All My Trials

All My Trials: Part 7

Daniel pushes the front door of the school open for the both of us and ushers me through.
I hear another voice, and am confused for a second. My arm waves around a little to find Daniel, who takes my hand in his an places his free arm around my back, in front of my back pack.
"Hello, Miss Grigori," the voice says. "I am Mr. Kole. I am your blind helper and I'll be helping you learn Braille and learn to walk with a cane." Taking in this information, I nod. I don't think I'm going to like this guy. He sounds like he's in his late fifties and is just plain crotchety.
"Yeah, okay." Daniel leads me through the office, past all of the murmuring, screaming and shouting that is the chaos of high school, and unlocks my locker.
"How do you want to organize your locker?" He asks me gently. Obviously making his voice different from all of the others.
"Heavy books on the bottom. English to the far left, Spanish next, then Chemistry, after that Calculus." I frown. "Mostly because I'll never need to use them." Daniel strokes my hair.
"I'll read them to you." He says. I laugh.
"I'd appreciate that." I can feel his amused smile. We both know that neither one of us would want to wast time on reading a textbook straight through.
"Anything for you." I feel his presence leave my side and hear him place the heavy books on the bottom.
"I'll carry the rest." I say. "I put each tag in my binder in a different spot. I'll be able to tell what they are." Daniel closes my locker, organizes his quickly, likely just shoving everything in there, and takes my arm again.
"Where are we going first?" I ask.
"English." He replies. "Room 303." He smiles and we head off to find our first class of the day. When we enter the room, it goes from everyone shouting to the most silent silence ever to be heard. Daniel leads me to a seat and I sit down. I hear him sit down beside me and move his desk closer. He takes my hand.
"I love you, Cosette." He says. I smile an squeeze his hand.
"I love you too." I hear the door open and close as someone walks into the room.
"Hello, Mr. Kole." Daniel says. I stiffen and frown. Suddenly, I'm not such a fan of Mr. Kole. I don't want to learn Braille. Or walk with a cane. That's why I have Daniel.
Mr. Kole's voice echoes throughout the room because of the silence. "Hello..."
"Daniel."
"Daniel." Mr. Kole repeats. "What is your relation to Cosette, may I ask?" I would roll my eyes, but can't for obvious reasons.
"Boyfriend." Daniel replies. "And not leaving anytime soon." I beam, feeling every inch of my skin become warm as I blush, my happiness radiating around me like a cloud.
Mr. Kole is silent. Or nodding? I don't know.
"Cosette, will you come with me for a little? We're going to work on cane practice during homeroom." I nod, sliding out of my chair. I squeeze Daniel's hand once, then let go, following this dreadful new teacher.
Mr. Kole takes my arm and guides me to somewhere, putting something in my hands.
Long, thin, metal, cold. It doesn't feel right. It's strange. "No. What is this?"
"It's a cane." Mr. Kole says. "So you can walk without Nathaniel or whoever."
"Daniel." I all but growl at him.
He hands me something of the same making in wood. It's thicker, and almost warm. I frown and shake my head.
"No." I say. He takes it from me and hands me another one. Shorter, still thin, room-temperature, plastic. Okay. This feels okay.
I nod.
"Great." Mr. Kole says. "Place the cane about two inches in front of you." I do, thinking it's about two inches. "Good. Sweep it around. When your right foot is forward, it should be on your left side, and vise versa." I nod and do what he says, haltingly at first, then gradually faster until I can walk at a normal pace doing it, but it's tiring. My arm is sore already, and I think that I may have busted a toe when my foot hit the cane at first. I stop.
The homeroom bell rings.
"Let's get you back to class." He says. I walk out the door using my cane and Mr. Kole tells me directions back to my English classroom. It's draining, and I'm really not looking forward to the rest of the day. When I walk in the room falls silent.
"Hello, Miss Grigori." A voice says. The teacher, most likely. "I'm Miss Kandon. Please sit down."
I hear someone stand up and come over to me.
"Daniel." I breathe, my instinct telling me it's him.
"Yes." He says. He guides me to my seat and moves his desk even closer to mine. I smile and he takes my hand.
Best. Boyfriend. Ever.