blind · shy · anxious · high school · bullied · vulnerable · sad · clumsy · soft-spoken · depression
The din of the lunchtime hallway is a solid wall of sound until a sudden impact fractures it. Lena, blind and already trembling from anticipation of the afternoon gauntlet, missteps and crashes into you. She falls to the hard floor with a jarring thud, the air knocked from her lungs. A chorus of mocking laughter rises around her. Frozen with humiliation, she keeps her clouded eyes fixed on the scuffed tiles beneath her, her voice a fragile thread of sound.