Blind Spot (4 page)

Helen Keller? Nice. It meant that not only had Missy told Rona about my eyes, but they’d laughed about it enough to give me a nickname. Who else had Missy told? Did the whole school know now? I cringed, but obliged Heather with a “Totally” and a high-five. I took another big bite of apple and prayed she wouldn’t ask.

She didn’t. Not right away. First she took a bite of her burger and shoved a bunch of fries into a vat of ketchup. “So, why ‘Helen Keller’?”

I shrugged. “I can’t see that well.”

“You need glasses?”

Everyone always says that. Like a conditioned response. I studied the core of my apple. “I have contacts but . . .” I hated this part. It wasn’t the questions people inevitably asked; it was their reactions. They fell into one of two categories: pity or discomfort. And I still didn’t know how to handle either. “Legally I’m considered blind.”

“Like cane-and-seeing-eye-dog blind? You don’t look blind.”

“I’m not. My vision isn’t good enough to drive, though, so I’m ‘legally’ blind.”

“Is that why you never look at people? I always thought you were just a bitch. No offense.” She shoved the ketchup-soaked fries into her mouth.

Bitch. I’d heard that one before. Missy used to call me that and accuse me of ignoring people. From a distance, say when I’m walking down the hall, I can’t see people’s eyes, so I may hear them talk or may see them wave, but I don’t know if they are looking at me or someone else. It’s humiliating when you think someone’s talking to you and they aren’t. Just as humiliating when the guy you’re crushing on thinks you just blew him off because he waved and you didn’t wave back. That’s why I stare at the ground or fiddle with my shirt or pretend to be reading when I’m in a crowd. Anything to avoid humiliation. “I can’t really see faces, so . . .” I shrugged.

“But you can hear?”

“Uh, yeah?”

She smirked. “Well, Helen Keller couldn’t! She was blind and deaf; mute, I think, too. Leave it to Rona to get it wrong. So can you see—” She looked across the cafeteria to search out a test object, then stopped and smiled at someone behind me.

I turned. Greg’s finger went into my eye.

“Roz, I am
so
sorry!” He crouched to peer in my eye. “Are you okay?”

My eye stung. I blinked rapidly to make it tear up. “Is there salt on your finger?”

“Ink. Sorry.”

I dabbed my watering eye with a napkin. “’S okay.”

“So that was ‘Zeus’?” Greg said, making punctuation marks with his hands. “The guy Missy likes?”

I blinked again to clear my eye. “Yep.”

“I need more ketchup,” Heather said.

Greg watched her leave. “Why aren’t you eating with Missy?”

“Are you conducting a social survey or something?” I asked.

“No, I was just wondering.” He sat down. “Is Zeus the reason you and Missy aren’t talking?”

Greg’s crush on Missy. Of course. He was hoping I’d taken Jonathan out of the picture so Missy could focus on someone else, like Greg. “No, he’s not. We just met.” I felt suddenly sorry for Greg with his knit sweater, Oxford collar, and ink-smudged chin. Missy’d never flit from Jonathan to Greg. He was wasting his time on her. “We’ve all changed, Greg. Me, you, Missy—we’re not kids anymore. You know what I mean?”

“Yeah.” He gave a nervous cough and I knew I’d embarrassed him. Which embarrassed me. I looked into my bag and pulled my sandwich out.

“If I offended you yesterday somehow, I’m sorry. Okay?” He stood up.

“Okay.” I slowly chewed my sandwich and willed him away.

Heather bounced up. “Too soon? I can go—”

“No! I mean—” I glanced up at Greg. “You can eat with us—”

He was backing up, though, flustered, no doubt, by my awesome hospitality. “I see . . . friends.”

“Awk-ward,” I said when he’d moved away.

“Oh, come on, he’s cute,” Heather whispered. “Not Zeus cute. Shy cute. Way too Ivy League–ish for me, though. What’s his story?”

“Missy’s next-door neighbor, just transferred from Trinity.”

“He ask you out?” she said, her voice still low.

“Hardly.” I laughed. “He’s hot for Missy. Keeps lurking around me for info, practically stalking me.” Heather made a face and mouthed something at me that I couldn’t make out. “What?”

She pointed to the end of the table with her french fry. Oops. Greg was eating with Fritz and Ricky, and by the way he sat motionless, staring at the lunch bag in front of him, I was pretty sure he’d heard me.

I took a front-row seat in AP, and as I pulled out my assignment the smell of watermelon bubblegum caught my attention.
He must shop wholesale for that gum,
I thought and looked up.

