For a few minutes after she woke up, Cheyenne didn’t know where she was. And then she remembered. And wished she hadn’t.
By the sliver of light she could see with her left eye, Cheyenne decided that it was morning. Real light was warmer, somehow, than light that came from a bulb. But when she felt her watch, she was surprised to find it was one twenty. So afternoon, not morning. Then someone opened the bedroom door. Cheyenne braced herself.
“Are you awake?” When she heard Griffin’s voice, relief flooded through her.
“Yeah.” She pushed herself up until her back was against the wall.
“I brought you some Advil to keep your fever down and another one of those antibiotics. Plus OJ to wash it down with and some crackers. I’ll put the crackers at nine o’clock.”
She felt him settle on the bed by her feet, and then he put the glass in one hand and the pills in the other.
“Thanks,” she said, trying to sound like she meant it. “When am I going home?”
“Soon. My dad’s just making the final arrangements. There’s going to be a drop tonight at three, and then we’ll drive you someplace and let you go.” His voice changed to a whisper, and he leaned close enough that she could feel his breath stir her hair. “The thing is, you can’t let on that you know my name or my dad’s name. You have to act like you don’t know anything.”
Cheyenne nodded, biting her lip.
Griffin’s soft whisper continued. “You know how you told me about how many enemies your dad must have? They’ll probably say some stuff to try to make you think that you being kidnapped is connected to Nike. Pretend like you believe them.”
Cheyenne didn’t know who to believe. “Griffin, you’ve got to promise that they will let me go. Promise me.”
He was quiet for a long time. Finally he whispered, “I promise.”
Cheyenne started shivering, and it wasn’t just from being sick. She was afraid that Griffin’s hesitation had said more than his words.
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.
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.”