Page 19 of Clichés & Curses

I blinked at him. ‘I didn’t say I was going to walk back home from campus. I was going to take the bus.’

‘Not happening.’ He shook his head. ‘Your only options are the two that I gave you. So where are we practicing ASL today?’

His firm tone had me so momentarily stunned, that I unknowingly stayed quiet as it passed. I felt like I should have been put off by it, but I was not. Moreover, I was drawn to it.

Colton must’ve mistaken my silence as a reaction to him being stern with me. He then added, this time in a much softer tone, ‘It’s your choice, Clara.’

I took both the options into consideration, and it doesn’t seem like either was fair to him, since he had been offering to drive mehome no matter where we went. So, I guess he meant it when he said it was up to me.

A slightly better choice would be the coffee shop, since he only needed to drive me back home and back to campus for practice. However, I couldn’t deny that craving in my heart for a bubble tea fix, ever since I had heard about the new shop.

‘Fine, the bubble tea shop it is,’ I said, giving in. Then, deciding to play him at his own game, I briskly added, ‘But I’m paying for the drinks,’ before fastening my steps to his car and leaving him standing there.

That was one point for Colton and one point for me.

That day’s ASL lesson focused on learning the alphabet and perfecting the placing of the fingers for each letter. Since ASL is a visual language and more about hand movements, as well as facial expressions, it’s hard to convey them on paper. But Mr Albert had still provided us each with a printed sheet of paper with the hand placements for each alphabet as reference. He had also encouraged us to practice using them daily, so eventually—hopefully—it would become a muscle memory.

‘Try spelling out words of whatever object you see or names of the people you meet every day. Before you know it, you’ll be spelling in ASL effortlessly,’ he had suggested during class.

‘Okay,’ I said, putting down my bubble tea. ‘My turn.’

Colton and I were sitting across from one another at a table placed in the corner of the bubble tea shop. Aside from us, the shop had been quite vacant, with only one other table occupied, providing us with a pleasant environment to practice ASL. While the tables might be mostly empty, that hadn’t stopped the inflowof customers preferring to have their bubble tea to go, if the sounds of the door opening and closing were anything to go by.

Following Mr Albert’s advice, Colton and I took turns spelling out random things or names that came to mind, with the other person having to say what word was spelled.

After I finished spelling my word, I waited for Colton to say it.

‘Bobs?’ he guessed, a look of confusion written on his face.

I shook my head. ‘Nope. But you’re close.’ I spelled it again and he finally caught on.

‘Oh, boba.’ He nodded. ‘I keep messing up the A and the S.’

‘I think that calls for a break,’ I said, taking a sip of my bubble tea. I looked around the shop and admired how well-designed it was. I took in the ambience it was putting out—with its bohemian theme decorations and potted plants occupying one of the other corners.

‘So why did you decide to learn ASL?’ Colton asked, taking my attention away from the shop and to him.

‘I don’t think there was a concrete reason, to be honest,’ I told him. ‘I’ve always found sign language fascinating and when I was registering for my classes during my freshman year, I saw they had offered ASL as an elective. I just had a feeling in my gut that wanted me to take it. I know the class wouldn’t be anything advanced, but I figured it was a great place to start.’

‘Freshman year?’ Colton arched an eyebrow.

‘Yeah. I wanted to take the elective since my freshman year, but my other classes always clashed with the ASL class time. So, when I could finally take it this semester, I jumped at the chance and here I am now.’ Then I added in a playful tone, ‘stuck with you as my partner.’

He chuckled lightly. ‘What do you mean when you said you find ASL fascinating?’

I took a moment to mull over his question. ‘I think there’s something beautiful in communicating without words. I mean,I know learning ASL is a necessity for some people. But I don’t know,’ I shrugged. ‘People always go on and on about the beauty of different languages, but ASL is a language too. And I just don’t think it’s appreciated as much as it should be. To me, communicating in ASL feels like you’re talking to another person in secret, where you don’t have to utter a single word.’

The silence that followed was a bit unnerving, so I kept my eyes down to my bubble tea, worried I might have scared off Colton with my random ramblings. But when I finally dared to glance at him, he had a genuine smile on his face.

I could feel my cheeks start to heat up with the way he was looking at me. ‘Anyway, enough about me. What’s your ASL story?’

He took a long gulp of his bubble tea—that he was already close to finishing—before he started narrating. ‘I’m not sure how much you know what entails if you’re on the college baseball team, but as long as you’re a part of it, you’re required to attend a few charity events here and there. You know, to keep up a good public appearance?’

I nodded for him to continue.

‘We attended an event last semester for kids. Just teaching them how to throw, catch a baseball, and how to swing a bat,’ he said to me. ‘And I noticed this one boy sitting in the corner all alone. So, I went over to him to say hi and started talking, but he just waved back at me and stayed silent. I thought he was just shy, but then one of the volunteers at the event told me that the kid was Deaf.’

His voice started getting softer as he continued telling the story.

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