Falling on Dead Ears

Travis and I spent a lot of time together over the next week. Just him and I.

Sitting on the dock I kicked at the water idly, jumping when water splashed everywhere. Travis floated in the deep water, everything below his nose under water. Frowning I simply kicked water at him as he stood up, letting the water rest at his waist.

Smiling he signed a simple hello to me by placing his wet thumb under his chin and the side of his hand against his face before pushing it out and away from his face.

Returning the gesture I smiled at him signing a quick: it’s nice to see you.

He nodded while crossing his arms tightly over his chest and opening them to me. Shaking my head I leaned back moving my hands as I frowned at him. He was all wet, there was no way I was getting all wet for a hug…no matter how cute the man is.

Pouting he repeated the gesture but it fell on deaf eyes as I placed my palm flat on the dock and looked up at several people walking over. Turning back to Travis I curved my finger by my pursed lips, flattened my palm as I raised it straight up towards my forehead and pushed it away in a downward angle before finally pointing at the group. A questioning look on my features the whole time.

He put both his palms face up, fingers slightly flexed and waved them left to right from the simply question of: What? Sighing I pointed at them and shrugged. He smiled and nodded.

‘my friends.’ The wide, proud smile on his face made the nervous feeling in the pit of my stomach go away. If they were his friends then they couldn’t be all that bad…could they? ‘tall skinny guy, is Jim. The girl is Jolene. The fat guy is Tommy. The guy who harassed you is Jeremy. The ugly one is Andy, and the one that kinds looks like me but much uglier is Special Greg.’ Once he was done talking I looked over my shoulder at his friend. Two were frowning, the others were laughing. The only one’s I couldn’t place were who Andy and Jim were. The tall skinny guy and the ugly one, both were relatively tall and skinny and I found neither attractive nor ugly.

Turning back to him I quickly told him that his descriptions of Andy and Jim sucked.

‘What?’ he asked, his hands following the simple phrase he spoke. He’d gotten somewhat good at the few signs he’d been taught. Though he had many more to learn that was for sure and mouthing the words was pointless. He just stared at me the same way he did when I only signed; lost and confused about what I was trying to say.

I pointed between the two people I didn’t have names for and shrugged dramatically.

‘oh…left is Jim, right is Andy.’ I glanced back at the group, now having names to all the faces I greeted them with a simple Hello, all of which repeated back. Turning to Travis I smiled at him confused. ‘oh yeah I’ve been teaching them.’ He nodded brightly. Smiling I nodded and glanced back at the group. Jolene sat in front of me and smiled.

I watched as she slowly moved her hands, pausing and stumbling over the words she tried to form. Smiling I simply moved my hands, and my lips, asking her if she new basic sign language.

‘No but I’ve been looking up things online, and I can read lips pretty well.’ she smiled at me. Nodding, I placed my hand to my mouth and pushed it away, pointing at her I lifted my finger my by temple and wiggled it.

I smiled as she replied with a quick short your welcome before looking over my shoulder and pointing. The vibrations of her words hit my face roughly and made me lean back slightly from her.

‘shut up you jerk. I’m interested too. It’s not my fault I found something I’m better at than you….oh go flip your dirt bike!’ turning between the two yelling I only caught bits and pieces of the conversation as I looked between them. Both of them yelling at the same time began giving me a bit of a headache. Though my ear drums didn’t vibrate when pressure of sound hit them, pressure did build on top of them when it was far too loud and slowly gave me a head ache.

Turning to Travis I lifted my hands, as if holding handle bars, and twisted them, pretending to rev a bike. Shrugging I lifted my hands confused. His fight with Jolene seemed to go by the waist side as his eyes lit up at the question.

Eagerly he nodded and climbed out of the water. His hands looping around my arms he pulled me to my feet and dragged me along. Tugging back on his arms I tried to get him to slow down.

He simply scooped me up over his shoulder and continued to run. My body bounced on his broad toned shoulder, probably bruising my stomach. My hands seemed to turn into cat claws as I latched them into back, my whole body stiff. Heights were not my thing. I couldn’t scream for help very well or let people know I was up there. It wasn’t because I wasn’t sure what came out of my mouth, not being able to hear, but it was because I was always too terrified to even remember that my mouth does work.

Travis put me down gently on my feet and spun me to greet the bright yellow dirt bike with 199 printed on the front white plate. He eagerly moved around me to sit on the bike, a wide smile stretched over his features as he gripped the handle bars.

Shrugging I pointed at it and shrugged again. I didn’t get what was so special about it. Laughing he simply patted the spot in front of him on the bike and waved me over. Shaking my head I stepped back.

Frowning he patted it again.

‘I’m really good on it. I promise you won’t get hurt and I won’t go too fast.’ he stated while kicking the bike to life. Groaning I began biting on my thumb nail nervously. The air around my ankles and calves moving viciously as the bike shook and roared under Travis. ‘trust me’ I wanted to know how those words came off his lips. Did he simply say them? Did he whisper them with a slight hurt to his tone that I didn’t already? Tone meant everything in certain phrases and not being able to hear that meant I was usually lost in translation. And his face didn’t give much away. ‘Come on Ellie, please?’

Licking my lips I wandered over. His smile returned and he pulled back one arm so I could climb on. My hands gripped the middle of the handle bars as the bike vibrated under us, throwing my sense of everything out the window.

Slowly we began to roll forward and out into the driveway. That’s when I noticed where we were. He’d taken us to the house two doors down from my aunts, the one with the big black weird looking boat at one of its several docks.

Swallowing I closed my eyes as we rode around. Not being in control made me nervous.

The wind tugged through my hair and gusted over my face, the small moister in the air seemed to hit every inch of my body. Grateful I hadn’t worn a dress for the wind to tug at I shifted my legs nervously, wrapping my feet around Travis’s calves.

The rumble in his chest couldn’t be missed, it clashed with the bikes vibrations, as my back pressed to his toned body.

Looking up the peaceful look on his face was overwhelming. This was his heaven, his slice of life. Riding around on his dirt bike put him at peace. Smiling I leaned back into him more, still not letting go of the handle bars, and let my shoulders relax. Someone so content and relaxed on a bike wouldn’t let it crash on purpose. Anything horrible that would happen would be a freak accident.