I Want To Hear You

A few months later is when he first mentions meeting in real life and I didn't think anything of it as I replied with a 'that would be awesome! Maybe over summer break?' But as soon as I send that message I realize something...I never told him I was deaf.

I guess I had meant to tell him a few times I just always forgot, now he wanted to meet me and I was kind of scared...what if he didn’t want to hang out with a deaf kid? Not many people did and I wouldn’t be shocked if he was one of them. How would he talk to me if he didn’t know sign language? I wasn’t that good at reading lips yet despite the years of being deaf!

But now that I had already said we should meet up how would I say that I didn’t want to without hurting his feelings? There really was no way, so now I have to either tell him or just let him find out himself and the latter of those options probably wouldn’t be a very good idea if I want any chance of this working out.

I was brought out of thought when my phone started buzzing against my leg, I stare at it for a while before picking it up and reading the message.

‘I’m actually going to be up in the area in 2 days to visit my cousin...maybe we could meet up then?’

Well crap...now I had 2 days to figure out what I’m going to do. Two days isn’t enough time for me to figure out how to tell him I’m deaf! I could lie and say I was to busy to see him...

‘I’ll be up for the whole weekend!’ is what the next message says and I groan because there is no way he will believe that I’m busy the whole weekend, especially since I have admitted to not having many friends.

‘Yeah! We should totally meet up and hang out!’ that is my reply and I swear my fingers have a mind of their own because I was going to tell him I wouldn’t be around but that didn’t happen very well!

His next reply makes me smile a little bit ‘Awesome! There is this really cool coffee place me and my cousin used to go to a lot and he loves it! Maybe we could go there?’

‘That would be amazing! What’s the place called? I might know it...’

‘Um...something along the lines of ‘Black Beans’ I think...I never actually payed attention...but the coffee is really good!”

Wow...the Black Beans is a small coffee shop just around the corner from my house. Me and one of my only friends go there quite a lot because it’s the only place that actually has good donuts around here.

‘I do know it! Me and my best friend, Demitri, go there all the time for donuts because neither of us drink coffee!’

‘Demitri...Demitri Jacobs?”

‘Yeah! Do you know him?’

‘Dude...thats my cousin!’

Okay...that I didn’t see coming... my online friend is my best friends cousin...oh boy, this is going to be fun and even harder to avoid telling him I’m deaf.

‘Seriously?’ is my totally lame reply.

‘Yup! We’ve been really close since we were little but then I moved away and I haven’t seen him in a while so I’m going up to visit!’ even his text sounds really excited and that makes me laugh because only he can seem this excited via texting.

‘This might interest you then...he lives across the road from me.’ I reply quickly, knowing that this really wasn’t helping me avoid talking to him in real life but I just liked knowing that he was happy and that I was the one making him this happy.

‘This is the face I’m making right now :D’

‘I imagine you make that face a lot though...’

‘Only when I get really excited about things...but that does happen a lot so yeah I guess I do!’

‘haha I guess I’ll see you in a few days than yeah?’

‘Can’t wait! I bet you’re even cuter in person!’

‘Such a flirt...’

‘Only with you ;)’

Although I am a bit scared about him not wanting anything to do with me when he finds out I’m deaf I think being able to see him just once will be totally worth it...