Marching in the Dark

Chapter Three

My first day back at school started as pure misery.

My cane was of no use in such a large crowd, so I folded it up and laid it on top of my pile of books. Harmony came to pick me up last, and had Fate come to the door to lead me to the car.

It was disorienting to ride in a car without being able to see. Every turn came as a surprise, and where usually I would have been prepared for them, instead, I toppled over time and time again. I laughed when it happened, but truly, it made me want to tell Harmony to turn around and take me home.

When we finally got parked in the gravel parking lot outside the band room, I gathered my things and followed my friends inside. It wasn’t difficult since there was no one else around, and I knew this short area of the school almost as well as I knew my own home. I’d spent so much time here since I had first made this walk way back in the sixth grade that I had no trouble.

When I got into the band room, however, I found peril in every direction. The chairs, the drums, the lockers; I must have thoroughly bruised myself by the time I finally made it to my locker and found another problem; I couldn’t see the lock. The day hadn’t even truly begun yet, and I was ready to claw my way back to the natural darkness that would take my troubles away from me, to dreams of times when I could still see, times when I was still normal.

“Here,” Addie says, shifting me slightly to the side so that she could get to my lock. She’d long since learned the combination; I’d been using the same lock since the ninth grade, and there had been many times when she’d had to borrow it, or when I’d had troubles opening it. Whenever it got to the point that I was frustrated and angry at the poor, inanimate lock, Addie would come over and help me.

I heard the click as the lock opened, then the familiar sounds of her moving lock away and sliding the bar that held the locker shut open. I stepped forward and put my now-useless music folders inside, quickly followed by my flute and piccolo. I wasn’t sure if I was going to need them, but I’d been doing a ritual at least similar to this one every day since the sixth grade. I was in the eleventh grade now. Do the math.

After everyone finished at their lockers, we gathered in a group at the door, as we always had, and headed out into the cold. I know that February in Alabama is nothing compared to how cold it is in places higher north—I’d been to Chicago in March once on a band trip—but it was freezing to my Southern self. I wished I could put my hands in my pockets, but I had to use one to hold my books, and the other to grip Addie’s elbow.

She was completely preoccupied with her boyfriend, Robbie O’Connor. They’d been dating for three years now, and it used to make me feel sick to be near them. They were so cheesy, it was puke-worthy. Now, I was so used to it, so it was easy to ignore.

It was completely disorienting to walk over the grass to get onto the track. The entrance to the school was, oddly enough, inside the football stadium. I stumbled through a hole, only barely keeping my grip on Addie’s elbow, and kept going.

When my feet hit the pavement of the track that surrounded the football field, I once again wanted to cry. I had to pass this particular section of the track on my way the field for the halftime show, and had for five years now. But I never would again. Maybe, I thought, I could at least stand with the pit and play. Then, at least I could still be a part of the band.

It hardly made me feel better, but it gave me the tiniest spark of hope for the first time since the accident. Maybe I could still be in the band. It couldn’t be like it used to be, but I could at least play, even if I couldn’t march.

By that time, we’d reached the crowd of my peers that was waiting just outside the doors to the school. A hush fell over them as we approached, and I knew that it was because of me. I was sure that, by now, I was the talk of the school. Not everyone knew me personally, of course. I wasn’t popular in any sense. I mostly stuck with my little group of friends, and could even be called shy around other people.