Blinded By Love - Rebecca K. (bill gates books recommendations .TXT) 📗

Love may be blind. But the blind judge based off of personality. Not appearance. Remember that. Because if love is blind, and the blind judge based off of personality, then love should always be judged on a person's personality. Never their appearance...

Prologue
Have you ever found somebody that you just connect with? And no matter what you say you can't seem to find anything to break that connection? That happened to me the day my best friend introduced me to a boy from her school. She's visually impaired, but that didn't faze me. When she wanted me to go out on a blind date (no pun intended) with this boy though, I was wary. I didn't know if there was something that I should or shouldn't do. However, after that first date, we realized something. We actually understood each other. On not just a personality level. But on an emotional and psychological level. That first date was what changed my life for ever.

Chapter One

I realized the day that I met Jessica Smith my life was going to change for ever. I was taking piano lessons at the local rec center and one day she walks in. I was only about ten at the time so I didn't under stand a lot about visually impaired persons. Or how they led their lives and such. So, when I was waiting for my teacher to get there, she walks in. She had, what I learned after some what rudely asking, a cane. I was ten so don't get me wrong. When I saw this girl wander in swinging this thing back and forth I thought it was some sort of a toy. Although I had never seen one before. Wary of what to do I watched her make her way up to the desk and hit the bell to summon the secretary. After about five minutes she turned around cocking her head to the side.

"Hello? I know there's somebody in here. I can hear you breathing." She said this so matter of factly that I almost screamed right there. Instead though I took a deep breath.

"Yes. There's somebody here. What's that stick thing, and why do you have sun glasses on when we're inside?"
To her credit she didn't fly off the handle. She actually grinned a little. "First of all, it's not a stick. It's called a cane. And I have sun glasses on all the time. Haven't you seen me on the streets or anything?" I reached back into my memory to see if I could recall any images of her but none came to mind.

"No. I haven't. So why do you have that? Is it like a toy or something?" At this point I was starting to slowly make my way across the room.

"No, it's not a toy. It helps me to not run into things. I'm visually impaired." Those last two words stopped me in my tracks.

"Vis-a what now? I'm ten for pete's sake. Use English." She stopped for a second to stop her self from laughing.
"I'm blind. Do you know what means?"

I thought for a minute. I had heard the term used before. But I had yet to learn what it meant. "Nope. Not a clue."

"It means I can't see. I was born not being able to see." She slid her glasses off of her face so I could see her eyes. "And this is why I always have my sun glasses on. My eyes freak people out if they don't know what's wrong with me."

I stopped for a second completely captivated. Her eyes were the most icy shade of blue I had ever seen. Not  knowing what to say, I instead slowly turned back to my piano.

"That's okay. Not many people know how to respond when I tell them I'm blind. Most of them at least know what visually impaired means though. But like you said. You're only ten. I'm ten too, but I've had to learn all this stuff since I was really little. Do you know what Braille is?"

Now that I did know. It had been a vocabulary word just last week in reading. "Yup. It's where you use those little bump things to read."

"Yes. But it's more complicated than that. Maybe you can come over to my house and I'll show you how it works. Here, give me a piece of paper and a pen and I'll write down my number. Call me today after four, and ask for Jess. My mom will answer. Her name's Melissa. But on the off chance that my dad answers his name is Drew."

"Okay. I'll do that. Oh, my mom's here. I guess I'll talk to you later. Bye."

"Bye. Have a nice day..."

"Rachelle. That's my name, but Everybody just calls me Rach."

"Okay. Have a nice day Rachelle. I'll find something more original than Rach later to call you. Bye."

"Bye."

It was after that day that I knew I had finally found a real friend. We started hanging out more and more. Eventually she started to feel comfortable enough to invite me over to her house. I really couldn't understand what the big deal was at first. But after spending about ten minutes with her parents I understood. They were incredibly over protective of Jess. If she just barely stumbled into a wall her mother would make a big deal out of it and do a top to bottom evaluation of her to make sure that she was okay.

