I never heard from him again.
Or I thought I didn’t.
I hated the dark. I hated depending on people. I hated hearing my classmates run past me in the hallways, laughing, while I traced the lockers with my fingertips and counted doors.
I hated it when people talked to my mother instead of to me, right in front of me, like I wasn’t there. Does she need help with the stairs? Can she eat by herself?
I hated pity most of all. You can hear pity. It has a sound. People’s voices go soft and high, like they’re talking to a puppy.
But I refused to shut down.
I forced myself to learn how to live in the dark.
I learned Braille. It took me a whole year to read a page as fast as I used to read a paragraph. I cried over it at the kitchen table more times than I can count. My mother sat next to me every night, learning it too, so she could check my homework.
