Beneath The Skin(137)

Dmitri’s eyes go wide. Oh, he signs. You’re fucked.

Fucked, I agree.

He slaps my shoulder, then moves his hands: Come out with us. We’re getting tacos. It’s Brant’s treat.

I smirk knowingly: Does he know he’s treating us?

Dmitri grins: He will when he gets the check.

I think the company of my buddies is just what I needed. The whole way there, I sign to Dmitri, telling him about Dessie, how she sang to me, how she ran into me at the food court and fucking signed to me. Dmitri relays a lot of it to Brant, then keeps signing: You’re fucked. Brant agrees by mimicking his signs, except it keeps looking like the signs for: You fell.

When the three of us arrive at the diner, we take our usual booth in the back. Brant tells us about this new girl he met in the psychology building and how he’s got this fantasy about her hypnotizing him to do things. When he makes a face to imitate how she’ll look when he’s diving between her legs, I laugh so hard that I spill my sweet tea across the table, soaking Dmitri’s pants and causing him to curse loudly, drawing the attention of nearby tables. In the midst of his tantrum, I sign to him: Would you mind signing all that? I can’t quite make out what curse words you’re shouting. That makes Dmitri mouth the very distinct words of “Fuck you” before he laughs and throws a tea-soaked wad of napkins at Brant.

When Dmitri excuses himself to the bathroom to dry up, Brant leans over the table and asks me about the girl. I shrug, mumbling and looking away. He taps my hand to draw my attention back to him, then asks what I’m going to do about it.

I frown. What the hell does he expect me to do?

His eyes turn serious—something I don’t see in Brant very often. His lips move slowly: “I don’t want you to be alone forever. I care about you. You have to do something about this girl.”

I shake my head, dismissing him again. There’s no use pursuing her, no matter the signs she learns. She won’t be able to handle me. They all run away.

He smacks me over the head. I catch his hand, threatening to crush it if he does that again, but he only responds with a superior smirk, leaning across the table. He reminds me that she signed to me, then mimics her by making dumb motions with his hand, ending randomly with his favorite sign: fart.

I snort and shake my head, the humor not hitting me. The more I think about her, the more frustrated I get. I punch my thumbs into the phone, then show it:



What’s ur point???

I’m too much work.

I’m fucked up dude.....

she’ll run off the second she gets close.



Brant nods. “Yeah,” he says slowly, “she will run off because you gave up.”

I glare at him. I start typing again, but Brant’s hand covers mine. He says something else.

Then, I get so fed up that I do something I almost never do: “It won’t work out,” I tell him.

The sound of my voice takes him aback.

My face flushes, angry. I can’t stand talking. I can’t stand not knowing what I sound like. I feel so fucking insecure about it. I remember hearing and making fun of the slurred S’s and the weird vowel sounds that other deaf people made when I was a kid, and here I am, having become the butt of my own childhood jokes. I was such a little shit when I was a kid … when I could hear …

Sometimes, I wonder if this is my punishment.

Brant flicks me in the chin, nabbing my attention. He tells me: “You’ll never know unless you …”

He thinks for a moment, brow wrinkled. Then, he creates fists with the thumbs poking out between his fingers and twists them in the air.

It’s the sign for “try”.





DESSIE



“I want you to fuck me. Fuck the doubt out of me. Fuck the ex-boyfriend out of my head. Fuck me until there’s nothing in my mouth but your name, over and over again, in screams.”

Her name is Ariel. Yes, like the stupid mermaid. And she’s beautiful. And all the guys stare at her and she bats her stupid eyelashes and she’s the perfect actress. And even when she says a word like “fuck”, she makes it sound like poetry. Her hair is a golden, wavy waterfall of wonder and her face is oh-so angelic.

And apparently she and Clayton had a thing a year ago or so. Yeah. That mermaid up there is his type, and that’s a type I will never be.

“Great,” says Nina, the acting professor who never calls anything great or good or lovely, ever. She sits in the audience seats among us, observing Ariel who stands proudly in the acting area awaiting critique. Miss Nina Parisi adds, “You gave just the right amount of care, and just the right amount of nothing to each ‘fuck’. Great.”

If there’s one thing I don’t regret about college acting compared to high school, it’s the sudden permission to read and act from scripts that have an overabundance of the word “fuck” in them. Hell, it’s encouraged. Fuck this. Fuck that. Fuck me and you.