“I’m not
hot
for Missy,” Greg muttered, darting a glance in her direction, “and I’m not stalking you either. That’s my assigned seat.”

“I’m sorry I said that.” I paused. “Assigned seat? We have assigned seats?”

“Please put your assignments in this basket,” Mr. Dellian said.

Greg walked his over. I followed, giving Dellian my best I-don’t-need-Life-Skills-see?-I-got-the-syllabus-all-on-my-own smile.

Dellian looked unimpressed. “Miss Hart, if you don’t want to be marked absent, I suggest you take your assigned seat.”

I rolled my eyes at Greg’s smug expression and slid my books off his desk. “I wasn’t given an assigned seat.”

“You were sitting at a desk yesterday, correct? That’s your assigned seat.”

“Oh.” I couldn’t see the board back there, though. Perfect opportunity to demonstrate my life skills. I turned back around. “Could I move?”

He hesitated a moment, as if my asking to move was a really difficult question. “No, you’re
fine
back there, aren’t you?”—a smug smirk in his tone. “Take your assigned seat, Miss Hart.”

Even though the rest of the class didn’t know those were my words from Life Skills yesterday that he was repeating, I knew. My cheeks flushed, anger rising. I went to his desk, all too aware that everyone was now listening. “You want me to admit it? Fine,” I whispered. “You’re right. I can’t see from back there, okay? Now can I move?”

“You can’t see?” he said too loud to be accidental. “Perhaps you should invest in a pair of glasses, Miss Hart.” The class laughed.

As if I hadn’t heard that before. I folded my arms and said nothing.

He postured against his desk. “You had bad eyesight yesterday, didn’t you?”

“Yeah, it’s kind of an ongoing thing.”

“Yet you chose to sit in the back. Bad choice, wouldn’t you agree?”

“Okay, I get it! I should’ve sat in the front, but I was late. God! Why are you being such a—” I stopped myself too late.

“I won’t tolerate disrespect in my classroom,” Mr. Dellian said in a voice as thick as ice. “I can and
will
kick you out of here.”

“I’m sorry—”

He didn’t let me finish. “In my classroom, students are assigned the seat they take on the first day. I don’t change my seating chart once it’s complete. Now—”

I expected him to say “I’ll let it slide” or “Don’t let it happen again,” not “Take your seat in the back, Miss Hart.”

“What?” I stared in disbelief. “You have to let me switch! It’s—”

“It’s what?” he asked.

I heard the challenge in his voice. What an ass. He wanted me to say “It’s in my IEP.” To admit out loud that I had a disability, that I needed special help—
his
special help. Well, I wasn’t going to play his stupid game anymore. I wasn’t going to beg him for a seat up front. I didn’t need it that badly. I focused my blind spot on his face and glared at him.

“I’ll switch with her,” Greg offered.

“How gallant of you”—Dellian consulted his seating chart—“Mr. Martin. But then I’d have to mark you both absent.”

Greg shrugged at me apologetically.

“Are we finished? I’d like to start class.” Mr. Dellian’s bored tone made me want to scream.

“Yes.” I marched back to my assigned seat and silently screamed a thousand obscenities while he shuffled through the assignments, all smug and arrogant.

“Oh, and Miss Hart?” Mr. Dellian said without looking up. “I had a lovely discussion with your mother earlier. We decided to keep you in your Special Education class. We both feel you need it.”

My body exploded. Hellfire. Brimstone. Lava dripped from my pores. I wanted to fly across the room. Tear the flesh from his limbs. I glared at the back of his head. Burned holes in his skull while he rifled through the pages as if he’d merely commented on the weather.

Everyone else knew the weight of his comment, though. The tension that settled over the room told me they were watching, waiting to see what I would do. If only I had telekinetic powers. I’d burst him into flames, his desk combusting with a boom. The best I could do was focus my central vision on him, making the reddish-orange dots that block my vision engulf him, make him disappear.

Slowly my laser gaze slipped from Dellian to the empty desk next to Greg. I don’t remember making a conscious decision. But I guess I did.

I thought,
Screw you, Dellian!

And then I stood, walked back up to that front-row seat, and made it mine.

“Rozzy, why do you do this?” Mom said when I told her Dellian was now marking me absent for sitting in the front. “He’s trying to help you!”

This was
my
fault? “He tells me to stand up for myself in Life Skills and then when I do, he punishes me? How is that helping? It makes no sense!”

