"So how was your first day of school?" my mother asked at the dinner table that night. 

"Uh... it was alright." I pushed around the food on my plate with a fork. I wasn't even aware of what was on that plate, but it smelled like meatloaf so I wasn't taking any chances. 

"Only alright?" she questioned. "I thought you would say something more dramatic like fantabulous, maybe splendid, or even romantic..." I could practically hear my mom raising her eyebrows. I hung my head slightly and groped around the table to finally find my glass of water and lift it to my dry lips.

"Mom, nothing really happened today. It was fine." I whined in respsonse. She sighed deeply and paused a moment before continuing on with the monotonous conversation. 

"Well at least something must have happened. It doesn't even have to be interesting! What homework do you have? How are your teachers. What's your first class of the day?" she pressed on. 

"I don't know. I think I'm done with dinner for now, though." I fibbed. I was actually really hungry. But I couldn't put up with any more of that conversation, and I definitely wasn't going to let any of that meatloaf past my lips. 

"Okay, I'll tell you when dad gets home so you can come say hello." she yelled to me as I trudged up the many stairs, gripping onto the railing for dear life. I had learned the hard way that stairs are much scarier than they may seem to someone who isn't blind. 

I reached my bedroom, taking the seven careful steps that it took to arrive safely on my bed. My dad had counted the amount of steps that it took me to get everywhere in our tiny house when I had just turned four years old. I had been using the same system everyday for the past thirteen years, and it had been going pretty well for me. That is, except for when someone would move something to pull a practical joke on me, thinking it was the funniest thing ever, and not realizing that I would fall down the twelve stairs to get to the first floor of the house, tripping over the books that were placed to throw me off course and cracking my skull open on the hard wood floor. There is still a stain on the wood from where my blood had gushed all over it three years ago. 

I didn't even know how I was going to waste another night in this boring house, but I figured that the least useless thing I could do was write in my worthless diary. I had my own personal typewriter, a gift that my wealthy grandmother had bought me for my eleventh birthday. I had no intentions of ever using it originally, but she died a few months afterward, which led me to start writing a diary. I couldn't write by hand, and I couldn't read what I hadn't written on the computer, so I was forced to use that typewriter. It was old and dusty, but it got me through a lot of emotional scarring, noticing as I was utterly close with my grandmother. 

I pulled it out from underneath my bed and lifted it onto my lap. I started a new entry for the day, continuing on about every class that attended today. I wrote on everything from meeting Alana in the hallway, to being run over by freshmen, and Ms. Monte's overly cheery attitude towards everything. I contemplated on writing a small paragraph about how rude that Bayley kid had acted towards me, but I figured that it wasn't necessary. 

After finishing the entry, I tucked the typewriter safely back under my bed, and placed the entry paper in a folder that held the last six years of my life. A thud of a door opening and closing errupted from the first level of the house, meaning that my dad arrived home from his day shift. He worked as a police officer at the local station, doing the crime fighting stuff and all. My mother was extremely hesitant for him to take the job eight years ago, but it offered good money, and he would only do the day shift. 

I left my bedroom, cautiously counting all of the steps that it took me to get from my bedroom to the dining room. I figured that my mom had gone to bed already, since she had her morning workout early in the morning, and there was a silence about the dining room. 

"Mill? Is that you?" my dad called from what I assumed was the living room. 

"Yeah. Are you in the living room?"

"Mhm." he replied. I made my way to the living room in a simple  nine steps, finding the couch and sitting slowly onto it. I suddenly felt as a thick arm wrapped around my shoulders and pulled me in closer to my dad. "Hey, kiddo. How was the first day of school?" 

I let out a long sigh. 

"Was it really that bad?" he questioned in a concerned tone. 

"No. I guess not. But nothing great happened." I responded. "Hey dad, I think that I'm just going to go up to bed. I'm really tired from having to get up so early." 

"Okay, but don't forget. I'm taking you to school tomorrow." I heard the smile in his voice, leaned over to kiss his cheek, and finally proceeded back to my bedroom, hitting the hay for the night. 

I fell asleep with thoughts of the dreaded school on my mind, listening to classical string quartet music. At least I wasn't deaf.