I spent most of the time in her room. Afraid that if I ventured out into their living room I would get stared out and scrutinized by her mother. Her brother was a little weird too. He'd watch me everywhere I went. I asked Jess why he did that one day and she said it's because he's worried about me. I asked her why and she said she didn't know. He wouldn't say.

I had never had any big problems with Jess. Sure there were a couple times where her eyes made things complicated. But she had never done anything to actually make me very angry. Up until one day after school we were talking on the phone.

That incident changed my life for ever. But I'm glad she did it. Even if for about a year I was really messed up about where my life was going.


Chapter Two

"You did what?" I was on the phone with Jess one Saturday morning. She was telling me about her week at school. There was a new VI guy in her classes. Unfortunately, she couldn't just tell me this. She informed me that she had told this dude that she had a cute friend who was single. Of course the guy could care less if I was cute. He liked how she described my personality though. He liked it even better when Jess suggested that we meet.

"I told you. This kid, I think his name was like Sterling or something like that, wants to meet you. He lives in the next town over so I figured you and I could drive up there today and get him. Come on, Zippy, it'll be fun." I knew right then that she really wanted me to meet this kid. She only called me Zippy when she really wanted something. That was how I had gotten the nick name. She had wanted to get to her house really fast so that her mom wouldn't have a freak out and my driving was what got us there in time. Almost got me a speeding ticket, but still. Now I have a nickname to show for my abilities and I don't allow anybody else to call me Zippy, Zip, or anything that might sound like it came from the name.

"Okay. But for the moment I'm only meeting him."

"Uhh... Yeah, about that..."

"Oh, no Jess! You didn't! I am not going on a blind date, no pun intended or anything, with a visually impaired guy. I wouldn't know what to do. Or how to act."

"Just act like you do with me. Except with him you're going to hold his arm instead of the other way around for sided guide so it doesn't look weird."

"Really? But like, what if he has to use the rest room or something? I think it would look weird if I took him all the way there and then back to the table."

"Don't worry. I'm putting you guys in a restaurant that he goes to every day after school. He knows the owner, and so the owner knows that he's blind. Just be your self. And he even said if you wanted to you could ask him questions about his eye sight. It's a way different case than mine. I was born with mine. He wasn't."
That stopped me in my tracks. I knew there were plenty of kids at her school that hadn't been born with it. They had gotten into accidents and stuff. But the way she said it made it sound like something bad had happened. Something really bad.

"Okay. I'll go. But you have to promise me that you're going to stick around."

"Sorry Zip, but I've got to go by the book store. My order of Braille paper came in and I have to get it. I promise as soon as I'm done I'll come by and see how you guys are doing. Okay?"

"Fine. Now the only question is whether I can get my parents to let me go or not."

My parents were incredibly strict. Like, more strict than you would have thought possible. If I even stepped outside for a couple of seconds with out letting them know they interrogated me for a half an hour wanting to know where I've been and what I've been doing. They didn't act like that with any of my siblings. Just me. After a while I got used to it. That and the constant arguing in my house. Not everybody else with each other, but me with everybody else. My parents made it seem like it was my job to make sure they didn't kill anybody, or eachother for that matter. And they always asked me to do stuff the others were fully capable of doing. One day I lost it. I blew up at my mom. Her response was to slap me across the face and send me to my room.

After that I withdrew from them as much as possible. Even if they asked me what was wrong I'd ignore them. They stopped after one day I actually told them what was wrong. That's because what came out of my mouth was a string of cuss words and a whole lot of things that were wrong with my life. At home I was treated like shit. Nobody even acted like they cared about what happened to me. Or whether what they said was going to hurt my feelings or not.

At school it was even worse. I got bullied by everybody every single day. I had no friends there. I had given up trying to socialize with anybody after one day in the cafeteria when I sat down at a table and was immediately hit by a rainstorm of garbage. The teachers knew that I had it rough at school. But they didn't really do anything to try and help me. They just made sure to seclude me in class and there was always a door unlocked during lunch so I wouldn't have to be stuck in a room full of people that tormented me.

Why they tortured me is still unknown to me. But as long as I don't have to watch anybody else suffer through it as long as I live I'm okay with it. It helped make me a stronger person. I have the stories to