Chap. 2
It was Sunday afternoon, and Bella was home alone. She paced back and forth in her living room, staying close to the phone. She was extremely nervous after her appointment yesterday, and it still had yet to die down. She had barely slept all night, too stressed and worried to even be able to relax.
Her nerves and stress were taking her over, waiting for the call from the doctor. Her mother notified her that she wasn't going to be home, so Bella could answer the expected call herself. This made her feel a little better. She could hear exactly what the doctor had to say, rather than what her mother decided to pass onto her.
Bella glanced at the clock. It read 3:30. She continued to pace. The doctor promised to call this afternoon, and yet, it was already three thirty. The call should come any minute.
Suddenly, the phone rang. It barely had time to ring once before Bella jumped on it. "Hello?" she nearly screamed into the phone. A recorded message started to play and Bella slammed down the phone to hang it up. Stupid telemarketing.
She proceeded to keep pacing. She kept repeating a prayer over and over in her head, hoping, waiting. Just as suddenly, the phone rang again. Bella decided not to be so anxious this time in order to avoid potential disappointment. She calmly picked up the phone. "Hello?"
"Hi, is this the residence of Isabella Hartley?" the man on the other line asked.
Bella's stomach dropped. Her throat became dry as she said "This is she." The words barely came out.
The caller sensed her nervousness. "Hi, sweetheart," said the person nicely. "This is Dr. Wright, from yesterday."
"Hi, Doctor," was all Bella could manage to say.
"We got your results back…" he said, trying to keep Bella calm.
Although he couldn't see her, Bella nodded slowly as she said, "Mm-hm…"
"And the tests show that…" he paused. "…that you have dyslexia."
Dyslexia.
Bella almost dropped the phone. The very thing she was afraid of happened. She had been diagnosed with dyslexia.
"Isabella…" the doctor said after a silence. "Are… are you alright?"
"I'm… I'm fine," Bella squeaked hoarsely, although she was trying desperately hard to hold back tears. She slumped down on the couch, too upset to almost even talk.
"Listen, Isabella…" Dr. Wright said.
"Call me Bella," she said quickly. The last thing she wanted at a time like this was to be called by her real name.
"Bella," the doctor corrected himself. "This isn't something to get upset about. Millions of people have dyslexia."
"I know," she replied grimly. I just never thought I'd be one of them, she though.
"This doesn't really change anything for you," he explained, trying to comfort her obvious pain. "It just means you need a little extra help with working on your reading."
Bella couldn't say anything; she was too busy holding back tears. Dr. Wright continued, almost as if reading her mind. "Bella, you're very smart. Dyslexia doesn't change that," he told her. "I mean, look at you, you're in all AP classes at school, you get straight A's, your grade point average is highly distinguished, and you've been offered scholarships to 6 different colleges already. It just makes things harder. You've dealt with it your whole life, the only thing different now is that you know."
Bella hoped he was right. She knew she was a smart kid, but she felt like dyslexia almost pulled it away. A setback she didn't even understand, although she already deals with it.
"Here, look up these websites at some point. You may find it helpful with learning more about your condition," he recited some URLs for Bella to remember. "I'll fax the papers you need for school later so you have them for tomorrow." His voice softened as he said. "Don't worry, Bella."
She managed to say, "Thank you," and then hung up the phone.
As soon as she put the phone down, she broke into loud sobs, curled into a ball, and closed her eyes. She was too upset to do anything, to think, to even move. She sat there with tears streaming down her face, letting out loud sobs for a while until she finally calmed herself down enough to stop crying.
As she regained the ability to take deep breaths and slow her cries, she opened her eyes. She held her breath for a minute and just listened to the silence. She moved her head to look around the room. In the blurriness of the remaining tears, she saw the big windows across the room, bringing sunlight into the room. Bella kept breathing. She ran her hand over the soft, red fabric of her couch. She lay there for a while after she stopped crying.
Finally, she took it upon herself to sit up. She slowly moved to a sitting position, though the movements now made her head swim. All the crying had given her a headache. She slowly brought her legs to her chest and hugged them, resting her head on her knees. She finally calmed down enough to be able to think.
Dyslexia. She couldn't believe it. How could she have had dyslexia her entire life and not known it? She tried to think about it. When she looked at words or letters, they constantly seemed to be moving. The other words around whatever she was reading would look all jumbled as she read each word. She would get headaches if she spent too much time reading as well. Her handwriting had always been a little shaky and she could never really write in a straight line. Even though Bella experienced these setbacks, she was still smart and loved to read. It just made things harder.
Bella sank as she realized the truth. All of these things, all her life, had been her dyslexia. She didn't know what to do. What was she supposed to do now?
Suddenly, Bella heard a noise coming from the office in her house. She got up and headed down the hallway to the office. She turned the corner into the room with the mysterious noise. The noise was the fax machine. Bella wiped the stray tears off her face and walked over to it. She picked up the papers that the machine had produced and studied them. They were the papers from the doctor that she needed for school regarding her dyslexia. She threw the papers on the floor and ran out of the room.
After disregarding the papers she never wished to see again, Bella went into the kitchen. She opened the fridge and angrily took out a can of soda. She didn't particularly love soda, but she didn't care enough to get out anything else. As she sat down on a stool and popped open her soda, she heard the ring of a text message on her phone from the living room. She rested her soda on the counter and reluctantly got up to get it.
She made her way to the living room and picked her phone up off the couch. She flipped it open and looked at the text message. It was from Will. Hey, it read, Want to hang out?
Will. She completely forgot about Will. Should she tell Will about her dyslexia? And what about her friends? Should she tell them? She didn't like to keep things from any of them, especially Will, since they all had agreed to trust him. She completely trusted all of them. It's not that she didn't trust them with it, but she was embarrassed.
She thought about it. What if she told them? What if she didn't? What would they even say? She didn't know if they'd understand. She barely understood it herself. They might not look at her the same way. She didn't know what to do. Maybe she'd just wait until the time comes to worry. She had too much on her mind right now to worry about that.
Not right now, she replied, Not in the mood. She pressed send and returned to the kitchen.
She settled on her stool and took another sip of her drink. Her phone rang with Will's reply. What's wrong? It read.
She thought before she replied. Should she tell him? She didn't know what to do.
Nothing, was all her reply said.