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
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?”
“
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.
Cheyenne hoped it wasn’t really obvious that she was crying again. At the same time, she didn’t want to stop talking, not when Griffin seemed interested. She wanted to bind him to her with gauzy ropes of words. She took a deep breath and said, “But a dog’s not just a machine. You don’t work your dog when you’re at home. A dog needs time to just be a dog. How about that dog you’ve got outside? When is it ever just a dog?”
“Duke?” Griffin let out a surprised laugh. “Duke’s not a dog. Not really.” He snorted again, as if the idea was ridiculous. Then he asked, “So how does your dog know where to take you?”
Cheyenne shook her head. “He doesn’t. It’s not like Phantom’s a cab driver. I can’t say ‘McDonald’s, please’ and have him take me there. I do half the work. I need to have a map inside my head of all the streets we’ll cross and tell him when to make all the turns. When I get to an intersection, I’m the one who has to decide whether the light is red or green just by listening. To a dog, red, green, and yellow look the same. Then when I reach the right block, I have to listen or feel for clues to help me find the building I want. I’m the navigator. Phantom is the one who makes sure I can walk there without running into anything or being run over.”
“Wait — you just get to a street and then listen to see if the cars are stopped? That sounds kind of dangerous. What happens if you tell Phantom to go but a car’s coming?”
“Your dog is trained to judge whether your command is safe,” Cheyenne said. “It’s called intelligent disobedience.”
A BIG MISTAKE
“Intelligent disobedience, huh?” Griffin echoed. He liked the way it sounded. Whenever he didn’t do what somebody wanted, they always assumed he was making a big mistake.
“What’s funny is that when Phantom doesn’t do something I tell him to, I still get annoyed,” Cheyenne said, “like he’s being stupid. And then I figure out that he’s right.” She drank her orange juice in one long gulp and then wiped the back of her mouth with her hand. She had already gobbled the crackers.
Belatedly, Griffin realized she must be hungry. “Would you like some lunch?”
She nodded. “Sure. That would be great.”
“I’ll go see what I can find.” He got up, already mentally rummaging through the kitchen. There was some ramen in the cupboard and maybe some peas in the freezer. And he could cut up some hot dogs and put them in, too. He would break up the noodles so they wouldn’t be too messy when Cheyenne ate them. He thought he would tell her how ramen was kind of like stone soup, because it was only good when you added a bunch of stuff to it. And maybe she would laugh, or at least smile.
While Griffin was digging through the fridge, looking for eggs, TJ came in. “You making something to eat?”
“For our guest.”
“Got enough for TJ?”
Griffin didn’t like to say yes about anything to TJ, but he couldn’t think of a good reason to say no. He nodded. As TJ went down the hall to the bathroom, Griffin took the pan off the heat and added more water so that the food would stretch further. It was only as he was slicing the hot dogs over the pan that his brain translated the sounds he had heard. It hadn’t been the door to the bathroom that had opened. It had been the door to his own bedroom.
TJ was alone with Cheyenne.
Griffin dropped the hot dog as well as the knife, although later he thought about how he should have taken it. He ran down the hall and flung open the bedroom door.
TJ was leaning over Cheyenne. Her back was against the wall, her knees drawn up against her chest, making a barrier between them. Her eyes were narrowed in concentration, and her lips were pulled back from her teeth, like a dog silently snarling. TJ had one knee on the bed and both of her wrists in one fist, pinioning her to the wall. And he was trying to take off Cheyenne’s coat with the other hand.
With a roar, Griffin launched himself forward. His fist landed on the side of TJ’s head.
