To Hell & Back

I smiled again as the next memory started. My calm, simple world was about to receive its first big shock.

I was eight, maybe nine, when we settled down in a nice house, in a quiet neighborhood, and I went to school for the very first time. It was in the northern area of Texas, I think.

I looked through the car window as my father drove me to school, and the part of me that wasn’t absorbed in the memory tried hard to remember more. I recalled my father had been homeschooling me for years, but my mother decided I needed to meet children my own age and live in one place, or I would never learn to be a normal girl.

With my newly bought backpack full of school books and my stomach tied into knots, I was dropped off for my first day at school. Kids and parents were everywhere. My father pointed to the entrance and told me to go inside. Too confused and scared to do anything else, I headed towards the entrance. The girl that was to become my best friend and more walked up to me as I got there.

With her hands on her hips, she declared, “I am Sasha. We are going to be good friends!”

“Okay,” I replied uncertainly. I had no idea how friendships worked, since I hadn’t ever had one, but my father had told me to make friends.

Mission accomplished? I wondered.

“We don’t have any friends, so we’ll be friends, and then everything will be okay. Okay?” she said. I nodded my agreement. She took my hand and lead me into the school. “I don’t see too good, but that’s okay, because you don’t mind, do you?”

“No. Why?” I replied.

“Good. I can’t make any friends because of it,” she pouted, turning to me for sympathy.

“Why?” I asked, staring blankly at her.

“Because they’re mean!” she replied. “No one wants to be friends with the weird, blind kid that sucks at school.”

“I don’t understand,” I said, biting my lip in uncertainty.

She perked up immediately, beamed a smile at me, and said, “Don’t worry. We are going to be amazing friends. You don’t have any friends, right? You just got here, right? Right?”

“Right,” I replied, nodding.

“Good,” she said. She threw her arms around my neck and hugged me tightly, saying, “I can’t wait to be your friend! This will be amazing!”

“Hurray,” I whispered tentatively.

She began filling me in about herself as we walked through the school. Her vision had begun deteriorating two years ago, which had left her functionally blind to anything far away, and it was getting worse. She had five years at most before she would be completely blind, per her doctor.

Moving through the school towards our first class, we walked hand in hand. She talked while I steered, which became the norm in our relationship.

The first class was boring but easy. The math teacher wrote on the chalkboard as he rambled on in the most uninspiring and sleep-inducing voice I had ever heard. When I got tired of seeing Sasha squinting up at the chalkboard, trying in vain to keep up, I pulled her chair over next to mine and began to teach her myself.

She was terrible at school, just as she had said earlier. She seemed smart enough, but I realized as time went on that she just didn’t care in the slightest about her studies.

Halfway through the class, as we were sitting in the back working on the math problem the teacher had on the chalkboard, he noticed us talking. He said very loudly and very sternly, “You two, what are you doing? No talking!”

Sasha jumped and tried to apologize, but I just shrugged and said, “I’m teaching her how to solve the problem.”

“You are supposed to be learning the lesson from me,” he replied indignantly. “Both of you are. There is no talking allowed unless I say so and I haven’t said so!”

“I don’t need your help and she can’t see the chalkboard. How is she supposed to follow along?” I asked, rolling my eyes.

“Well, maybe you both can learn something by seeing the principal. You know the way, don’t you, Miss Cunningham? Dismissed!”

Sasha groaned and stood up, grabbing her books as she did. I got the feeling this wasn’t very new to her. I would have argued with the man, but his rambling was making it hard to help Sasha, so I just followed Sasha out of the room.

When we got to a door with “Principal” on it, Sasha sat down on a chair next to it and cleared off a seat so I could sit down too. I walked past her and knocked on the door.

“Haven’t got all day,” I muttered, annoyed.

“Staysa, we’re supposed to wait!” Sasha exclaimed.

“There aren’t any tables out here. Where are we supposed to set our books down?” I asked her, pounding on the door. “Hey, open up! Stop wasting my damn time!”

“Staysa!” Sasha exclaimed. She put her face in her hands and said, “Oh-my-God-oh-my-God! Mom is going to kill meee…”

After knocking two more times, a man opened the door and said, “Yes?”

“Our teacher sent us to learn something from the principal,” I informed him. “But I would rather just have a table so I can read by myself.”

The man opened his mouth to say something, but a voice from behind him called out, “Let her in, I want to hear this.”

I took Sasha by the wrist and pulled her past the man and into the office. I peered around once inside and asked, “Where are the tables and desks?”

“Miss, this is my office,” said a big man sitting behind a cluttered desk. “Why are you here again?”

“I’m not here again. I’ve only been here just the one time,” I said, confused.

“No, I mean… Never mind that,” he said and I nodded.

Before he could continue, I asked him, “Can we use some of your desk?”

He stared at me for a moment, exchanged looks with the other man, stared at me a few more moments before he finally shrugged and said to the other man, “You heard the little lady, clear some space off for her.”

I don’t know what he was supposed to teach us, but from then until we graduated, I studied math with Sasha in his office. He never helped us, other than to make sure we had room to work in. I liked him.