Page 64 of Kiss-Fist
“Are you breaking things off with me?” he asks bluntly.
That question must have been weighing on him since my office. I shake my head. ‘No. I’m not breaking things off.’ I want him to relax, to breathe easy so we can get through this. ‘I know you said earlier that you were not going to give up on learning ASL, and I believe you, but I need you to understand why it’s important.’
He shakes his head. “No, I know. Ido,” he insists when I shoot him a skeptical look. “We can’t meet in the middle when it comes to communication. I get that. It’s like…” He wrings his hands in his lap like he wants to sign, and I kind of love that. I want it to be his first instinct when it comes to me. “It’s like if we needed to communicate through writing. I’ve tried—my whole life, I’ve tried to get better. My parents used to punish me.” He swallowed thickly, and I can see the pain behind his eyes. “A lot,” he adds. “For years. When that didn’t work and I kept failing in school, they put me on medication, but it just made me feel like crap. I was on a new prescription every few months, and nothing worked. They wanted to fix me, but I was too broken.”
My heart wrenches with sympathy. Sometimes I forget how lucky I am. Living Deaf in a hearing world will never be easy, but I have family, a community, support, and pride. I was given those at birth—I was taught to embrace that part of my identity without reservation.
It’s obvious Thom had nothing like that. Not even from the people who were supposed to love him without conditions.
‘You are not broken,’ I sign firmly, and I hope to god her tone conveys the depth of how much I mean that. ‘Just like I’m not broken.’
He says nothing for a beat, but I can tell someone’s given him this speech before. After a long, deep breath, he says, “If our relationship had to be through text only, it wouldn’t work. No matter what I do, I can’t really read. And you’ve seen how badly I spell.”
I’m unable to stop a small laugh, and I nod. ‘Yeah.’
He grins back, fragile but sweet. “So I get it. I promise I get it. I’m not going to stop, okay? I’m not good at a lot of things. I’m…you know…I’m kind of dumb.”
My hands dart out and grab his, squeezing hard before letting go. ‘You are not dumb.’
He shrugs. “I don’t have a big, important education like you. Or even like Dex,” he adds. “I got an associate’s in business and passed, but my GPA was so bad. I was on academic probation for a lot of it, and I think I got some pity Cs from teachers. But I’m going to be good atthis, okay? I’m going to besodamn good at this. For you.”
I take a moment to digest what he’s saying. To feel it deep in my chest, the words settling behind my ribs like a heavy second heartbeat. ‘If your brother and his girlfriend learn ASL—even just a little, just some—we can do a date. But,’ I tell him before he can get too excited, ‘I expect the same from you. With my family and my friends,’ I add in casethat’s not obvious. ‘I want you to meet them. To spend time with them. To try for them too.’
He looks like an overexcited golden retriever. He wriggles his body from side to side a little, nodding almost frantically. “Yes. I want to meet them. I’m going to show them all how fucking good I’m going to be to you.” He suddenly puts a hand to my jaw and leans in close. My eyes are locked on his lips, though in my periphery, I can see the interpreter on the screen. “Sogood to you,” he repeats. I can feel the softness of his breath across my cheeks and smell the mint from the gum he’d been chewing.
My entire body shudders. I’m so obsessed with him and the way his touch feels against my skin.
Christ, this is almost too much. We’re not even officially dating, but somehow, I find myself wanting to drag him to Home Depot and pick out paint colors for my future home renovations.
I need to temper my excitement and keep us on track. ‘One day at a time. And I want to say sorry again. I didn’t mean to make you cry.’
He blinks, then quickly shakes his head. “No. No, Robbie. That wasn’t you. I was so fucking mad at myself. I knew I screwed up, and I didn’t know how to make it right, and I like you so much. I didn’t want this to stop. I promise I will never do this again?—”
I press a finger to his lips, stopping him before he can make any more promises. ‘Don’t.’
“I mean it,” he says.
‘Don’t,’ I sign again. ‘You can’t keep that promise. Youwillscrew up again. No matter how hard you try, sometimesyou will forget. You’ll get excited and make us reservations for a movie with no captions, or you’ll introduce me to a friend who’s freaked-out by Deaf people. You’ll sometimes forget and speak before you sign. It’s going to happen. It always happens. That’s your reality.’
He looks gutted again, and I hate myself for being so blunt, but what other choice do I have? It all needs to be said.
“What do I do?”
‘Don’t ever stop trying. I’m going to do the same thing some days. I’m going to write you long notes and forget you can’t read them. I’m impatient sometimes and that might hurt your feelings. That’s just life.’
“But you won’t hate me when I screw up?”
In this moment, I can’t imagine a single thing that would make me hate him. This man has forced me to break every one of my self-imposed rules, and I don’t feel a single second of regret about it. I might not be ready to admit what this feeling is in my chest, but I can’t ignore that it’s there, waiting for me to find the courage to face it.
No. I won’t hate him.
‘Will you hatemewhen I do it?’
His eyes go wide. “No.” His hands lift as though it’s involuntary and he signs, ‘Never.’
I grin at him. God, I am so gone for him. ‘Then neither will I.’
He breathes, his entire body sagging with his exhale, then he looks up at me. “Do we need to have an interpreter every time we have to talk like this?”
