“Is that how you can see me?” he asked.
“Yeah.”
“What do I look like?”
“You look like you,” I said, thinking of Logan. I felt his little shiny nose, and his soft baby cheeks. I felt his eyebrows, but if they’d been furrowed a moment before, they were high above his eyes now, cheerful, puppety. His face felt like Baby Lily’s. I was glad he was still a baby. He bent down again, to put his milky, beloved turtle on the rabbit’s grave.
“Do you know what I’m thinking?” I asked Benj.
“About Swedish fish?” he asked, because those are my favorite. “The lemon ones?”
“Well, that too,” I said. “I was also thinking if I ever have a kid, I hope he’s like you.”
“You don’t get to pick that kid,” he said.
“I know, I’m just saying I hope.”
“Actually, the egg and the sperm decide, is that kid a boy or girl, and then they tell you.”
“You’re smart,” I told him.
“You’re smart, too, Emma,” he said. “Because you can see me even though you have no eyes.”
• • •
The door of the rec center slid open automatically as soon as my white cane touched the mat in front of it; I had to remind myself to breathe. Think of yourself the way Benj thinks of you, I suggested to myself. Or Leah, or your mom, instead of the way you do. It was hot inside, and I began to sweat the moment I walked in.
“You okay?” someone asked. A woman, maybe in her twenties. She had a deep voice, kind but gruff.
“I’m fine, thank you. Um, I’m looking for beep ball practice—do you know where I might find it?” I had been nervous on the way, and now I was here, even more anxious. Leah had agreed to drop me off on her way somewhere—I hadn’t even asked where—and she was going to pick me up whenever I called for a ride. I felt agitated to be out on my own, even though Leah had driven me. It wasn’t like I’d taken the bus or ridden my bike. Spark could tell I was doing a shabby job of staying calm, though; he kept shaking his body, trying to get imaginary water off his fur.
“Sure,” she said. “That’s where I’m headed, too. My brother plays. I’m Alexis.” She tapped my shoulder and held out her hand to shake.
“Nice to meet you. I’m Emma Sasha Silver,” I said, blushing terribly. Why I had decided to use all three names was anyone’s guess.
“Cool name,” she said. “There’s a turnstile three steps ahead at your waist,” she said. As soon as we were through, the smell of chlorine rose up into the thick air and stayed suspended there.
“This way,” Alexis said. Spark was relaxing a little; he had stopped doing the dry-off fear shake, and was sniffing around. We went down two flights of stairs, and came into a room I could tell was giant and open by the echo of Alexis’s voice. “We’re here,” she said. “Do you want to sit with me?”
“Sure,” I said. “Thanks for your help.”
“No worries,” she said. “Who are you here to see?”
“Sebastian Metropole,” I said. “He’s a . . . a friend of mine from Briarly.”
“That’s where Mark, my little brother, goes,” Alexis said.
Then we sat quietly, listening to the game, which is exactly like baseball except that the players are blind and the ball beeps, so they can hear it coming and hit or catch it. Whenever anyone makes a play, the sighted people in the crowd tell the blind people what happened, which was how it went with Alexis and me. I wondered if she resented having to be a sports commentator for me, but if she did, it wasn’t obvious. Maybe she was lonely and glad to have company, or used to being an interpreter for her little brother. I don’t get why people love watching sports, honestly. I can’t bring myself to care who wins unless I know something personal about the players. I used to like competitions where I knew everyone’s stories and I could see their faces. I tried to hope that Seb’s team would win, but mainly I was busy practicing in my mind what I would say when I saw him after. Whenever anyone hit a home run, the crowd cheered and shouted, “Good eye!” Other than that, we stayed quiet, so that players could hear the ball beeping its way through the air toward them, and feel the arc of it, smash into that sound with the bat, or grab the sound from the air like an electronic butterfly into a net.
“These guys are good!” Alexis said, after what she told me was an “elegant catch.” The crowd was screaming, and I asked into the already loud noise, “How old is Mark?”
