Chapter 8: Higher Learning

Before I knew it, I was thrown into the mythical land called high school. Ryan had broken up with his girlfriend and quit the soccer team for this season(because his parents pretty much killed him for getting a C in English and most likely forced him to quit the team). His popularity had declined significantly and on the first day of high school he plopped down next to me on the bus to school on the first day.

“So, 9th grade.” He was obviously trying to avoid an awkward silence. “Crazy, right?”

“Don’t give me that bullshit.” I muttered. “You ignored me for a year and now all of the sudden you think you can sidle back in and be my friend again? No. It’s gonna take more effort than that.”

“David, listen-”

“No, you listen! I got so lonely my parents were worried about my mental health! They sent me to a blind club because they felt like I wasn’t fraternizing with normal people enough. You hurt me, okay?”

I heard Ryan sniff slightly and realized he was crying.

“I’m sorry…. I’m so sorry…” he whispered. “I’m so stupid…”

The bus pulled up to the school and I didn’t say another word to Ryan. I’d forgive him, but not yet. He made my heart hurt like Hell.

I had my cane that day because I was in a new place, but I felt even more disabled with it in my hand. I could tell people were staring at me; it must have been overly obvious that I was blind. The first place we had to go to was the auditorium.

“Welcome, welcome, welcome,” came an overly loud microphoned voice from down below. Since sounds were a bit louder to me than to most people, I had to cover my ears. “This is high school, and the beginning of your future. This is your higher learning.”

Bla, bla, bla, bla. All I could hear was Ryan breathing next to me, slow and steady. Somehow that was louder than the speakers.

--

“If you are willing to move forward in this surgery, you must be aware of the consequences since David is a trial patient, and a young one at that,” began Dr. Merez, the woman who would be in charge of my surgery.

“What type of consequences?” ‘Dad’ sounded diplomatic, as if he was about to make a chart of when the cost outweighed the benefit.

“Well, for one, we won’t be operating on David’s eyes themselves. We’ll be working on the nerves behind the eyes, which means one slip could damage another part of the brain. Now, there’s a 90% chance this won’t happen, because our surgeons are very very skilled and this operation has been practiced many times. But we do have to warn you.”

“How much will the insurance cover? We can’t pay this big of a bill.”

“The insurance will most likely cover about 80% of it.”

“Twenty percent of $10,000 is still a lot.”

Please, Dad, don’t argue like this. I need this surgery bad and you know it. This is my only opportunity to be normal.

“...The operation will most likely be in about a year or so. We need to take preparations and you should be aware that this is a long process,” the nurse was saying.

I felt Mom squeeze my hand. “Dave, I know you want this bad. We’re gonna try our best to make sure you can see.”

I thought about what it would be like to be 3 dimensional like everyone else. It hurt to think about, so I just sat there, smiling like an idiot.

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