Page 22 of A Clutch for Hutch
I inhaled deeply and ended up coughing hard, my lungs rebelling from my attempts to help make sense of this place.
From then, it was a blur of doctors and nurses, my brother and fathers doing the best they could to calm me as I went from test to test and was given treatment upon treatment. But, despite my family being there and the medical professionals focused on me, I’d never felt lonelier in my life.
The hospital hadn’t been quiet. My voice hadn’t been weak. Fuck, my brother hadn’t been mumbling. My ears took the brunt of the damage and weren’t much more than ornamental, thanks to shitty truck maintenance.
The truck in question had lost its brakes on the hill and forced me off the road. The doctor said my memory was blocked because it was how our bodies sometimes protected us when the worst happened, and I should be grateful not to remember the details.
Only he didn’t say it in words, because I couldn’t hear even if he shouted. Every person who spoke to me sounded like Charlie Brown’s teachers talking to his class, if that clear. Instead, he typed them out on his laptop, displaying the words on the TV screen across from me so everyone could “hear” his answers.
Now that my lungs were cleaned out and my nose no longer being fed oxygen, I could scent the familiar smell of human disinfectants. Best of all, I could speak without coughing. That part wasn’t broken; it had been me not hearing myself, paired with smoke-filled lungs. I held on to that because it was the closest thing to good news I had.
My ears were done. The damage wouldn’t get worse, but there was no coming back from it. I hadn’t been able to shift in time to fix them. Heck, I still hadn’t been able to shift at all. And unlike the rest of my body, which was healing the way shifter bodies did, they weren’t improving at all.
The doctor gave a big, long explanation as to what kind of hearing loss I had and how it happened, but most of the words were ones I didn’t know. I nearly asked him to print it out. He’d taken the time to type it, so why not? But I couldn’t.
Instead, I cried. Cried at the loss.
Over the next two months, I went back to my daily life. I had hearing aids, and they worked well-ish. I didn’t pick up on everything people said. Some of the sounds were distorted. But when they were in, I could get by.
But getting by wasn’t enough for me to take over my father’s role. He promised me it was fine, that we’d figure it out, but Iknew the truth. I was broken, and a broken alpha put the fluffle at risk.
“Dirk.” I took my brother’s hand. “Walk with me.”
This would normally be a conversation we’d have after a shift. We’d play and then end up down by the river. That had always been our way.
But now, if I shifted, I couldn’t hear. I had no way of sensing the dangers around us, not all of them, anyway, and then what good would it do? We’d end up at the riverbank, and he’d talk to me, and I’d…I’d hear not a thing.
Dirk came with me. I suspected he knew what was happening. Each day, we came closer to the time when my father was to step down, and, by fluffle law, I was the one to take the spot.
Unless—unless someone challenged me. And somebody would, leaving me dead and the leadership in the hands of another family. It would also put my entire family at risk. That was unless, my father did what needed to be done and made my brother do it.
I didn’t want Dirk in that position any more than he’d want to be there. I didn’t want him to need to even contemplate that choice. My accident had been hard enough on him as it was.
When we sat down at the water’s edge, he looked at me, tears in his eyes. “You’re leaving, aren’t you?”
“I have to, Dirk. I’m sorry. I know you don’t want to be alpha—you never wanted to be alpha, but that doesn’t change what has to be.”
He hugged me tight, and we just stayed like that for a long time. He pulled back so I could see his face. I supplemented what the hearing aids did with watching expressions and lips. It wasn’t perfect, but it was better than him speaking to me where the sound would go behind my back, like in the position we’d just been in.
“I want you to have a good life, Hoover. I want it to be here, with me. But I understand. Let me help you. I can give you my savings to get you started.”
“No.” I squeezed both his hands. “That’s your money. Because there might come a day when you, too, decide that it’s time to walk away. I don’t want you to ever feel trapped here.”
“It’s too late for that,” he cried even harder, for the loss of his brother, the loss of his autonomy, and the loss of the future he’d always wanted.
I’d have done anything to take it all back, to make it better for him. But there was no other way. Not for either of us.
Fate was a bitch like that.
Chapter Two
Grant
I started my business as a teen with a cart. A cart topped with a solar panel intended to operate the blender for my smoothies. All my friends teased me for my love of smoothies, but all I could see were the infinite possibilities. Fruits, veggies, dairy and nondairy options, various supplements and spices, herbs. Got a cold, drink a citrus-honey-ginger version. Hot weather…what could be better? Tummy troubles? Smoothies could help restore optimal gut bacteria.
But mostly, they just taste great.
And an environmentally-sound option like solar held great appeal. Unfortunately, it turned out that my math was off and the panel could do about three smoothies an hour. Not a very good way to earn a living, so I considered my options and finally discovered a way to accomplish my goals by using a blender that could be powered by pedaling.
