The Blind Boy [✔]

1.

Their meeting is entirely coincidental, but if some higher power had planned it, it definitely could've gone better.

Ash, with her mess of short brunette hair, is wandering around her high school like a mouse in a maze. It isn't her fault. Truly.

This high school is much more complicated than her last one, with rooms being labeled as letters instead of numbers, (seriously, whose idea had that been?) and the lady at the front desk hadn't been helpful in the least at explaining the school's dysfunctional layout.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

There are only a few more students left milling around the hallways and that's when Ash realizes with a twinge of anxiety that she's going to be late to first period. On her first day. Ash can only hope her first teacher (Mr. Banks, she thinks his name is) will take pity on her confused soul.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

Ash ignores the noise for the most part, too distracted and overwhelmed to really take the rhythmic sound into any kind of consideration. Her eyes drop downwards to analyze the schedule, the location of her first class practically taunting her.

She recoils rather sharply, noticing that she's made a wrong turn into a different hallway, and instantaneously collides with someone.

The tapping noise ceases, much to Ash's immense relief, but the same said person goes tumbling to the floor. The few teens still milling around Ash go still and she grimaces, bracing for impact as she too tumbles to her knees.

The boy's books slide across the floor in all different directions. He's wearing sunglasses, Ash notices, dark rimmed ones. 

She can't decide if his hair is blonde or brown. Blonde, she decides, after a moment's hesitation. An amber blonde. A honey-blonde. He's tan, unlike Ash's pale complexion, (she practically looks sickly sometimes) and his curly hair is slicked back. 

The students remaining gawk at Ash, downright horrified. That's when Ash realizes that she's made some tactical error and must've knocked over the captain of the football team or something.

Great, great, fuck, great, she thinks, her thoughts an endless stream of self-depreciation and profanities. I knew I should've stayed in bed today.

"I can't believe she did that," a girl mutters. Accident, Ash wants to snipe at her, because it had been. Judging by everyone's exaggerated stares and gasps, they all thought she did that on purpose.

A boy behind her guffaws as a pair of students step around them. "Think he'll murder her?"

Perhaps the shock was them waiting for the boy's reaction. She's not sure really, but that comment didn't exactly incite hope for her.

The fallen boy's hand is on the back of his head, as if he'd knocked it against the floor, and the guilt and embarrassment in Ash's stomach intensifies.

"Are you okay?" she asks worriedly, holding out her hand to him. Recluse nature aside, she is nothing if not chivalrous.

Oddly enough, he doesn't take it. Ash awkwardly retracts her hand back, holding it numbly at her side. Her mind scrambles for what to do, coming up with (as usual) absolutely nothing. He feels around on the floor for something, like he can't see, as if he were -

Oh.

If she hadn't been blushing before, her face now explodes in red coloring. She can feel it spreading to even the tips of her ears and knows that everyone can now see tangible evidence of her humiliation.

The revelation of the boy being visually impaired rolls over Ash in a cold wave, and that seems to kick start her out of whatever embarrassed state she had been stuck in.

"I'm so sorry," Ash squeaks out and the boy grunts in reply, as if realizing she finally got it. Ash scrambles on the floor to pick up his books for him, much of them similar to her own, deciding she'd get her books after.

Does he even want me to pick them up? Is this considered rude? She's not sure what to do or what to think. Her life is not necessarily uneventful, but she's never met a blind person before. She doesn't want to make the situation worse by doing something she shouldn't. 

The people that are still standing around stare intensely, but they don't help either, much to Ash's distress. None of them come to her rescue, leaving her fumbling around like a complete idiot on the floor.

In the very least, at least the boy can't see her idiocy. Ash's ex-foster brother Robb always told her she was a walking mess, and even though she fervently denies that, in this situation she definitely agrees with his newly astute assessment.

She finds his white cane too, clutching onto the hilt of it hesitantly. That tap, tap, tap sound was his... ah. She lingers near him hesitantly until he manages to pick himself up, nudging his cane against his knuckles until he takes it from her. Her knees feel weak as she then slides his books into his outstretched arms.

Much to Ash's relief, the crowd is beginning to disperse with the sound of the bell.

"I'm so sorry," she repeats stupidly. "I didn't mean to -"

Her breath catches in her throat when she realizes how close he is. He's much taller than Ash, looming over her small form, and she smiles weakly at his expression. He doesn't look particularly menacing, just rattled. 

That is, until his thin lips twist into a nasty frown.

He throws Ash a glower, and although she can't see his eyes through the thick lenses, she just knows they're cold and unforgiving. "Watch where you're going next time, huh?"

He pushes past her, barreling into Ash's shoulder, (okay, that was definitely on purpose) and Ash's cheeks flush further, this time out of anger instead of chagrin.

"Prick," she hisses. The anger wins out against any abashment she should have. 

He freezes, stopping in place. He turns back, meeting the direction where Ash's gaze would've been, but she doesn't let her scowl lift. Blind or not, disabled or not, there's no reason to be cruel.

Admittedly, she had knocked him over, but it was an accident. It's not as if she shoved him intentionally, which is more that can be said for him.

"Careful," he warns, tone flat, jaw hard. Her own frown deepens. She refuses to move or even lift her eyes away from him until the 'tap, tap, tap' continues.

Ash watches him leave. He walks with confidence, head high, as if the 'tap, tap, tap' is completely unnecessary. 

She stands there, stunned, self-conscious, and irritated until silence replaces the sound of his cane. 

The second bell sounds. She flinches at the reverberating, intrusive sound. 

Oh, right. Class. School.

Ash, accepting defeat, finally decides to head back to the office lady that wears too much pink, hoping that this time the woman will give her better directions.