Knowing You're There

Chapter 5

I let out a long sigh when I heard him lean against the lockers.  It was bad enough that I’d have to see him every day in LRA, and now he was following me around.  It figures—a guy is finally into me and he’s a total creep. 

“Can I help you?”  I asked over the noise of the busy hallway. 

“Well you said you’d help me,” he said.  “There’s a ton of busses outside, and I was wondering if you had any idea where mine might be located so I don’t have to look all the way down the line.” 

“What bus are you on?” 

“Sixty-nine.” 

My lips parted into a smile with his.  At that moment, I was starting to wonder why I wasn’t giving the guy a chance.  The world would be boring without a few strange people here or there. 

“So I wasn’t expecting to see you in LRA,” I said, feeling for my history textbook.  “What’s wrong with you?” 

 “I have Aspergers.  You?”

I crossed my arms and cocked my head to the side.  “Really?” 

I heard him slip his hands into his coat pockets.  “At first I honestly thought you were just wearing sunglasses and walking around with a dog.” 

“Yeah, yeah.  I’ve heard that before.  The sympathetic ‘you’re really good at being blind’ façade,” I said.  “You should’ve seen me this morning when I punched this guy in the belt buckle instead of the gut.” 

“I’m not going to ask why, but that sounds kind of painful.”  He paused, readjusting his backpack.  “I was going to ask about those bruises on your fingers.” 

“Oh, they’re bruised.  That’s great.  That’s just great.”  I felt the top of them and grabbed my history book. 

“I don’t want to sound like an idiot, but that’s Braille, right?” he asked. 

“I refer to them as my ‘reading bumps,’ but yes, it’s Braille.” 

“That’s really cool.  Was it hard to learn?” 

“To be honest,” I said, placing the book in my backpack.  “I learned before I went into kindergarten, so I don’t really remember learning all too well.” 

“Was it kind of like reading?  Where you don’t know anything, then you get some words, and you just start to know it over time?” 

For some reason, I smiled.  No one ever really understood me when it came to certain things.  It just felt so weird to have Kurt, who I barely knew, understand how I managed to figure out Braille. 

“Yeah, it was.”  I zipped my backpack and threw it over my shoulder. “Seriously though, what bus are you on?”