.”

“Of course. That’s what everyone does—”

“Not everyone. To me, reading is listening. I can’t listen to an audio textbook and music at the same time. And it takes me twice as long to listen to anything as it takes you to read it. Hell, you can tell right away if you’re on the webpage you want while it takes me five minutes just to figure out that I’m not and hit the links to the right page. So I can either spend most of my time reading and working to keep up with school, or I can listen to music a lot and do nothing else and guarantee that when I graduate—if I graduate—I’ll be fucked with zero education and then what will I do to take care of myself?”

After a moment, keys jangle. “Okaaay.”

“It’s fine—you didn’t know. I don’t get mad at people for not knowing. I get mad at people for thinking they do know.”

“Well … what’d you think of the song?”

“I don’t know. It’s all about cutting loose and having fun, and the tune’s catchy, but it also sounds like what’s probably going through a stripper’s head when she sees all these guys turned on by her but knows deep down all they care about is her tits and ass and nobody will ever really love her. So I guess I like how it sounds but not what it says. Do you like it?”

Silence.

“I used to. I think you just ruined it.” She leaves and slams the door.

“Don’t shoot the messenger.”

*

“Faith and I are going to Ridgeway on Saturday to do some shopping,” I tell Sarah. “Want to come?”

“Hang on, Parker, the phone garbled you there. Either that or you just said something totally random. If I ask you to say it again, I’ll bet you say something completely different this time.”

“Faith and I are going to Ridgeway on Saturday to do some shopping. Want to come?”

“Ha. You want me to go shopping. With you and Faith.”

“And Molly, but I haven’t asked her yet.”

“Hang on a second. My world turned upside down. Okay, I’m fine now. Say it again.”

“Come on, it’ll be fun.”

“Who are you?”

“You can buy some new sweatpants.”

“What?! What did that bitch say to you?”

I laugh. And I keep laughing because she said it to be funny, in a self-aware ironic way, but I can also tell she meant it.

“She has to dress up fancy because she doesn’t have a boyfriend. And I’ll have you know sweatpants are very comfortable.”

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