“Eleven,” Alexis said, and I heard sorrow in her voice.
“Was he sighted before? Or has he always been—”
“He was born blind,” she said. “What about you?”
“I was sighted,” I said. “This”—I gestured up to the band of sunglasses where my eyes used to be—“was an accident.”
“That’s lucky,” she said, and I knew what she meant: that I had gotten to see everything. That I would have those visual, colorful, fluttering memories of what the world looks like forever. And Mark never would.
“I guess it is,” I said.
After the game, she took me down the risers to find her little brother and Sebastian, but when I called out Seb’s name, no one answered. “Are you Sebastian?” Alexis asked someone.
“Yeah,” he said, so he must have heard me and turned but not responded. At the sound of his voice, still so familiar, I felt sorrow rise up in my throat, and shoved it back down.
“Hey,” I said, no tears in my voice. “Hey, Sebastian.” This huge name felt oddly formal—I had called him Seb at Briarly, but I knew I’d forfeited any right to nicknames.
“Hi, Emma,” he said. “What can I do for you?”
I realized I’d been hoping he would be thrilled to see me. And how unfair that was. “I, um, I wanted to see you,” I said.
“No hope of that, obviously,” he said. I smiled, but I could hear that he wasn’t smiling.
“Good game,” I said.
“It was just a scrimmage.”
“Um. I was wondering if we could talk? I know I’ve been kind of—”
“Yeah,” he said, meaning no. “I have to get dressed and do a postgame now. I’ll give you a call sometime.”
“Seb!” It was Dee, who had come from behind him somehow. Then she turned suddenly and her voice came toward me. “Who’s this?” she asked, super friendly and casual, sticking her hand out and down to shake and brushing mine.
“It’s me, Emma. Hi, Dee,” I said. I took her hand.
“Emma Silver?!” She let go of my hand, but whether out of surprise or because she hated me, I wasn’t sure.
“Yeah.”
“Wow. We thought you died,” she said.
“I know. I’m . . . things have been kind of a disaster, and I was hoping I could talk to you guys about—” I couldn’t finish and no one came to my rescue. The beat of silence finished me. “Well, um, great to see you both.”
Then, like with Logan, I turned and began to flee, the sobs that had formed in my stomach the instant I heard Seb’s voice forcing their way out of my throat.
But before I got to the top of the stairs, I heard Dee calling my name. I turned and groped for the banister on the rising stairs. “Our final ski trip’s next Sunday, Emma,” Seb called up to me. In his voice was a mean, sharp dare. It came out in a color I’d never heard him use, something dark and metallic gray. “How about you come and try it out this year?”
• • •
Their invitation to ski was obviously my last chance to know them. I knew right away that if I said no, as always, as I had nine billion times last year, as I wanted to, well, then I was not only a wretched chicken but also a lost cause of a friend. So I had no choice. I had to say yes. I heard the yes come out of my throat like something yellow and small, fluttering before it died of regret.
And then I had to tell, rather than ask, my parents.
“I’m going to tag along on a Briarly ski trip, because it’ll be ‘empowering,’” I said at dinner, the word growing on me now that I needed it to convince them. My dad didn’t even have a chance to say anything before my mom said, “But there’s no snow. It’s already almost spring. How can you—”
“It’s Mount Crandon, Mom. The snow is fake.”
“But will you have to miss school?”
“It’s a Saturday.”
“But who will take you?”
“I’ll go with Seb and Dee.”
“But can you sign up even if you’re not at Briarly anymore?”
“It’s a great idea, Em. We’ll absolutely make it work,” my dad said.
It turned out, predictably, that my dad was so thrilled that my mom had to give in. I heard them argue it out at night. And we all heard her console herself with hundreds of daily phone calls with Principal Antoine, Mrs. Leonard, and Mr. Crane, the teachers who were chaperoning. Were former students welcome? (She hoped no, but got yes.) Could it possibly, actually be safe? (She thought no, but got yes.) Who would be there? (Everyone, including lots of teachers.) How many possible ways were there that I might die? (This sort of speculation they refused to indulge in directly.) It was endless, even after it ended, because once she couldn’t call and torture everyone, she decided to come with me.
