When I first told Joey and Maya that I was legally blind and that my vision was gonna get worse, they asked a lot of questions.

“How will you read?”

“How will you use a computer?”

“Does this mean you won’t want to watch movies anymore? Because you can’t see them?”

“Will you still be able to take pictures on your phone? Can you see the pictures we tag you in?”

“How many fingers am I holding up right now?”

That last one came from Joey, but before he could lift his arm up to hold fingers in front of my face, Maya grabbed his wrist and yanked it right back down.

“Pretty sure that’s rude,” she told him.

I’m not sure if it was rude or not, but it was annoying. Every time anybody—even grown-ups sometimes—finds out I’m blind, they put up their hand and ask how many fingers they’re holding up. Like they’re testing me. The answer is almost always three.

I didn’t know how to answer the rest of their questions. I had no idea how reading or taking pictures or watching movies was gonna work yet. I could still do all that stuff—though it had definitely gotten a bit harder—but if the doctor was right and my vision was just gonna keep getting worse, I didn’t know what that would mean.

“You know,” Maya said, letting go of Joey’s arm. “I’m legally blind without my glasses on.”

“No, you ain’t,” I said. “The doctor says you’re only legally blind if your vision is that way with best correction, which I think means glasses. So you can’t be legally blind without glasses on, because the glasses fix it. You just got bad eyes without them on.”

“Oh,” she said. “Okay.”

We were sitting on the school bus, heading home. We all lived on the same bus route, just a few miles apart. Which meant we got to spend a little extra time every morning and afternoon with each other. Normally I liked that, but today I was kinda ready to just go home to Mama.

I’d known for a while I was legally blind—since my last eye doctor visit when he said my vision had officially reached that point. My friends knew my vision was bad, but I hadn’t told them it’d be getting worse. If Mama really wanted me to possibly take some kind of classes in the next year or two, though, I knew I’d have to be honest with my friends about what was going on. Besides, keeping it from them had been hard enough. We weren’t the sorta friends who kept things from each other usually.

Still, I was wishing I had kept it to myself. Because all these questions just made me feel tired and worried.

And then Joey asked me one question I did know the answer to.

“Are you scared?” he asked. “About it getting even worse?”

“No.”

It was the first time I’d ever outright lied to them before.

“That’s good,” Maya said. “I think I’d be scared. But I’m glad you’re not. But if you ever need help with things—as you go blind or whatever—we’ll be there. We can help.”

“Yeah,” Joey said. “We can definitely help with whatever you need.”

“Thanks, y’all,” I said. Though I knew that they couldn’t.

When I got home, Mama was on the phone, having one of those conversations where she sounded real stressed out. This was in the winter, a few weeks before Christmas last year, and she’d stopped working for Dr. Parker months ago. Those calls, the ones I later learned were with lawyers, had only started in the last several weeks.

I made myself a bowl of cereal and sat down on the couch watching a rerun of some old sitcom about people living in New York City while I waited for Mama’s call to wrap up. It took another half hour or so, and another episode of the show was playing when Mama finally hung up the phone, dropping it onto the kitchen counter with a huff, before coming to sit on the other end of the couch.

“Is everything okay?”

“It’s fine, Bean. Don’t worry about it.”

I didn’t know it then, but I wasn’t the only one telling lies that day.

“How was school?”

“It was okay. But I told Joey and Maya what the doctors said, about me being really legally blind now.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah.” I put down my long-empty bowl of cereal. “They were … They weren’t mean about it or anything. They were just … weird. They asked a lot of questions I don’t got answers to. And then Joey asked me if I’m scared.”

Mama was watching me. I could feel her eyes on my face, even though I had my head turned toward the TV, where two of the characters were about to get married while their friends scrambled around, getting things ready but also accidentally making them worse. I’d seen this episode before.

“What did you tell him?” she asked.

“I said I wasn’t scared.”

“Is that the truth?”

“No.”

“Oh, Bean.” Mama scooted across the couch toward me, then wrapped her arms around my shoulders, pulling me into a hug. “It’s all right to be scared.”

“No it ain’t,” I say, burying my face in her shoulder. Her hair smelled like the coconut shampoo she always used. “It’s embarrassing. Especially because people already get all sad for me when they find out what’s going on with my sight. If they know I’m scared, too, it’ll be even worse.”

Mama squeezed a little tighter. “I understand you not wanting people to know it scares you. It’s not anyone’s business but yours. But you don’t gotta be embarrassed about being scared. You know change is coming. And change is scary sometimes.”

“I thought you said it’ll be okay, though. That I’ll be okay even if I can’t see?”

“You will be,” Mama said. “But that doesn’t mean you’re not allowed to be scared about how things will change. There are a lot of things as you grow up where you’ll know a change is coming. And even if you know you’ll probably come out the other side of it all right, not knowing how you’ll get there is scary. All you can do is keep pushing forward, do your best, and have faith that, even if it takes a while, you’ll get through it.”

The way Mama’s voice shook a bit when she spoke made me think she was speaking from experience. And now, months later, I realize she was probably dealing with her own fears then, about what was coming in her future. Except, unlike me, her situation was her own fault.

I’d had no idea what was coming, though. All I knew was that I trusted Mama more than anyone. That if she told me I’d be okay, I would, and if she said it was all right to be scared, then it was.

“Okay,” I murmured. “Thanks, Mama.”

“As for Joey and Maya,” she said, “just give them some time. They care a lot about you, and maybe the way they showed it today wasn’t great. But they’ll get better. And if they don’t, just tell them how you feel. They’re good kids and good friends. I think they’ll listen.”

“Maybe.”

She hugged me for a minute longer before her cell phone started to ring in the next room. Her arms fell slowly away from me as she stood up. I could sense the shift in her. That probably sounds weird, but I didn’t have to see to feel the tension coming off Mama right then.

“I have to get that,” she said, her voice tired and shaky.

Then she went to the kitchen to answer the phone, and I went back to watching the silly TV show. With no idea that my eyesight wasn’t the only big change ahead of me that I ought to be worried about.