Page 74 of What It Means To Be Found

Josh eventually looped a long arm around her shoulders, both of them laughing and singing the words to the song as Eloise’s clear blue eyes met mine in the crowd, and my pulse skipped in my veins when she started pointedly singing the words to me.

There were dozens of guys around me, shoving each other, and dancing, and head banging to the pop music, but I locked my eyes with hers. I let her serenade me in a bar full of people.

I was laughing, the broken sound drowned out by shouting male voices and karaoke music, when I glanced to the side and met the irritated scowl of my agent.

Connor James sat at the bar top, watching the team cheer on Eloise as she sang with the disguised rock star, though I was positive that most of the people in the bar knew who Josh was. Connor quickly turned away from me when my eyes met his, but that didn’t stop me from catching the glare he had made. The frown on his face, and the pinched brow on his forehead.

Connor had just realized, at this moment, that he wasn’t going to get with Eloise again, and for some reason, something in my gut was warning me that this didn’t bode well.

Perhaps it might be time for me to start sending feelers out for a new agent.

21

ELOISE

“I was so surprised to see that conversation turn out the way it did,” Taylor commented from their spot on the floor as they laced their hiking shoes on.

I wrinkled my nose as I remembered the awkward interaction I had witnessed between Beck, a woman who was hard of hearing and communicated with ASL when needed, and John’s husband, Alonzo, a deaf man with no hearing aids, who solely relied on ASL for communication. At first, I thought that he would like Beck when they met at the bar after the hockey game, because I assumed it would be easier to hold a conversation with someone who could communicate the same as him.

So to hear that John’s husband was bold enough to tell Beck to her face that she wasn’t actually considered deaf, resulting in nothing more than an uncomfortable smile from her, made me very confused.

The fact that Alonzo was bold enough to essentially shut her down, and that Beck was able to take his words in stride and not be too ruffled by his dismissive attitude, threw me as well.

Courtney, Susan, and Beck were all very straightforward women. They did not seem to fluff their words, and they focused more on getting the message across. Somehow, these women didn’t upset each other. They never became offended when someone was blunt to the point of, what I was taught to consider, rudeness.

“It’s just…” I shook my head once, “That didn’t bother you? How dismissive Alonzo was? I mean, he immediately invalidated a large part of your identity. That’s just so rude to me. And you just smiled and shrugged. How did that not bother you?”

Adam smirked down at Beck after my weird explanation, which made me feel a little self-conscious about my thoughts until Beck started speaking again, “Well, to be fair, a lot of the deaf community is considered rude no matter what they say.”

I widened my eyes, “What? Really?”

“Yeah,” Beck lifted a shoulder before snuggling into Adam’s side on the couch some more, “ASL doesn’t have fluff words to make people more comfortable. The culture of people who use the language to communicate is known to be straightforward. To the point. Blunt.”

I blinked at Beck.

Even though I had been taking online lessons for a while now, I hadn’t ever considered that.

“It catches a lot of hearing people off guard,” Susan nodded. “A common example is when I’m talking to an old friend, and I inform them that someone we both knew died. I don’t usually say ‘passed away’, I just say ‘died’. Because in ASL, a language I use fairly often in my own home, there is no interpretation for ‘passed away’. We just say ‘they died’ even though it sounds harsh out loud.”

I nodded at Susan as she sipped her tea in the ugly accent chair.

“Wow,” I lifted a shoulder, “I mean, I guess that does make the communication…clearer.”

“Isn’t there an actual term for it?” Courtney asked from Josh’s lap, both of them sitting in the other ugly accent chair.

Susan nodded, “Deaf Blunt is what I hear most often.”

“I understand where you’re coming from though, Lo,” Beck spoke up again, waiting for me to turn to look at her before she continued, “I think you and I were raised fairly similarly. Except you didn’t have the extra fun layer of religious trauma that I did.” Beck smiled, and my heart ached for her upbringing. “I wasn’t born into a deaf community. I wasn’t taught ASL from birth. I taught it mostly to myself as a teen, and only regularly started using it as a college student to gain more confidence in my studies. And more so with Gram when she would reach out to me.” Beck smiled at her grandmother, who smiled lovingly back, “So it was kind of a culture shock to go from a religious community, where women were quiet and polite and always considered the feelings of others before themselves, to Deaf Blunt. A community that required direct forms of communication for the sake of getting the message across correctly, regardless of how uncomfy the blunt words made others.”

I nodded at her, curling my legs up towards myself as I thought about her words.

“And even then, I still don’t really feel like I truly fit in with the deaf and hard-of-hearing community.”

I lifted my brows at Beck, tilting my head in confusion. “What do you mean? You have hearing loss. You use ASL. Isn’t that…enough?”

Beck shook her head right when Adam’s arms tightened around her shoulders. “A lot of people, those who are usually completely deaf and solely rely on ASL for external communication, refer to me as ‘hearing with hearing aids’.”

The room was silent for a moment, considering Beck’s words.

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