Page 112 of Quiet Beautiful Things

“I said I love you,” I sign. “It just came out.”

Ellie: So you verbally declared your love for me when you knew I couldn’t hear you. You forgot. A deaf person would never forget.

I pace the floor, putting footprints on the freshly vacuumed carpet by the wall.

Ellie: And you said once that you wanted me to scream your name.

I try to remember a time when I said it. “Jesus, El. I was making a joke about having sex. I didn’t mean it literally.”

Ellie: All hearing men are the same. Eventually my silence will get to you, and you’ll want more.

All at once, things begin to make sense. For the second time, she’s said something aboutall hearing men.

“What happened to you, El? Did a hearing man hurt you?”

Her silence is all the confirmation I need.

I take her hand. For a second, she lets me, but then she pulls away.

“Talk to me!”

She scolds me with her blazing hot stare.

I throw up my hands in frustration. “It’s a figure of speech, Ellie,” I say far too loudly. I use my hands and sign silently, “Talk to me.”

When tears flood her eyes, I think the worst.

“Were you raped?”

Relief courses through me when she shakes her head.

“Then what?”

Ellie: Nobody had to rape me. I let them do whatever they wanted.

Her text hits me square in the chest. We’ve never talked about our sexual histories. I knew she was aware of my past. And I just assumed—based on her admission that she dated but didn’t have relationships—she was afraid of being abandoned.

I step up to her, doing her name sign. “Ellie, tell me.”

She sits down and leans against the wall. I sit next to her and wait as she types out a text. It’s long. And with every secondthat passes, more bad feelings surface. All kinds of scenarios are swirling around in my head. I swear I’ll hunt down and kill anyone who hurt her. All I can think of right now is protecting her in every way.

Ellie: People have always made fun of me. Being different, you have to have thick skin. But as a kid, it’s not that easy. I used to speak. I grew up with hearing parents. A hearing sister. Yes, everyone signed, but I also spoke. It wasn’t until elementary school that I understood that when I spoke, I didn’t sound like everyone else. And that because I was born deaf, my accent was even more pronounced than most. The bullying got really bad in middle school. Kids were downright mean. They called me stupid and worse. When I was twelve, I stopped speaking altogether with the exception of when I was with my family.

“El, I’m so sorry. No kid should have to go through that.”

I swallow hard, tamping down the anger because I’m beginning to understand all the hurdles Maisy has in front of her.

Ellie: That’s not all. When I went to high school, there were a lot of new people who didn’t know me. I was the pretty blonde girl with the big boobs. Boys were attracted to me. Hearing boys. One boy sent me flowers on Valentine’s Day when I was fifteen. It was the most special I’d ever felt. So I let him do things with me. Sex was a language everyonecould speak, and almost instantly, I noticed I was becoming popular. Not with the girls, but I had Beth, so I didn’t care about having friends. For the first time in my life, guys were seeking me out. Boys were fighting over me. And I let them. By senior year, I’d slept my way through the starting lineup of the varsity baseball team AND the football team.

I close my eyes at the thought of her being used by so many guys.

She taps my leg and signs, “I said you didn’t know me.”

“None of that matters. We all did stupid shit in high school.”

“There’s more,” she signs.

Ellie: I knew the girls were all mad, calling me a slut, talking behind my back, but the attention from the boys outweighed it. Until homecoming senior year. I was named Homecoming Queen. It was like a dream, until it became a nightmare. At the dance, I was called on stage with Danny McVeigh, the Homecoming King and, at the time, the boy I was sleeping with. Everyone was staring at me. Danny told me as Homecoming Queen I had to give a speech. I didn’t want to, so I just signed ‘thank you’ and started to walk away. He pulled me back and insisted. He said everyone was waiting and if I wanted to keep the title, I had to talk. I threw my crown at him and ran off stage. Everyone was laughing at me. Girls were high fiving each other. I’d fallen from grace, which was exactly what they wanted. It wasn’t until thenext week, when I was being shunned by everyone, that a brainy girl who always kept to herself told me everything. She said the boys all had a bet going to see which one of them could get me to talk first. Danny had conspired with a bunch of girls to get me elected queen. A lot of the girls were girls I went to middle school with. Girls who had heard me speak and who had made fun of me. They wanted everyone to hear the stupid deaf girl. They were tired of the way the popular guys were looking at me and ignoring them. Well, they got their wish. I never dated another hearing guy again. Until you.

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