So my dad took a day off from saving people’s lives so my mom could drive to Silverton and take the school bus from Briarly three hours to a fake-snow-covered bunny hill with me and Seb and Dee and a bunch of kids from last year whose names I had hardly bothered to learn. A few of them politely asked how I was and how school was, and I said fine. No one was that excited to have me back, and who could blame them? Sebastian and Dee sat together on the bus, and I sat behind them with my mom. Everyone was so excited that the driver stopped twice to turn around and tell us to calm down or he was going to turn around and drive right back to Silverton. I sat silently, listening to Sebastian and Dee shout about all the near-death experiences they’d had on the slopes the year before. When I had smartly refused to come. We had not acknowledged yet what a psychotically terrible person and friend I’d been all fall. And all last year, too, really. Not when I said yes, I would come skiing; not when I called to get the trip details; and not when I showed up and boarded the bus. We all just acted like nothing had happened. Which was really weird.
“Do you remember how I almost totally wiped out on that huge hunk of ice?” Sebastian was saying. I could hear him bouncing on the plastic bus seat, the tired springs creaking and breaking further every time he slammed his body back down. I had a flash of wonder about his body then, what it might look/feel like.
“Yeah,” said Dee, her voice full of awe. When I was at Briarly, I thought no one there could have crushes, that blind kids couldn’t fall in love with each other. Obviously that’s insane, but I hadn’t realized yet that it was possible to be both blind and capable of thinking about anything other than the fact that you’re blind. Somehow, now that I’m not at Briarly anymore, I have a better view of life there. It’s like life anywhere, at any school, really. Even Lake Main. Except for the life skills classes, I guess, but the truth is, the kids at Lake Main could probably use those.
“Scott was like, ‘Look out, man!’” Sebastian was saying. “And I was like, ‘Left? Right? What the fuck, man?’ And—oh, excuse my language, Mrs. Silver—and he was like, ‘Right in front of you, man!’ And I swerved at a ninety-degree angle to the left and flew up four feet in the air.”
I could feel that my mom hadn’t breathed since the story began, and knew that Sebastian apologizing for swearing in front of my mom was fully missing the point.
“Who’s Scott?” I asked, trying to distract my mom from the idea that whatever had happened to Sebastian might happen to me, too.
“Our ski instructor,” Dee said. “He’s amazing. He can snowboard, too.” Her voice pitched up toward her crush register. “He used to be a professional skier. He’s cute.”
When we got to the slopes, we climbed out of the bus and my mom held my arm on the way to the lodge. I missed Spark, who had stayed home with my dad and the little kids.
“This way! This way!” Mr. Crane shouted. We followed him into a ski lodge and locker room, where those of us with no boots or skis rented them and we all put on our ski equipment. I could hear kids asking their parents why all those blind people were there and how we could ski if we couldn’t see what was in front of us. The parents didn’t answer, just shushed the kids, which was wrong and stupid. Why not just answer kids’ questions? The way the parents acted made us seem like unspeakable freaks. “Doesn’t it make more sense to talk?” I said, loud, in the direction of a kid I heard asking about us. “We have a guide who goes behind us and tells us if we’re about to hit anything.”
“Oh,” the kid said, coming a little closer to me—I could hear the volume of his voice increase a bit. “See, Mom? That’s how.” I smiled. His voice reminded me a little bit of Benj’s, and I wondered how old he was, thought about how kids like facts and answers, just like anyone. Everyone acts like reality is unmanageable, which it is, maybe, but putting sugar all over it is also terrifying. Because people, no matter how young, sense both what’s there and that they’re being deceived about it.
I sat on a wooden bench with my mom at my feet, snapping on the giant boots that would then apparently be attached to skis, on which I would blindly fly down a cliff. Why?
