Ray ||l.h.||

0.2

By lunch Luke had successfully taken her to two other classes, math, which they had together, then art, which he made jokes about her having. She really ended up being a model for most things in class or just channeling her inner Jackson Pollock and using the splatter technique for assignments.

He had dropped her off and told her that he would be back to pick her up as soon as the bell rings, and that she didn't even need to get up and wait for him outside of the classroom when class was over. Luke was alarmingly on time and gently grasping her arm, announcing himself with a voice just as soft as his grip.

Ray thought to herself that she was already able to differentiate Luke's touch from Ashton's. Ashton holds her tighter than Luke, not roughly, but more like a best friend would, like he's known her long enough to know she isn't fragile.

Luke, though Ray thinks he would hold her like this anyhow, based on the day so far, touches her like she's a house of cards. He only further confirms this by gingerly placing a hand on her waist and moving her out of someone's way.

"So, were you born... you know," Luke asks once they've sat down with their--really just his, since Ray decided she could wait until she got home to eat--lunch. He decided during math class that he'd ask probably invasive questions somewhere they could actually talk, and not get yelled at for it.

Ray assumes he thinks the word blind is reserved for said people. Or that she doesn't remember not having sight and if he said it that she would be thrust back into the reality that, yes, she is blind, she cannot see. Whatever the reason, she finds it oddly cute how he's careful with his words, though he has no reason to be.

"Nope," she takes off her sunglasses and turns to her left with her eyebrows raised. "My cousins and I were messing around at my auntie's house with some spray paint when I was, like, nine." She obviously can't see, but she has a feeling he's staring at her eyes, which he is.

While he's transfixed with her pale eyes, she continues in her head. "And we moved further away from them by the time I was ten, then I met Ashton when I was eleven."

She figures those details aren't important, nor did he ask for them, so she keeps them to herself. Especially since those factoids lead to her thinking about how if she'd been blinded two years later than she had, she might have been able to see her best friend, and all of that should stay in her mind and out of a stranger's ear.

Luke curses to himself then flounders for a recovery, "Um, wow."

Ray finds herself chuckling at his response as she puts her glasses back on. She doesn't know what she expected him to say, but clearly it wasn't that. It was a fairly normal reaction, though, she supposes.

"Have you tried to get any surgery?" Luke asks, a bit of wonder still caught in his throat, which he clears as soon as he gets his sentence out.

Everyone wonders the same thing, and it's not that she has a problem with it, but if she still can't see, what makes them think she got any surgery worth talking about? She can't blame Luke for being curious, though, considering they just met a couple of hours ago.

"I've actually been on the waiting list for a little while, but it should be my turn soon." Ray replies, twiddling her thumbs on the tabletop. Luke scrunches up his eyebrows as he sips from his water bottle.

"What, you're not excited?" He questions once he swallows the water. Luke makes a face at the fact that the water tastes vaguely of plastic, as if the bottle had been chilled, then left out in the sun for a few hours, then chilled again, and at Ray's lack of enthusiasm.

She shrugs and taps her fingernails on the table. "I don't know, I just don't think it's gonna work." Ray shrugs again, and Luke gives her a sympathetic smile that she might never be able to see.