“With that attitude of yours, I’d mark you absent too.”

“Whatever, Mom,” I muttered. “Can you at least admit he’s being stupid?”

She sighed as if I were exhausting her. “Trying to keep you from self-destructing so you don’t end up like that poor kid is not stupid, Rozzy. You have to start accepting the fact that there are things you can’t do. Maybe that AP class isn’t such a good idea.”

“What? No!”

“You have a disability, Rozzy. No one expects you to become a brain surgeon.”

“So what? I should take Underwater Basket Weaving instead of AP History? Why even bother with school? I’ll just quit and find men to live off of like you do.”

Too far. “You can take the bus to school,” Mom said, heading back to bed. It didn’t matter anyway. It was obvious I was on my own on this one. Dellian had her snowed.

“‘Half of the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important,’” Greg said as we left AP. “T. S. Eliot. Have you told your parents about Dellian’s power trip?”

I snorted. “Tried. Mom thinks he walks on water, though.”

“Mine too. Hockey coach, yearbook advisor, Special Education teacher—Principal Ratner is so impressed with Dellian’s multiple talents that he didn’t even think twice when Ms. Ludlow moved out of state at the last minute. He handed AP over like an offering to the gods.” Greg shook his head in disgust. “Anyway, when Mom talked with Mr. Dellian, he said we’re just using your impairment as an excuse to sit together.”

I stared, horrified. His mom? Talked to Dellian? My “impairment”?

“Oh, I’m sorry.” He frowned. “Is
impairment
not the right word?”

“It’s . . . fine,” I said. There was so much wrong with what he’d said, I didn’t know where to start. “You know about my . . . ? You told your mom?”

“Missy told me about your impairment, and Mom’s the school nurse. I thought she could help you with Mr. Dellian.”

“Oh.” Heat rushed to my face as I imagined all the things Missy probably told him. I tried to steer the conversation away from my eyes. “That’s kind of stupid, isn’t it? I mean, why would it matter if we sat together? Your mom bought that?”

“I know. Stupid.” Greg gave a little laugh and pushed his hand through his curls. “So stupid. No idea why she’d believe him. As you said, I guess she thinks he walks on water too.” He shrugged as we reached my locker. “Maybe you should sit where he says. If you’re worried about not seeing the board, I’ll take notes for you.”

God, now he feels
sorry
for me.
“I don’t need your notes,” I said. “I’m not giving in. He’s wrong, not me.”

“He
is
wrong. He’s also in control. If you sit in the back and get notes from me, you take back control.”

“Control? I’ll be sitting where he wants me to sit instead of where I need to sit; getting notes from you instead of taking them myself. That’s not being
in
control; that’s
being
controlled.” I pulled up on the locker handle. Ugh, why couldn’t I remember to keep it unlocked? I turned back to end the conversation so he’d leave. “It doesn’t matter. I’m going to tell the principal.”

“You want to go now? I can vouch for everything.”

“I have to catch my bus. I’ll try tomorrow.”

“Let me know when you do,” he said, turning to go. “I’ll back you up.”

As I walked to my bus, I wondered how Dellian could have everyone so snowed. The adults, anyway. Tricia, on the other hand, seemed to have Dellian snowed. She had him walking on eggshells around her—I actually kind of admired that aspect of her.

Yes, she was a freak. Twirling in the hall, wearing a cloak no hard-core
Star Wars
fan would even wear in public, ignoring all the snide comments people made. And she’d turn on you quickly, morphing into a witch without warning, claws out, ready to take down anyone. Brutally mean one minute, sincerely sweet the next; it was obvious Tricia was psycho. But was she truly psychotic, or was it an act to keep Dellian off her back?

Was “psychotic psycho” the way to handle him? Would he leave me alone if I were erratic and unpredictable like Tricia? Tempting, I thought, as I boarded my unusually crowded bus. But I wasn’t capable of psychotic behavior, not in front of Jonathan, or anyone really.

The bus pulled through the school parking lot and into the left-turn lane, bringing me out of my thoughts. We were headed out of town.
Crap,
I thought, standing up. “Driver? I’m sorry. I got on the wrong bus.” I couldn’t see the bus numbers on the side, but my bus was always parked in the second slot. I’d just assumed it was mine, without checking with the driver.

We lurched to a stop and I hurried past the other students, ignoring their dirty looks and “What are you, in kindergarten?” comments. My bus was long gone by now; I trudged toward the city bus stop—embarrassed and humiliated. The familiar burning at my ears brought me right back to Dellian.