“Nothing,” I said again. “I don’t see. The sense doesn’t exist.”
“Psychedelic,” she cooed her approval.
I chuckled. It was hard for people to wrap their heads around it. When seeing people couldn’t see, it was because their eyes were covered. That’s what they assumed it was like for me. My eyes were just closed to them.
Whereas in reality, I didn’t have eyes at all. But my body did still perform the same involuntary actions: blinking, crying…
“That’s a mighty cute uniform you got on,” Miles said as he drove.
Astrid didn’t respond, so I guessed he was talking to me.
“Thanks,” I muttered.
His tone was loaded, and instinctively, I pulled down my skirt as far as it would reach, suddenly feeling like it was too short.
“You know where I live, right?”
She didn’t say anything, and he just laughed quietly.
I clutched my phone in my hand, thumbing the power button.
Cool metal touched my hand, and I jerked.
“Try some,” Astrid said, handing me something.
I took it, turning the palm-sized object in my hand and hearing the liquid inside swish.
“No, thanks.” I handed it back at her.
I could still hear my mother’s words when I was like twelve. She educated me really early. Don’t ever drink an alcoholic drink you didn’t make or open yourself.
She told Ari the same thing, but she knew I was at a bigger risk of being victimized. Someone could slip anything in my drink, and do it right in front of me, without my knowing.
But Astrid just took the flask back, whining, “Party pooper.”
I was about to say ‘thank you anyway’, but we turned and gravel crunched underneath the tires. I immediately narrowed my eyes, on alert. There were no gravel roads on the way to my house.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
But neither of them answered.
Suspicion twisted in my gut. I couldn’t be thrown into a locker room out here, but they could find lots of ways to prank me.
“Is that car still following?” Astrid asked.
“They turned off just as we did. Some road behind us,” he answered.
“Cool.”
“What’s going on?” I demanded.
“We want to show you something,” Astrid replied.
“I just want to go home.”
The car jostled on the pot holes, and I bounced, hitting my head on the roof.
“Ouch,” I hissed.