Girl, Stolen(36)

In a more normal voice, he asked, “So how do you get to school? In a limo?”

“Are you kidding? Danielle usually takes me. My dad might make a lot of money, but he doesn’t flaunt it. He’s not one of those gross balding guys who drives a Hummer so he can feel more like a real man.” She decided not to mention the housekeeper and the cook. She wanted Griffin to continue to think they had things in common.

“On TV, your dad said you have a guide dog. Do you use your dog or a cane to get places?”

The thought of Phantom and her ruined cane made Cheyenne’s head feel liquid again. She wouldn’t cry. “Mostly I take Phantom, but I took my cane yesterday because my stepmom thought it would be easier.”

“Is it weird being towed around by a dog? Can you really trust it?” From the way he said it, Cheyenne wondered how many things Griffin trusted.

“I’ve only had Phantom three months, but it feels like forever. I wish it had been forever, but you can’t get a guide dog until you’re sixteen.” She thought of how she had woken the first morning after she got Phantom to find his head draped across her neck. At that moment, Cheyenne had known they belonged together. “And I totally trust him. He watches out for anything that might hurt me – curbs, low-hanging branches, skateboarders, telephone poles, holes in the sidewalk. Once he even saved my life.”

Griffin touched her knee. “What happened?”

“I was crossing at an intersection when this car turned right without even stopping. Phantom threw himself against my legs and pushed me until I stepped back.” Cheyenne remembered the screech of skidding tires, the rush of air as a car whizzed by so close that the fender must have ruffled Phantom’s fur. Other drivers had honked and yelled, but the car never stopped. “If Phantom hadn’t pushed me out of the way, we would both probably have been killed. And if I had just had my cane, I definitely would have been killed.”

“So using a dog is better than using a cane?”

“Everything is better with a guide dog. The difference between having a dog and a cane is astronomical. Before, it was like I was invisible. Now people talk to me. They tell me how smart Phantom is, even if he’s just lying down. They tell me stories about their dogs. They want to pet him. Sometimes I have to be kind of snippy, you know, ‘My dog is working.’ But the biggest difference is just in getting around. Now I zip through people and it’s smooth. Phantom is so good that I can walk down the hall at school and never even rub shoulders with anyone else.”

When Cheyenne had first gone back to school, with only her cane to guide her, it had been so hard. Except for Kenzie and Sadie, most of her friends had hung back as if Cheyenne was a different person, someone they didn’t even know.

The thing was, they were right. Before the accident, Cheyenne had been outgoing. She sang to herself, chattered, laughed, called out to everyone she saw in the halls. After the accident, she quieted down. It was more than just sadness. Without her sight, her ears were her connection to other human beings. Blindness took away the nonverbal cues that let her know whether someone else was tired, sad, happy, or worried. If she listened closely, she could still pick these emotions up in voices. But as a result, her own voice was muted.

The rehab center had corridors just wide enough for two people to pass each other. At Catlin Gabel, the walls seemed like they were miles apart. If it was crowded, she was forced to walk in the middle of the hall, without the security of a wall. The worst part were the breaks between classes, when she had only a few minutes to get to the next room. If she was hurrying and ran into someone, it embarrassed them, which meant it totally embarrassed Cheyenne.

Then once she was in the right classroom – and before she got Phantom, she could never be completely sure that she was – she had to find her chair with a minimum of bumping. Wondering who the boys were on either side. Who was watching her. If they were laughing. She wanted to be cool and graceful, but instead she felt clumsy and sweaty. Now with Phantom, Cheyenne walked with poise and speed. He had returned her body to her.

Just thinking about Phantom made Cheyenne’s eyes sting with tears. She loved the soft fur of his ears, his long, slender muzzle, even the sound of his toenails on the floor. Phantom tried to keep quiet when he was getting into mischief, because he had figured out that Cheyenne couldn’t see him. When he was thirsty, he scraped his bowl along the floor to let her know. When he wanted a treat, he barked and put his paws on the counter. And when he was tired, he curled up under Cheyenne’s desk or inside the empty fireplace, even in the shower stall.