Kill Switch by Penelope Douglas

Ari was probably the one who stuffed me in the damn locker
room in the first place. Or she had her friends do it. How else
did she know where I was?
She was probably just pissed when I didn’t make it back
out right away and she had to go in there and fetch me. Were
she and Damon friendly?
They were in the same grade, but I had no idea if they
hung in the same circles. My parents would’ve advised her to
stay away from him, but it wasn’t like she would listen unless
she wanted to. I had absolutely no idea what he was like
anymore or about my sister’s life at this school. The former I
couldn’t admit I wanted to inquire about over the years, and
the other, I really didn’t care. My sister and I had been
struggling through our growing pains for about ten years now,
and I wasn’t sure why. There just seemed to be a layer to her I
couldn’t crack, and we didn’t have much in common, either.
Especially not anymore. She’d gotten used to life as an only
child while I was away and obviously liked it.
“GGod, he’s looking at her,” Claudia, one of Rika’s friends,
said across from me as we sat in the lunchroom.
I perked my ears, an earbud still stuck in one as I halflistened
to music and half-listened to the conversation. I didn’t
want to be rude, and I should’ve been concerned with making
friends on my first day, but after the locker room debacle, I
needed to recharge for a few minutes.
“Who?” Rika asked.
But no one answered her—at least not verbally. It was
times like this when I realized how aware people were of my
disability. Answering with nods or body gestures I couldn’t
see.
My disability.
I hated that word.
But it was what it was, and people, without meaning any
harm, used it to their advantage. They could communicate