What You Don't See (wlw)

[6] First Day Nerves

Amy

"Ah, you must be our new students!" The receptionist said "Wait here for a minute while I go and get your pastoral manager." I heard her shuffling from behind what I assumed was a desk and out of the door to the right.

Today was mine and Dylan's official first day of school, and yeah, it would be a lie to state that I wasn't at all nervous. Knowing that I was going to have to learn my way around this massive block of buildings coupled with the obvious worry of making friends was intimidating to say the least. Plus, I had no idea how the teachers were going to deal with me - not that I was going to blame them if they did anything wrong the first time around; it's understandable that near to none of them have ever had to teach a blind student before - or how willing they were going to be to adapt to my way of doing things compared to the normal student. Dylan looped his little finger around mine, something we'd done since we were children any time we were nervous. It was safe to say he probably did it for my benefit as Dylan rarely got anxious about anything anymore, but I appreciated the gesture of unity all the same.

"Hello," A different woman's voice came out from ahead of us. It made me jump slightly, probably due to the fact that I was really starting to feel the anxiety, "you must be Amy and Dylan, is that right?"

"Yeah that's right," I replied, feeling Dylan shift slightly to signify that he nodded his head.

"Fantastic!" I could just imagine her having a massively patronising smile plastered on her face right now and I couldn't help but nearly laugh. "My name is Mrs Allwood, I just wanted to introduce myself to you as your new pastoral manager here at school, so if you ever need anything or you're facing any difficulties or struggles, know that you can always come to me." I gave a satisfied smile to show I'd understood and I knew for a fact that Dylan just thought that sentence was the most cringe thing he's every heard. "Do you guys have any questions?"

I shook my head and again feel Dylan shift, most likely doing the same. I'm usually pretty confident once I'm comfortable in a situation, but I always find starting out hard when everything feels so unknown. I was honestly surprised by how comfortable I felt with Verity the day before at the market, not knowing her or the place I was in very well at all. Something about her calmed me and instantly made me feel like I could just be myself without all the anxiety.

"Okay, great! So Dylan, here are all the things that you're going to need including your timetable and a map of the school," I heard her hand over the papers to my brother as he broke contact with my hand. "I thought you'd probably rather find your classes by yourself, but please let me know if that's not the case?"

"Nah it's all good," he replied in his usual causal manner. Dylan's weird in that he's so much more chill in public compared to when we're at home. I don't know, it felt like outside the house, he was like he embodiment of the phrase 'it is what it is', only really showing his frustrations with me or our dad.

I felt him squeeze my hand," See you later Amy," and with that, I was all alone.

"So Amy, I thought you would probably prefer and find it easier if another student showed you round for your first day?" She asked it like a question, and I nodded again; I'm pretty proficient with my cane and I'm not exactly incredibly shy, but trying to navigate all alone would be hell. "Great, I've already organised one of your classmates, well actually she volunteered herself," Mrs Allwood admitted. Volunteered sounds good, in the grand scheme of things – at least they weren't forced into it – as long as they were doing it for the right reasons, of course. "Ah she's just here now."

I heard the door to the left of me open, and immediately I was hit by a very strong wave of perfume.

"Hi, I'm Henrietta," She sounded pretty posh – similar to how Verity's mum did, but she ultimately sounded enthusiastic which wasn't bad. I silently let out a sigh of relief – this wasn't going to be so bad. "It's great to meet you!"

I turned to face her and gave a smile "I'm Amy, and it's really nice to meet you too!"

"Brilliant!" Mrs Allwood said, and I just knew she would give herself a pat on the back later for setting this whole thing up. "Okay, well I won't keep you any longer – have a great first day Amy!"

"Thank you!" I replied and then I heard another door opening and closing again – her leaving us to it. I then suddenly felt Henrietta grabbing my arm, which wasn't the nicest feeling, I won't lie.

"Hey so I read up on leading the other day, it's like this isn't it?" To be fair to her, she did put my arm in roughly the right place, but I was still pretty shocked at how she'd just grabbed me like that without saying anything.

"Err... yeah that's right, but next time could you warn me before you do it? Sorry I just, well, literally can't see it coming." I gave a small laugh at my own joke to ease some of the tension. It wasn't supposed to be critical in any way, but I knew that people like Henrietta who obviously wanted it to be perfect could take it that way.

"Oh My God, of course!" She overly pronounced the last part with her accent and then we were moving.

It didn't take too long to get to the first class and most of it was in a straight line which was handy. I counted steps without thinking, something that always seemed to happen now I'd been dependant on learning routes through number of steps for so long.

"Okay, we're at the common room now," She said, pushing the door open for us both to go through. It was clear there was a lot of people in here with the amount of noise coming from all the different conversations I could hear. "We usually just hang in here before the first lesson, and hey here are my friends Maisy and Esther!" She led me over to some chairs situated around what I presumed was a table and I sat down while the two other girls introduced themselves with equally posh accents. It suddenly occurred to me that Verity didn't have the same one.

"So, are you like completely blind?" One of the other girls – Maisy – asked me. I resisted the urge to screw my face up.

"Yeah, I have some light perception, but other than that, I can't see anything else."

"Oh my god, that's so cool! I've never actually met a properly blind person before!" Henrietta replied and fuck that was patronising. Though, come on, I'll take a compliment where I can get one – my disability is 'cool'. I just laughed it off, pretending to be shy; I wasn't really into carrying on with this topic of conversation. "Have you met anyone else here yet?"

"Oh yeah, I have actually – Verity Winters?" I knew this community was pretty tight knit, so it wasn't a stretch to assume they at least knew of her.

"Oh shit Verity, seriously?" Esther commented like this was the craziest thing she'd ever heard, "how come?"

"She's my neighbour actually," I said, matter-of-factly, attempting to figure out why this was such a big deal, "we went to the markets in town yesterday."

"Oh poor you, I'm so sorry you had to go through that," Henrietta said, completely over the top. Poor me? What was that supposed to mean? "That must have been hell!"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, I hate to say it but Verity's kind of a psycho." Masie replied, like it wasn't an incredibly derogatory thing to say about another person. Seriously who did these people think they were?

"She basically just messes everything up all the time," Henrietta confirmed "it's like she's purposely trying to humiliate herself or something. Our mothers are best friends, and the more you get to know her, the worse it gets, trust me."

"Yeah, but the worst is she's just permanently depressed!" Esther interjected "Like, yeah, I get that her dad died a few years ago, but seriously it's she's like she's trying to be edgy or something. Like, calm down Billie Eilish, it's okay to smile once in a while."

Their words made me feel sick to my stomach. I'd had a friend that suffered from depression back at my old school and, although I didn't know if Verity was the same, the ignorance that they'd just showed towards it was honestly pretty disgusting to me. I didn't want to be friends with these people - no wonder Verity was sad at school with these bullies - and I made a promise to myself that by whatever means, I'd somehow escape them. It would be pretty hard considering Henrietta would probably want to be with me at all times because she had this keen interest in the fact that I was blind, but I would figure it out. If that made me an outcast, well, so be it.