"My God you've got to be kidding me… you had better not be thinking of being anywhere near me right now."

"What?" Emmett asked, still laughing even as he tried to express his confusion at her reaction.

Christina shot him the most evil glare she could muster out of the corner of her eye. It wasn't easy when you were trying not to look at somebody while storming off in protest. Even Emmett's long legs struggled to keep up as her heels struck a rapid staccato against the tiled floor.

"What? It's fucking stupid as hell, not to mention about as douche bag-ish as it gets. How fucking old are you?" Viciously she grabbed at the door to the cafeteria, leaving Emmett little time to dodge it before it narrowly missed smacking him in the face.

"Hey, it's not like he can see it!"

"Sure, because picking on a blind kid while taking advantage of his disability to stop him catching you makes it all better. What are you fucking dense?"

Slamming her book bag down on her usual seat, garnering a quietly mouthed 'what's up' from the best friend who was waiting in the seat next to it, she stalked towards the food counter with an angry hunch in her shoulders. Emmett, never one to pick up on subtle female signals, still continued to trail after her with little regard for the dangerous coil in her muscles or the obvious signs that she might strike.

"Lighten up, Tina, it's just a joke. It's not like it would've hurt the guy."

Haphazardly dumping food items on her tray with more force than strictly necessary, Christina tossed her hair over her shoulder while continuing to glower. She knew there was little point trying to talk her boyfriend out of the various practical jokes he liked to pull on unsuspecting students. He did it on what seemed lately to be an increasingly frequent basis. She supposed it wasn't like she'd never laughed at them, even when some of them had been a little meaner than others; he was a prankster jock, it was his place in the world, and everybody knew it and didn't complain. It gave people a few laughs. But even she had to draw the line at using somebody's blindness to set them up as a target; it was like kicking a lost puppy or something. The guy never did anybody any harm.

Then, she thought guiltily, a lot of the people Emmett picked on and they laughed at had never done anybody any harm.

Taking her silence as a sign that he was wheedling his way through, Emmett slung an arm around her shoulders, nestling her neck in the crook of his elbow. "Come on, babe. Lighten up. He couldn't have read it even if Travers hadn't tossed it first. It was just a sign, it's not like I would have done anything real bad."

She began gearing up to rip every shred out of him that she could manage, until the thought struck her that had it been anybody but the blind kid she might not even have blinked an eye. The retort that signs announcing somebody's virginity were quite bad enough died on Christina's lips, and an unhappy pout marred her face as she looked down at her tray and decided that salad was probably enough. The day's events seemed to have killed her appetite.

Three days' detention would have been quite bad enough even if she had committed the crime she'd been accused of. But she wasn't sure what annoyed her more - the fact that her boyfriend had been mean enough to tape a sign to Justin's desk announcing that he had never and would never get laid or the fact that he'd allowed Mr Travers to believe she had done when he'd caught her with the thing in her hands. All she'd been trying to do was remove it, not stick it down. But of course, detention would mean being benched and missing the next game; Lord knew nobody else in the school knew how to throw a football.

"Don't worry about it babe, it's all good."

The kiss Emmett had been trying to land on her temple missed as Christina shrugged off the arm around her shoulders and hurried back towards her table, where a sympathetic best friend was already waiting to hear what had pissed her off.

***

"It's not wise to be late to detention, Ms White."

Christina winced and scurried to her seat before offering a mumbled "sorry." Out of sheer habit she'd left her last class and made it half away across the parking lot before she remembered that she had a date with school enforced imprisonment. It was new to her; she didn't get in trouble a lot.

Her face burning with shame and the fear of what her father would say when she had to explain why she was home late, she pulled her books out of her bag with uncharacteristic speed and quickly buried her nose in her math homework. Had she been at home this was exactly what she would have been doing anyway, but stretched out on her bed with her iPod blaring and maybe some cookies and milk for sustenance.

Somehow she doubted Coach Bolton offered any cookies or milk.

The time seemed to pass with aching slowness. Every tick of the second hand on the clock seemed to have an eternity between it. She fidgeted uncomfortably in her seat and struggled to concentrate, drumming her pencil aimlessly against her textbook. Though she read and re-read the examples given, nothing seemed to sink in. Despite being perused no less than five times the page on calculating cylindrical volumes made no more sense than it had before she'd opened the book.

"Hey," came an illegal whisper from her neighbour. Turning as subtly as she could so that the Coach didn't suspect, Christina nearly sabotaged the whole operation by jumping out of her skin when she saw who was sitting next to her. How had she failed to notice who it was before?

"Do you have a spare pencil?"

"Umm… yeah," she replied, flustered. Clumsily her fingers extracted one from her stash - she was surprised that somebody like him would have wound up in detention, and wondered why. She really hoped he had no idea how she'd wound up in detention.

Gingerly she held the pencil out towards him, accidentally jabbing his hand. With a nonchalant grin, he mouthed 'thanks' at her as he took it.

