Love Is Deaf, Not Blind

I look up across the mass of white paper snowflakes and glittering crystal beads and see him. A shy smiles plays the corners of his angelic, crimson lips as he meets my gazes. Looking into his eyes is like running through the forest naked. Such a wild green that it could only have been taken out of nature. I drop my eyes, looking through my long, thick, black eye lashes at the ground.

He couldn't really have been looking at me, could he? I shift uncomfortably on the white tissue paper covered, wooden bench of the gym, that had been set aside for the people...the rejects who didn't have a date to the winter formal.

I look up again when a shadow falls across me. He stands there with his hands in his jacket pockets. He says something but I don't catch is as he's talking to fast.
I hold out both my hands palms to the ground raise my left and lower it as I mouth 'slow down'.

His beautiful eyes flicker to the ground for a moment before he looks back at me, an embarrassed smile on his face.

"Sorry. I, asked, you, if, you'd, like, to, dance? With me?" He spoke each word slowly moving his mouth more then he would to a hearing person.

I must be dreaming.

“I said,” He starts again before lifting his hands up from his sides and starts playing charades. “Will. You. Dance. With. Me?

A smile breaks across my face and a small giggle escapes my lips. “Yes,” I say out loud, taking his right hand. I can feel the rough calluses rub against my delicate, soft skin. I stand up feeling the beat of the heavy bass under my feet.

He wraps an arm around the small of my back and I place both of my arms behind his neck. He’s so tall I have to stretch up. He smiles, like a boy on Christmas day that just got everything he wanted.
He holds the hand that’s not rested on my back up and starts to sign letters. I watch his long, slender fingers carefully as he signs.

‘Y.o.u l.o.o.k b.e.a.u.t.i.f.u.l.’ He then shocks me by doing the actually sign for my name Jocelyn, with his thumb and middle fingers extended from fist in L shape, his palm down, he touches his middle finger to his nose then moves his hand out from his nose into a fist with his thumb out. The sign for lucky but using your middle finger instead of pointer, before he brushes a loose ringlet back into place. He leaves his warm, rough hand on my cheek for a moment before he bends down and…

**** **** ****

I’m woken by a gentle touch. I look up into the face of my mother, it’s like looking into a mirror, long shiny black ringlets, big brown eyes, fair delicate skin and full, plump lips, which shape the words, “It’s time to get up for school.”

I yawn, rub my eyes and nod. ‘K’ I sign blinking tiredly as I sit up. She smiles at me, brushes my wild hair out of face and kisses my forehead.

“I know you are scared about today, but I promise you it’s not as bad as you think it will be,’ Mom says slowly to me. “I’ll be down stairs cooking breakfast if you need me.” She kisses me again and leaves the room, closing the door behind her. I roll out of bed, landing on my soft, lilac carpet. The pile splits around my feet as I walk towards my white tallboy dresser, I’d painted purple flowers on when I was 7.

I yawn and rub the dried up sleep from my eyes as I stare at my reflection in the mirror, I have black and purple bags under my red rimmed eyes. Too late now to wish I hadn’t cried myself to sleep.

I really wish I didn’t have to return to school. I’d begged my mom to home-school me, but I knew she couldn’t just leave her job.

So I was forced to go to my brother hearing school because mine had closed down at the end of last year. I wanted to just crawl back into bed and never wake up. I heard stories at school my kids who had gone to mainstream schools before starting Austin school for the Deaf and Blind. They’d had their hearing aids flushed down toilet. I was terrified of being the kid who everyone bullied for being deaf.

I exhale deeply, hoping to release the negative mood, but it doesn’t work. I open the doors and pull out jeans and a light blue cotton tee. I yawn again, rubbing my hand through my messy bed hair as I walk across the cool, floorboards to the bathroom I shared with my little sister Katie and twin brother Jason.

I turn the handle and push the door open, I blink at the bright morning light reflecting off the shiny, white tiles that cover both the floor and walls. I dump the bundle of clothes on the ivory vanity and open the one object in the room that doesn’t fit the ultra-modern, white bathroom; the antique wooden medicine cabinet, covered in it’s flaky, peeling white paint. I took down my clear plastic case that held my hearing aids and placed it next to my clothes.

I wash my face with water, the shock of the sudden iciness wakes me up a little. I turn the hot water on and undress while the water heats up.

I stand under the steamy water letting it run down my back, letting it soothe my worry about today. The hot water starts to turn cold but I don’t move. The lights above the bathroom door flashes, I ignore it.

I guess it shouldn’t have surprised me that Jason walks in anyway. He’s shaking his head, a smile playing at the corner of his mouth.

‘What are you doing?’ he signs…the only member of my family that does. ‘You’ve been in here for over an hour.’

‘I don’t want to go to school,’ I sign back, I can just picture the misery my face shows as my bottom lip trembles.

Jason’s face softens and he says out loud, “I know.” He grabs a towel of the rack and hands it to me. ‘Get dressed. Mom says you have 5 minutes to come down stairs before she comes up here and drags you to school dressed or not.

I frown, but I wouldn’t put it past her. In 2 grade she actually made me go to school in my pjs because I refused to get out of bed.

“Fine” I sigh out loud. ‘You can go’.