Seeking Help Raine had appreciated the note from Professor Xavier, but he wasn’t the one she wanted to talk to right now. She was fed up. She was fed up with being yelled at and blamed, and of stupid backwards arguments, and of people feeling sorry for Summer. Everyone was being miserable or angry, and she thought that if anyone had the right to be, it was Summer herself, and that if she was old enough to tell everyone to just piss off and shut up, she would do. Raine had half a mind to do it for her. Except, of course, she had already done enough “damage.” That’s what they kept calling it. Raine had done damage by finding out something that they didn’t want to know. Half of them were acting like her taking Summer to the doctor had caused this, though pointing that out didn’t get her anywhere except told that she was acting like she was better than them cos she thought she knew things. Nor did trying to point out that it was surely better if they knew because now they could help Summer - this is better, is it? her mother had asked, as Summer’s mom sat crying at the table, How can you say this is better? How can you be so insensitive?
She had meant better for Summer. Except, given that Summer couldn’t walk or talk or have an opinion, no one seemed to care about what was good for her. They were all too busy feeling angry at Raine or, if Summer got a consideration at all, it was to cry and feel sorry for her. Raine didn’t have the vocabulary to articulate why this was the wrong response, but she knew it rubbed her up the wrong way.
Summer was going to be fine, and the fact that everyone else was being so horrible about it all only made her more determined to make sure of that. She had appreciated Professor Xavier’s letter, but he wasn’t the one she felt could help her best. He could probably help. He understood baby stuff and he had a bunch of books and he’d probably know what all the things in the special leaflets the special doctor had given them meant (leaflets which her mom had trashed, and Raine had secretly bin dived for). But there was someone she thought could help better.
She had arranged to meet her friend in a cafe of her choosing, near her university. It seemed only fair. Raine was still worried that she was inconveniencing her, or that this was the wrong move - that asking was somehow not okay. Still, Nevaeh had always been pretty good at letting her know if she was getting it wrong, and now she really needed that. She made her way in, easily spotting her friend and making her way over.
“Hey,” she smiled, wondering whether she needed to alert Nevaeh to her presence or whether, even with the busy blur of the cafe, with so many people and footsteps, she could still pick out Raine’s. Even after so long. “How’ve you been? Sorry I’ve not written much. You know I never was any good at it,” she apologised, sliding into the seat opposite. She felt bad. She thought about her friends a lot. She wished she could see them more or know more about their lives, but now that their lives weren’t the same any more, and were conducted so far apart, necessitating setting ink on parchment, it had all just become so hard. She supposed she should ask Nevaeh how she was. She should make small talk about her classes and what was going on in her life. But she couldn’t. She felt bad about that, but she felt just as bad pretending that she’d come here for no other reason than a catch up. She’d admitted as much in her short letter, not wanting to not be honest and upfront. I need your help with something. And now she couldn’t help but jump straight to it, cos it had been worrying her for weeks. “So, you know I asked you to meet me for a reason… My niece can’t see properly. And they’re using all these big words at me, and they’re trying to tell me what to do to help, and I want to help, but I don’t know how.” She stopped short of asking Nevaeh if she knew what to do, suddenly feeling like she was being stupid. Maybe Nevaeh had needed help when she was a baby but she obviously wouldn’t remember that. Or maybe she hadn’t, because she’d been blind and smart, and maybe Summer’s problems were that she was blind and stupid, or at least had idiots for family. “Sorry, I probably shouldn’t be bothering you with all this,” she mumbled.