Kill Switch by Penelope Douglas

Winter
Seven Years Ago
“So you could probably just be homeschooled, huh?” Erika—
or, Rika—asked as we treaded down the school hallway
slowly.
She led me as I held onto her arm, just above her elbow.
“The textbooks are on audio,” she went on. “And then the
teacher sends you the lecture notes, and the computer reads
them for you, so…”
“Yeah, my parents would prefer it,” I admitted. “Actually,
they would’ve preferred if I’d stayed in Montreal. But I need
to learn how to be around people.”
I’d been attending and living at Penoir, a school for the
blind in Canada for over five years now, and while I enjoyed it
there, comfortable around others who had to live life like I did,
I wanted to come home. I wanted to learn to live here again
and cope with being who I was now in an average
environment. I missed the smell of the sea around our house
and the ballroom at home where I always danced.
It was for my own good, too. I wanted to do more ballet
and start regular classes again, maybe shoot for something
professionally with the support of my family around me.