Sebastian was sitting on the bench next to me, with his boots already on. He reached over suddenly, grabbed my hand, and squeezed it. I had a blaze of nerves that felt like a light display. I wanted to apologize, to thank him, to ask him to forgive me and let me be his friend again. But I was scared to say anything, lest he drop my hand. So I just swallowed and held on.
“Ready?” he asked me.
“I guess so,” I said, and it came out accidentally flat and unfriendly.
“Well, I guess that’s the best I can hope for from you,” he said. Dee came clomping over then. He dropped my hand.
“You ready, Seb?” she asked him. He stood up.
“Wait,” I said, blushing. “Um, Dee? How scary is it?”
“What, skiing? It’s nothing compared to what you’ve been through,” she said kindly.
I had a flash then that I should ask Logan the same question about sex. Or drugs. Or last summer. Any of the things she had done and I hadn’t. “Will you guys come visit me on the bunny hill?”
“Sure,” Dee said, and then maybe she elbowed Seb, because he said, “Yeah, okay.”
When my mom finished snapping and bolting and soldering my boots on, I stood up and stumbled forward and she grabbed me. It felt like my feet were encased in blocks of lead.
“I have your skis right here,” she said, and clacked them together for my benefit, before leading me out into light so bright I could sense it from inside of my skin. I like light like that; I can’t see it, but I can really feel it—it reminds me of what I have left.
“Beginners, over here!” Mrs. Leonard called out. I felt exhilarated suddenly, like I might be able to keep Seb and Dee, and part of myself I’d almost lost, somehow. Like I was actually going to do this thing other-Emma had never even done. Maybe she wasn’t always superior to me in every way.
It was weird to crunch through snow when it didn’t smell cold. We were all led up to the top of a small hill, and when we got there, out of breath, we put our skis on. My mom set the first ski up next to my foot and told me to step sideways onto it, slide my boot in, and then step back with my heel. I tried six times before we heard the click and my heavy boot locked into an even heavier ski. I did the other side in one try. Then I heard my mom sliding her own feet into skis.
“You’re skiing, too?” I asked her.
“Sure,” she said. “Why not?”
Because it was ludicrous, and I didn’t want her to,
and having her along at all was bizarre and embarrassing, to name several of the thousands of reasons why not. But we both knew she couldn’t be talked out of it and we both knew why—because she wanted to be holding me up every second, right behind me, on top of me, whipping down the hill in front of me, or wherever she could be, in order to control what was going to happen. I had the unkind thought that if only she’d lavished that much neurotic attention on me before the accident, maybe it never would have happened. But I pushed that away, because it was unfair and untrue, and because if my mom could scoop her own eyes out like ice cream and give them to me, she would.
But she can’t. So she followed me like a crazy shadow, shouting, panting, trying to keep her screams to words of encouragement. I was barely even on a hill, just learning to point my skis down toward the bottom of the hill, and to pigeon-toe them in to brake. It was pitiful, but watching me move down a slope of white must have felt to my mom like a metaphor. She was letting me fall into nothingness, because she knew it was good for me. She had agreed to let me do it because I wanted to, because it was empowering, because she had always liked the idea of my “friendships” with Seb and Dee, because my dad would have demanded that I be allowed to go, and because my former teachers had urged her to let me build my confidence and my “ability to trust people.” She had no choice but to let me go—over and over.
The first time the beginning ski instructor, Kevin, showed me how to ski down the hill, he was tied to me by a rope and harness and, from right behind me, had the ability to pull the rope and save me, literally yank me back away from any danger.
Yet my mom was next to him, shouting, “Go, Em! Good, Em!” and nothing else—no warnings, for example—because Kevin told her that if she shouted orders he’d have to ask her to wait at the top or bottom for us. I could only have one person telling me to avoid the trees.
My mom’s breathing was more frenzied than it should have been from the small exertion of skiing the bunny hill. And her words, although cheerful, happy ones, were like tissue paper over the shrieking fear, which I could hear and feel under even her most convincing cheers: “You’re a skier, Em! Brilliant! Keep it up!”
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