More flushed than ever, she gave up on the idea of managing any math and decided to pull out her English assignment instead. At least with an essay you could always try bluffing it and hoping your bullshit sounded good to a teacher; mathematical equations didn't afford that luxury.

***

"I don't bite you know."

"Sorry," Christina said as her face blushed a brilliant pink. On the upside, at least Justin wasn't able to see that as she perched on the stone steps of the high school next to him. She had been hovering behind him, shifting her weight from aching foot to aching foot (her heels were pretty, not practical), not wanting to disturb him.

"It's alright, I get that lot."

She found it slightly unnerving to see how his face turned in her general direction but his eyes held a blank stare, not aimed directly at her but just to her left. That was understandable, she supposed, when you couldn't see anything. Shifting her eyes away from the gaze even though she knew it couldn't see her, her eyes fell upon the white cane that had been laid on the steps next to him. Curiosity begged some questions, but she didn't want to be rude.

"Did you read that math assignment yet?" He asked congenially, as if he was either unaware of or completely ignoring her discomfort.

"I tried, couldn't concentrate."

"Ahh, so there's no point asking you what the fuck it's about then."

"No." An awkward smile fell on her lips, and for the first time she noticed the books sitting in Justin's lap. Her finger traced along the title, knowing it must be the same as the one on her own book but not understanding how it could read that way.

"Is it weird, reading Braille?" She blurted out before thinking, her face screwing up in embarrassment the moment she heard it come out of her mouth.

Thankfully, he merely gave a chuckle and smiled in her direction, his head cocked slightly towards her. "Not for me, only way I've ever learned how. I guess it's weird if you're not used to it."

"Sorry."

For a moment it almost made her laugh to think that if he'd been sighted, she probably would have been blushing in his presence because he was cute and not because she kept making dumb faux pas about his disability. He was cute. His eyes and their unseeing stare were a little freaky, but a nice shade of steely blue. His hair was a mass of messy curls and he wore a form fitting pair of jeans and a t-shirt that highlighted a well muscled and tall frame. Again she wanted to ask how he could pick good clothes and work out properly, but she'd already asked enough stupid questions. One stupid question was a stupid question too many.

"Don't worry. At least you had the balls to ask."

"Huh?" Christina wasn't sure what he could mean.

"Oh." He gave a shrug of his shoulders and she imagined that if he could see he might have rolled his eyes. "People hang around and you can just tell they want to ask me shit but don't have the nerve. Like I'm an invalid and we can't talk about it to protect my delicate little feelings." Justin snorted loudly.

"Oh… like, I would have thought, like, maybe you'd get sick of answering the same stuff all the time," she responded tentatively.

"I get more sick of people constantly treating me with kid gloves because they won't ask the question. Maybe if they asked, once they heard the answer they'd get it and act like normal people again. Mother fuckers need to lighten up, it's not the end of the world." As jovial as his tone was, she got the impression there was a part of him that wasn't joking.

"Wow. I never thought of it that way." Christina's brow creased as she watched Justin shift in his seated position next to her. "I always thought maybe it'd be a sensitive subject or something."

"Like too sensitive for anybody to write notes about me not getting laid on my desk?" He asked with a wicked gleam crossing his face.

"Oh God, I'm so sorry." She buried her face in her hands, feeling it glow with the heat of her embarrassment.

"What have you got to be sorry for? You didn't write that shit."

Her head glanced up, and she bit her lip in confusion. "How did you…"

"No offence, but your friends are fuckin' idiots. They seem to think that being blind makes me deaf, too."

"Oh shit, I'm so sorry, they don't mean to be jerks but they're just a little…" "Jackasses?"

"I was going for insensitive." She mumbled. Humiliation was chewing her stomach up.

"Don't worry about it." He slightly missed the first time, but the second he successfully managed to pat her arm. "It's not your fault. People do that a lot. Apparently they think my ears and my dick stopped working when my eyes did. Not that I mind, it works to my advantage when people think I don't know the shit they say. Always gives me a good laugh hearing how fuckin' wrong they usually get it."

Today had been a revelation for Christina. The blind kid she'd been so worried about insulting turned out to be potty mouthed, detention getting, and far more confident than she'd ever thought he would be. He didn't have many friends and tended to keep to himself, so she'd always assumed he was shy. Now she had to wonder if maybe he just couldn't be bothered to deal with the well intentioned but babyish way people treated him.

"So the note was inaccurate, huh?" She squeaked out.

"By about a year. And her vision's 20/20, too." His smile radiated a mischievous air. "But yeah, I heard you chewing Emmett out for it so I never blamed you. Don't worry about it, I can take it. I'm blind, not made of glass."

"So I'm learning." Christina's head compulsively nodded before she burst out into giggles. A quizzical expression came over Justin, with an uncertain grin.

"What's so funny?"

"Ahh, you're just so not like I thought you were. I was thinking you were some shy nerd or something." "Well, you're not like I thought you were either," he laughed back.

"How'd you mean?"

