"No, I swear, Olivia isn't my girlfriend. She used to be but-"
I put my hands to my temple and grip my hair because I want nothing but to pull every last strand out.
I squeeze my eyes shut and scream at the top of my lungs, "I hate you!" My voice shrills through my body, rattling my bones as welcome as an earthquake. There. Blake longed to hear me speak, and now he heard definitively how I feel. I look over at him with his mask of pain. He's speaking, but I turn away and run straight to Roxy's car.
There's not a thing Blake Daniels has to say that I want to know.
* * *
The entire next day I spend hugging my pillow and crying my eyes out. I don't look at his text messages. Marley lets me know when he comes to the door, and I just lock myself in the bathroom until he's gone. I don't want any part of his so-called truths or apologies. My heart is raw, broken. I wish the whole universe would collapse in on itself like a dying star and disappear.
The next few days drift by in a blur.
Marley has officially broken up with that idiot who was stringing her along. He came down last night, and I walked out of the bathroom just in time to see her slap him right across the face.
"Aren't we a pair," she says, handing me a hot latte from Hallowed Grounds. She actually had it in her to get dressed and go to class today. I couldn't care less about my classes. I could fail them all, and none of it would matter. Tristan came by this morning to see if everything was okay, and I told him I had a sore throat. I'm not sure why, but I was sensing an I-told-you-so if I let the truth spill out. It looks like I'm a liar just like Blake.
My phone buzzes for the umpteenth time only now it's my mother.
Be there in twenty minutes.
Twenty minutes? Why would she be here in twenty minutes? Oh my, God she knows! I shake my head at the phone. The last thing I want to deal with is my mother and her there-are-other-fish-in-the-sea brand of wisdom.
You don't have to. I'm fine, really. I bet my brothers couldn't wait to tell her what a louse I'd hooked myself to. When did they turn into such tattletales? Not that I mind that they "tattled" on Blake. They did me a favor, and, ironically, I'm still too mad to thank them.
What are you talking about? You have an appointment in an hour at the Gentry Clinic. If all goes well, we can schedule the implants to be inserted before Christmas!
Oh that. I can practically feel her smiling. I make a face at the word "inserted." My mother knows I cringe at the word surgery. She cares for me enough to cater to my fragile emotional needs unlike Blake. He barreled right over those when he decided to sleep with me behind his pregnant girlfriend's back.
I go to tell her to cancel, but my fingers take a U-turn. I'll be ready and waiting.
In a whirlwind, I shower and dress. I ask Marley to come with me for moral support but mostly because I hate the thought of leaving my broken hearted roomie alone while I'm gone. I know the destitute bleakness she's up against. It's as if we've been simultaneously thrust into a living hell. A world without sound doesn't compare to the pain, the bone-crushing anguish that Blake Daniels has managed to cause.
Mom meets us downstairs and chats up a storm with Marley as she drives us to the clinic. It's clear she's blissfully unaware of the fact I just had my beating heart knifed from my chest.
I've been seen at the Gentry Clinic before. Its walls are plastered with visuals that explain the inner workings of the human ear. They have a six-foot model of the ear canal you can crawl through if you wanted. They specialize in all ages and stages of life but seem to favor pediatrics.
We pull up and head in. Mom buries her nose in her Kindle while Marley and I stare vacantly at the paltry selection of old magazines, glossy Verandas, bloated back-issues of People.
When it's my turn to be seen, I choose to go alone. They sit me in a cushioned room. I know the drill. They play horrifically loud sounds in my ears, and I sit still while they marvel at how amazingly deaf I am.
When I'm through, the doctor calls my mother into his office and he both signs and speaks his findings.
"I'm not one hundred percent sure you are a great candidate for the Excel implant." He pauses with a serious look that spells out dead end-and, in a way, I'm relieved.
He might as well have shouted you will never hear in your life, Annie! right in my face. Of course, I wouldn't have heard it, but it would have killed my mother just as effectively. Her chest heaves with a quivering breath. Her features contort with great sadness, and I want to mimic them, only my heartbreak comes from a boy who's not even in the room at the moment. She's crestfallen that this isn't going to happen for me.
"But"-a devilish grin widens across the doctor's cheeks-"I am fairly certain you are a good candidate. I think you should go ahead with the procedure, Annie. You should be able to have most of your hearing. I can't guarantee it will be perfect, but you will hear and be able to understand everything going on around you."
My mother claps her hands together before throwing her arms to the ceiling with elation.
"You're going to hear, Annie!" She lunges at me with a hug before pulling back. "You're going to hear laughter, and music, and the voices of everyone you love." I read her lips for perhaps one of the very last times.
I'm going to hear. I sit there stunned for a second time this week. I'm going to hear music. The thought makes my heart wrench. I'm going to hear the voices of the people I love-and perhaps even the ones that broke me.
The doctor leans back in his seat as he inspects my mother and me. "Of course, you'll need plenty of speech therapy to follow. Shall we schedule the surgery?"
Surgery. There it is. That word, sharp as a scalpel.
Fear comes back to the party. Blake was going to help me get through the things in life that I feared most. A dull laugh pumps through me at the thought. Something far greater than any of the fears I could have ever conceived came to fruition. I lost Blake. In the grand scheme of things, that would have been my greatest fear.
My mother pats my back, trying to pump the answer out of me-at least the one she wants to hear.
I fill my lungs with a deep, cleansing breath. New hearing, new me.
"Yes. Schedule the surgery," I say it out loud, and my mother presses her lips together as the tears start to fall.
It's time I stop fearing everything so damn much.
* * *
Thanksgiving plods into our lives without permission with its thick-spiced scents and pine festooned decorations. I hate that everyone is so happy and jovial, feasting on pumpkin pie and sipping eggnog like it's the best thing in the world.
Kaya is back. I've already filled her in on every last detail. At about seven-thirty tonight we're meeting up with Tristan at the café on campus for coffee. I can hardly wait to be a third wheel on their first unofficial date. I frown into my phone. I haven't been brave enough to read any of Blake's text messages. I've been plenty tempted, but I promised myself that I would get through this weekend. It's been a solid week since the "incident." He's come to the dorm twice and left flowers at the door. Marley told him to go to hell for me. I could never tell him myself. I've tried to think through a million reasons why he wouldn't tell me about the baby, about this Olivia person, and the only real conclusion I can come up with is the fact that maybe he really does love her. Maybe he was two-timing me, her, whichever, the entire time.
"Okay, everyone!" Mom calls us all to the impeccably set table. I think my mother was Martha Stewart in another life. Correction, she thinks she's Martha Stewart in this life. She plucked pinecones from the yard and sprayed them gold before gluing them to napkin rings. Her place cards are beautifully scrolled out. It's nice to know the calligraphy kit I bought her last Christmas is being put to good use.
She waves to get my attention before proceeding. "Why don't we go around the table and each say something we're thankful for?"
Is she serious? I spent the last week weeping like some love-struck fool, mostly because I am one, and she's doing this to me? Holt let me know he finally filled her in on all the gory details. She offered to have a chat with me, but I told her I wasn't ready. The word "chat" is code for a long drawn out conversation on my mother's part, and, right now, I want nothing to do with it.
The table breaks out in laughter. I see Izzy swatting Holt then pulling him in for a kiss. Looks like I missed whatever it is everyone found so funny. That's the thing about being deaf, you need to be on heightened awareness at all times if you want to know what's going on. That's one good thing about the procedure I've scheduled next month-I'll get the pleasure of both drowning in my misery and listening to other people at the same time. It'll be strange, like living in two worlds at once.