Give Me a Sign(68)

Lilah: I hope you’re okay. Please Isaac let me know that you’re okay.

A few minutes later, I get a text, but not the one I want. Instead, it’s Ethan responding to the reply I’d just sent.

Ethan: I’ll be right there

Lilah: Where’s Isaac

Ethan: One sec I’ll be right there. Don’t worry, Isaac’s home.

That leaves me with more questions than answers. Isaac’s home? Does that mean he’s okay? Why hasn’t he responded to my texts yet?

I grab my backpack to find my hearing aids. Except instead of putting them back in, I grab my car keys.

Last night might never have happened if I’d been wearing my hearing aids—if I had abided by the wishes of the hearing world. They want us to adapt to them so that they don’t have to adapt to us. I wanted to try to embrace my hearing loss, but last night I saw why I shouldn’t.

Ethan’s on his way to find me. I might as well pack my things and go home before he gets here.

I scramble to my feet and start going through my stuff. Why did I bring so many things? Forget it. I don’t need this sleeping bag. Or these old camp clothes. I shove the essentials into my backpack and book it. My parents can get the rest of my belongings when they come to pick up Max. My parents, ugh. I’m going to have to explain this all over again, aren’t I? I can already see the disapproval on my mom’s face when she asks if I was wearing my hearing aids last night.

I’m headed to the parking lot when Ethan pulls up in the golf cart.

“Where ——？” he asks, confused.

I turn around, not catching the rest of his signing. “I’m going home. Bye.”

“Lilah, get in, please.”

“No, thanks.”

Still puzzled, he slows to a roll beside me, at my pace. “Where’s the rest of your stuff?”

“Don’t need it. Bye,” I repeat.

He hits the brake. “Lilah, get back here. I need to talk to you.” I keep walking until he shouts, “You’re not leaving!” But when I turn around, his voice is soft and he moves his hands calmly. “Unless you want to, that is . . .”

I pause, then walk back to the golf cart, staring at the ground. “Really?”

He lifts a plate covered with a napkin that’s on the seat beside him and nods for me to climb in. “Here’s some breakfast.”

There are two plain slices of toast. “Uh, thanks?”

He reaches into the backpack at his feet and pulls out a jar of Nutella.

“Oh,” I say. “That’s better.” I tear the bread in pieces and dip it into the chocolate-hazelnut spread.

“I thought so.”

Ethan drives to the cabins while I eat in silence. Once I finish, I take my hearing aids out of my backpack and shove them into my ears, only to be met with plugged silence. I don’t have any spare batteries with me, either. “Ugh. Dead.”

“Orange ones? Check my backpack,” Ethan offers.

I dig around in the front pocket until I locate the pack.

“You good?” Ethan says and signs.

“Where are we going?”

“Around.” He waits for me to get my hearing aids back in before we drive off, following the path around the outskirts of the campgrounds.

I can hear more sounds now. The rumble of the wheels over the gravel. The loudest birds in the trees. The snap of my fingers as I stretch out my hands to crack my knuckles. The world is noisier, but I’m not sure I really missed any of it.

I ride along, silently at first, until I can’t hold back the question I’ve been dying to ask. “So, Isaac’s okay?”

“He and his mom are going to sort some things out,” Ethan explains. “He went home last night. I think his mom’s also talking to a lawyer to see what their options are. She was grateful for the statement you wrote.”

“The statement? You mean the accident report?”

“Yeah.”

If I’d known it was going with Isaac and his mother, I might have paid more attention to what I was writing. I thought it was going to be shoved into a folder somewhere for camp records. “Well, it was my fault. I should’ve been wearing my freaking hearing aids. Then this never would have happened.”

“Hey.” He stops the golf cart and turns toward me. I’m staring at my shoes. He waves his hand to get my attention. “Look at me,” he says and signs.

“What?”

“When you are wearing your hearing aids, can you always tell what people at the register say?”

“Well . . . no.”

“It’s not crystal clear, right? Aren’t you often guessing what you think you may have heard?”

“Yeah.”

“So how would it have been any different? Maybe you’d have heard, but it’s also still very likely you wouldn’t have.”

“But maybe I would have—”

“Did the cashier point at the card reader? Or wave her hands frantically as you walked off? Should you have announced your hearing loss to the random service worker at Super Mart? Should Isaac have to wear a pin on his shirt that screams to the world ‘I’m deaf’ everywhere he goes?”

I shrug, unsure what he’s getting at exactly.

“This was a shitty situation, Lilah. It happens.” He takes a long, deep breath. “Miscommunication is a fact of life. We just have to deal with it more often than most people.”