"I thought you were a jock girlfriend sheep like the rest of them. I was kind of impressed when I heard you reaming him out. You got more backbone than most of 'em."

Although it was a scathing indictment on most of her friends, Christina decided that she might as well take the compliment, as strange as it was. The idea that she'd been viewed as a sheep disturbed her; what if Justin wasn't the only one who thought that about her?

"So I can ask you whatever questions I want then?"

"Shoot." He shrugged.

"Umm… how'd you end up blind?"

"Born that way. They're not sure why but my optic nerves didn't develop properly. Next?"

"Is that cane annoying?"

"Nah, used to it. Also, I don't like falling on my ass so it's pretty useful."

"How do you get around so easy?" Christina shifted as the stone step started making her backside feel numb. She twisted the turquoise bracelet she wore around her wrist. "Like, you know where you're going as good as anybody, I always wondered."

"I count steps. Like, from the front door of the school to my locker is 50 steps forward, 27 or 28 left and then 30 or so right."

"So it's only when some place is new you have trouble?"

"Yeah." He nodded. "But you get used to it. I'm pretty good at memorising my routes now so usually they just have to show me once or twice."

"What about in stores? Like, how'd you count money?" No longer caring if she was rude or insensitive, every random question that had ever occurred to her about Justin Timberlake was now pouring out of her mouth.

"Different coins feel different ways, have different shapes and grooves. It's the same principle as the Braille; you just have to know what you're feeling for."

Finally, she went for the big one. If anything she said was going to offend him, this would probably be it. "Do you ever get frustrated? Like, not with people, but just with not being able to see? I can't imagine it, like, it must suck so bad."

"Not as often as you'd think, but definitely." His frankness surprised her. "I mean, it's all I've ever known so it's not like you or somebody who could see before and knows what they're missing. And I can hear and smell and touch better than most people because they kind of try and take over from your eyes for you, but sometimes when I know that I can't even try something out because I'd need my eyes it pisses me off, or if people are talking about things I'll never understand the way they do because I can't see. Like, I wish I knew what the fuck people are talking about when they describe colours. Or people's faces, I kind of have my own way of seeing them but it's not the same."

"How's that?" She asked curiously.

He lifted his hands towards her face, and then hesitated. "You mind?"

She shook her head at first before realising she'd have to give him more than that. "No."

His fingertips went to her face, sweeping over it. The corners of her eyes, her nose, even her lips, nothing escaped the soft and almost ticklish touch.

"You smell like citrus," he told her in a surprisingly matter of fact way. "Your face is quite long, but round in the middle. Your nose is long too, and your eyes are pretty narrow even when they're open, and your mouth is kind of small and plump. Though I have no idea what race you are - I've felt enough faces I can usually make a decent guess but you got me stumped. You don't feel white or African American."

Slightly astonished by his accuracy, Christina blinked a few times before answering. "I'm half Cherokee."

"Ahh, that'd explain it. That's cool. So, do you like, shoot bows and arrows and wear paint on your face and have a real name like Dances With Wolves?"

She supposed given the fact that she'd held so many misconceptions about him she couldn't begrudge him a cheap joke. "It's just Christina, if I so much as picked up a bow and arrow I'd probably put somebody's eye out and the only thing I paint on my face is eyeshadow. Though my grandfather sometimes calls me Soars With Eagles in the native language because he said every time he turned his back when I was little I was trying to escape somewhere. My mom said I was just trying to be Houdini but he said I was finding my freedom."

Justin nodded with a smile. "That's kind of cool. I know fuck all about Native Americans."

"Well until today I knew fuck all about blind people so I guess we're even."

"That's my mom." Justin said as the sound of a car came into the distance, grabbing his cane and standing up. At first Christina wondered how he could know, but then realised that the unhealthy sound of the transmission was pretty distinctive even to somebody who didn't have a heightened sense of hearing. "You want a ride? Save you waiting for the bus?"

Christina took a glance at her watch, and hesitated. Was it strange that after the illuminating chat they'd just had she still felt awkward doing such a thing? Like it felt too friendly? Then again, it was late and her father was already going to be annoyed with her as it was.

"If you're sure your mom won't mind?"

"Oh, she loves it when I talk to girls." He waved a hand dismissively. "She's under the delusion that because she doesn't know how many girls I've been out with that means I must be avoiding them because of my sight."

"And how many girls have you been out with?" Christina arched an eyebrow.

"Enough that even if I could see I wouldn't be sharing the information with my mom because she'd give me a lecture about being a man whore. Only she wouldn't use the phrase man whore."

A laugh bubbled from her lips. "Okay. Just so long as you don't tell her I'm your girlfriend or something. I'd have a hard time explaining it to Emmett if that rumour started… though on the other hand, maybe if he thought he had competition he might actually act his age for a week or two instead of pissing me off all the time."

"Like writing dumb notes on the blind kid's desk?"

"Nah. Like writing dumb notes on your desk."

Justin grinned. "See, what'd I tell ya? If people would just ask the fuckin' questions…"