Kill Switch by Penelope Douglas

“If I need to go anywhere, someone helps me,” I told him.
“My parents don’t like me to draw attention to myself.”
They thought people would stare at me. I wasn’t the only
visually impaired person in town, but I was pretty sure I was
the only full-on blind one, and I knew their fears without even
asking. And they were right. It made people uncomfortable.
I’d been through enough awkward conversations to know
when someone just wanted to be away from me, because they
didn’t know how to act around me.
The part they were wrong about was that they thought the
world was still the same for me, and I should learn how to
navigate it the same way I did before. I couldn’t. People might
be uncomfortable, but they would get used to it. They would
change. It was a source of resentment that my parents thought
that no one should be inconvenienced, and it was my
responsibility not to be a burden to others.
It was my world, too.
“You could never not draw attention,” he finally said.
“And it has nothing to do with you being blind.”
The way he said it—gentle and thoughtful—made heat rise
to my cheeks, and I didn’t know if he meant my dancing or if I
was pretty, but I smiled to myself, suddenly warm all over.
I didn’t have time to ask him to clarify, though, because
the next thing I knew he was in front of me, reaching back,
grabbing my thighs, and hefting me up onto his back. I sucked
in a breath, my feet lifting off the ground, and I hurriedly
circled my arms around his neck so I wouldn’t fall.
“I can walk faster,” I told him. “I can. I didn’t mean—”
“Shut up and hold me tight.”
Okayyyy. I locked my arms around his neck.
“Tighter,” he bit out. “Like in the closet the other night.”
I smirked but he couldn’t see it. I tightened my arms
around his neck, tucking my head close with my cheek next to
his. I’d tried not to think about my parents’ fight that night, but
I couldn’t not think about him. How his arms, heat, and pulse