Total pages in book: 40
Estimated words: 36478 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 182(@200wpm)___ 146(@250wpm)___ 122(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 36478 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 182(@200wpm)___ 146(@250wpm)___ 122(@300wpm)
Before I could respond, my classroom door opened and, to my surprise, Sterling and Cooper walked through it. I peeked up at the clock to make sure I wasn’t running late, but there was still plenty of time before we were supposed to meet.
Though I wanted to tell him to shove his essay right up his ass, I told Arnie, “I’ll take a look at it,” to appease him, though I had no intention of doing so. I was confident and fair in my grading, and I didn't give special treatment to any of my students.
Arnie nodded triumphantly and hurried from the room, nearly knocking into Sterling in the process and receiving a glare to the back of his head from me.
But, my excitement over seeing Sterling outweighed my irritation at Arnie, so I hustled up to him. “Hey, sweetheart. What are you doing here?”
“I need to talk to you.”
“Oh god.” There wasn’t another sentence in the English language that could cause such quick and intense panic.
“It’s good, I promise,” he added, and I breathed a sigh of relief.
“You nearly gave me a heart attack.” I massaged my chest with one hand and clutched his fingers with the other, needing to have him close. “Let’s go to my office; we’ll have privacy there.” Plus, I needed to sit down for a minute after the scare he gave me. And I had something for him.
I led him down the hallway until we reached my office, and shut the door behind us. We each sat in a comfortable leather chair, and Cooper laid down on the floor between us. I took both of Sterling’s hands and gave him my full attention. “What did you need to talk about?”
He took a deep breath, and I reminded myself that he said this was a good talk to calm my nerves.
"Beck, before I met you, my life was just…okay. I spent time with my parents and Cooper, which was nice, but the most exciting thing about my day was taking the same walk along the same path every afternoon. But when I met you, everything changed."
"The first day you sat down with me, you asked if I was a student. It might seem like a simple question, but you don't know what it meant to me; it was the first time someone assumed that I was something instead of assuming that I wasn't or couldn't. You didn't see a disability; you saw potential."
"So I started to see potential in myself. I began wondering what I could do with my life, and what I could be missing out on. When I could no longer take photos, I thought I’d never make art again, but you helped me with that too. You inspired me to ask myself how I could help others.”
Pride burned in my heart and tears welled in my eyes. Hearing him speak with such fire and purpose gave me happiness like I’d never known. I realized that my excitement was causing me to squeeze his hands, so I loosened my grip and stroked his knuckles as I listened.
“I called the university last week and set up a meeting with your friend Cheryl for today, to pick her artistic brain. I didn’t want to mention anything in case it didn’t go well, but it went amazing.”
“Tell me all about it, sweetheart,” I requested, dropping his hand for a moment to dab my eyes. Seeing him so happy and hopeful had my emotions overflowing.
“I wanted Cheryl’s opinion since she is an expert in her field. I asked her about what sort of thing I could pursue in the art world, and she asked me what it was that I enjoyed about photography so much. I told her that while I loved capturing the beauty of an image, I loved sharing the image just as much. I loved to give other people joy when they saw themselves or the world in a different way.”
It was a beautiful thing; Sterling was so passionate about the subject because it brought happiness to so many others.
“So,” he continued, “We brainstormed about different art mediums, and how I could share them with others. I mentioned that I would love to be able to share them with differently abled people, and then everything clicked. I know what I want to do with my life.” I leaned forward, excited to hear about this momentous decision. “I want to be a travel agent.” I blinked in surprise; it wasn’t at all what I thought he was going to say.
“I know that probably sounds strange,” he conceded, “Seeing as we were talking about art, but think about it; I could work with a travel agency to hand design experiences for disabled people. I could reach out to museums to set up tactile art tours for the blind. I could research landscapes and set up photography tours that are wheelchair accessible.”