Listen
Chapter 1
I sat down on the normal red bench that I always sit on at Walnut park, the small park and playground near my house.
I took out my earphones, and plugged them into my ears.
I made sure no one was looking, and I stuffed the chord at the end into my pocket.
I didn’t want anyone knowing I was deaf.
I opened my pink spiral notebook.
The corners were frayed from so much use.
I had written countless unfinished stories, and poems that described my life.
I uncapped my favorite pink pen, and began to write down my feelings about starting public high school later this week.
That’s right, no more Jackson Probe’s Institute for the Hearing and Visually Impaired.
No more being in a class that only spoke sign language, no more learning how to speak even though the only person who could hear your voice was the teacher.
No more learning how to read lips, but I suppose I didn’t need to learn any more of that anyway, since I’m an expert now.
Nope. Just normal highschool.
And the only person I’ll know is Ellis, my best friend since childhood, who also happened to live across the street from me and spoke sign language.
I was scared, because I’ve heard the rumors about public school: the bullying, the boys, the work load.
But at the same time, I was excited. I didn’t have many friends at my old school, and I really wanted to make new ones.
And I wanted to learn on a higher level than at my old school.
A warm, end-of-summer breeze flew through my dark brown hair.
I pushed the loose strands behind my ear.
Suddenly someone tapped me, and I jumped.
I turned to see who it was.
A dazzling gorgeous boy, about my age (which is 15) was sitting next to me.
“Sorry,” I read. He smiled apologetically.
I gave him a small smile back.
He had short, cropped hair about the same color as mine, and he was tall and built.
He wore a tight Under Armor shirt that showed off his abs, and his eyes were a dazzling blue.
I bet I looked like a piece of junk compared to him. My hair was poop brown, and my eyes were too. And I was too thin to even come close to muscular.
We broke our eye contact and I went back to my “journal” entry.
Out of the corner of my eye, I could see the boy staring at me.
I smiled a bit, but hid it because I didn’t want him to know that I was looking at him.
He started to tap my shoulder, and it was then that I noticed that he was trying to talk to me.
“What are you writing?” he said.
I wished I could hear his voice.
I wished I could hear everyone’s voice.
I looked quickly into the pocket of my notebook, and fished out a stack of post-its.
“I write whatever goes through my head,” I wrote, and showed him.
“Me too,” he wrote below it, and smiled.
He put a finger to his lips.
“But I don’t tell my friends. They’d make fun of me,” he wrote.
I nodded, and checked my watch.
“I have to go,” I wrote on a new post-it.
He looked sad. “Bye,” he wrote.
I waved goodbye, and stood.
Before I walked away, he grabbed my hand.
“See you back here tomorrow?” he wrote.
My heart thumped. Boys didn’t usually want to talk to me.
Especially this kind of boy.
I smiled, nodded, and walked away.
See you tomorrow.
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