Piercing the darkness, seeing the light again

“As the almost-valedictorian, the girl most likely to succeed, I woke up on the morning of the SATs… blind.

They rushed me to St. Jude’s, but the doctors couldn’t find anything wrong.

Since I couldn’t see, college was out. I had to figure out how to make a living, and I ended up tuning pianos.

One day, I was at some McMansion in Greenwich, tuning a Steinway, when I overheard a bunch of guests talking.

"”Remember that overachiever, Ashley Warren? It’s almost like she went blind on purpose. She lorded her straight A’s over us for years, and now look at her – she probably can’t even get into community college.””

"”That scholarship girl thought she was better than us. She got exactly what she deserved.””

"”She probably still doesn’t know that the person who blinded her was right there in the auditorium.””

I tried to act cool, but my hands were shaking. After a couple of minutes, something slammed into the back of my head.

When I opened my eyes again, I was back in the school auditorium, ten years in the past, ready to take the SATs.”