Page 60 of What It Means To Be Found

I huffed a laugh at that, before I decided to pull back on the teasing.

Me: I’m hopping in the shower, but I’ll be out by the time you get here.

I sent her my address and set my phone down before letting the scalding hot water hit my skin.

As soon as I stepped out of the shower and started toweling off my hair, I heard the doorbell ring. She was faster than I anticipated, so I quickly wrapped the towel around my waist before checking the peephole to ensure that it was, in fact, Eloise at my door and not some door-to-door salesman.

I opened the door and waved for her to come in, smiling, when her eyes trailed over my naked torso.

As I shut the door behind her, she quietly clapped her palms together before tucking her hands under her chin, her eyes on my stomach.

“Speeding through those yellow lights really paid off,” Eloise murmured reverently as she ogled my body. I laughed, knowing the sound was off compared to someone who didn’t have a damaged voice like mine, but also knowing that Eloise didn’t care.

I gestured to her that my eyes were, in fact, up here.

“I know, I know,” Eloise adjusted her bag on her shoulder and finally made direct eye contact with me, “But you’re the perfect motivation for me to get this right.”

And that is how we ended up on my bed. After Eloise watched me get dressed in sweatpants and a t-shirt, she opened her laptop to the written words of her presentation and told me to help her correct her signs.

Her ASL was good, but her class didn’t cover every single nuance and sentence structure rule ASL had. It usually took numerous classes to really get comfortable signing anything on the spot. So that was where I came in, helping Eloise sign the words and sentences she didn’t know, to help fill in the gaps of her presentation, without ruining the flow.

“Party,” Eloise vocalized after I showed her the sign. “Huh. It’s similar to ‘play’, which we use a lot at work.” She bit her lip as she repeated the sign back to me. I nodded, shifting so that I had one ankle crossed over the other as I watched her sign through the next couple of sentences of her presentation again.

I had to give Eloise credit, when she was determined to learn something, she perfected it. Her signs were crisp, not the lazy movements that beginners usually displayed for the sake of running through an ASL sentence as quickly as possible.

“Good?” Eloise asked, also signing good to me.

I nodded and gave her a thumbs up.

She sighed a breath of relief as she stopped the recording her laptop was making. She wanted to record herself signing the sentences so she could watch them back later tonight as she practiced running through the entire presentation in one sitting.

“This is genuinely helpful, thank you so much,” Eloise gave me a shy look before slumping against my headboard and setting her laptop to the side, “I need a break, though.”

My pants immediately tightened, so I bent one leg up in a poor attempt to try to conceal my body’s immediate excitement to her words. Something that was more difficult to do while wearing sweatpants. She turned her head towards me, her gaze trailing over my body as if looking for the evidence of my arousal, before she twisted in her seat to face me directly and meet my eyes.

“…Can I ask you a personal question?” Eloise’s voice was softer, lower, and it made me want to lean in towards her space even more. I resisted, because I had a feeling her question wasn’t going to be of the sexy variety, and I wanted to keep my hands to myself if that was the case.

I nodded at her.

“…What happened?” Eloise’s eyes dropped, indicating that she was taking in my scars that were plainly visible on my face and neck.

I felt heat prick my skin at the spot she stared at, and my heart started to pick up pace again. The last time I had shared this with someone was also the first time I had met Eloise. I had been feeling too exposed for opening up to someone so deeply about my past, that I lashed out at Eloise and made us start out on the worst foot possible.

That being said, I was genuinely surprised Courtney hadn’t divulged the details of my accident to everyone else in the group. No one had ever asked me about my scars, or why I preferred to sign instead of vocalizing.

I inhaled a breath in preparation, before signing to Eloise.

Her brow scrunched, so I signed again a little slower. Using this as another ASL lesson created a bit of a buffer for the emotional exposure I was about to endure with her.

“Car crash?” Eloise asked, her voice almost a whisper still. I nodded my confirmation at her. “When?”

I was eighteen, I replied.

Eloise’s wide, clear eyes studied me for a moment. Silence hung between us, and my skin itched as she let us sit in the silence. I was determined to make it through this with Eloise, though. Part of me was even surprised to admit that I wanted to share this with her. That I wanted her to get to know me. Why that was, I was pretty sure I knew, but I didn’t let myself go down that train of thought too far in the moment.

“I’m sorry,” Eloise simply said.

I shrugged in response.

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