Not If I See You First. Eric Lindstrom

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.