To Show a Blind Person the Sight of the World Without Using Your Voice

Chapter 6: Reading Body Language

Haruka Nanase

"You can't go back to your foster parents right now."

That's what miss Tachibana said as soon as she walked into the living room this afternoon. She explained that the Hirayamas said it was very complicated, but that I couldn't be go home for a little while. After that she suggested I'd stay another day or two, until my foster parents could take me back again. She even said it with a smile, like she knew the Hirayamas will take me back in.

And that's how I ended up here, on Makoto's bedroom floor lying on top of a futon. I'm restless and I can't possibly sleep no matter how exhausted I may be right now; the knowledge that I messed up big time makes my mind work over hours.

Miss Tachibana might've been really light-hearted about it, but if there's something I'm good at its reading body language. When we were eating dinner a couple of hours ago, she stated that the Hirayamas said they couldn't tell her why I can't go back, but I could tell that miss Tachibana was lying to me. I don't think it's wrong of her to lie to me, she probably has her reasons, but it gave me enough proof; I spoiled my last chance with my foster parents.

After living with the Hirayamas for almost year, they finally got enough of my refusing to communicate with potential adoption-parents, my running away every once in a while and, most of all, they must've gotten tired of my constant silence.

I freaked after a meeting about a potential adoption, all that because there would be another kid living at that same house. It was like my mind had an overload of information, didn't know what to do with it and just decided to turn it into fear.

Mister Hiyarama and I had a fight and I fled to my room where I sat and thought deeply for almost an hour. I had at least two panic attacks before I decided I had to run; I couldn't stay at that place if that meant I'd have to live with another kid again. It would be too much for me.

Just thinking about permanently living with grownups would mean constant anxiety to me, but if another person around my age joined the match, I wouldn't be able to bear it. I knew that.

By leaving them the note with "Just shut up and mind your own business, not mine!" I knew running off afterwards would give them a good reason to give up on their messed up foster kid.

I made a stupid mistake, but I wonder what would've happened it I did agree on being adopted.

But instead, they'll probably have to get me a spot in some other foster family, maybe even a bigger care home. I may be able to stay with the Tachibanas until they decide what to do with me, but I now know for sure that by the time I reach eighteen this summer I'll be living on the streets.

If I wouldn't have messed up so badly, maybe miss and mister Hirayama would've let me stay with them until I could get a job and afford a little cheap apartment somewhere. Any other foster care will just send me away by the time I reach adulthood, and with no money, job or even a place to go back to, I'll have to live out my days in some of the nasty alleys of Iwatobi.

I squeeze my eyes shut and try not to cry; I know I won't cry, because I haven't cried since I was nine, but it still feels like I could bust out in tears any moment now.

It's dark outside and probably already far past midnight, and my mind still hasn't calmed down even a little bit. I'm not even tired anymore.

I'm trying to come up with places I can go after the Hirayamas will disown me, while at the same time I try to convince myself that miss Tachibana is right; after staying here for a couple of days, I'll just be able to go back to my foster parents.

Yet, I know how it goes with foster parents; they're either bad or they just don't have the determination to put up with me.

With some foster parents I got taken away because they did illegal things, did things a foster parent shouldn't ever do to a twelve year old.

Some parents are good ones, but they have other foster kids that don't match with others. A silent kid will get even more traumatized by the other kids that bully him for being so silent, and the anxious silence etches itself even deeper into someone's heart.

I couldn't help it, every time I left angry notes for people or sometimes even scratched or hit them, it's all because they kept treating me like garbage.

The Hirayamas were the first foster parents that treated me like their own child, like they actually wanted to find the best permanent family for me.

But anger and anxiety from previous years doesn't leave your body, not even when you think you've finally found the foster parents that care enough.

My breathing gets heavier, because if anything I'm terrified of potentially having to leave the Hirayamas. I twist and turn and squeeze my eyes shut in an attempt to fall asleep.

When I open my eyes, because I'm not going to be sleeping any time soon, I'm looking straight at Makoto. He is asleep, with his face turned in my direction, and he looks so peaceful; eyes closed just so lightly and his mouth gaping as snores softly and almost silently.

It's calming watching him sleep, his lips moving as slightly as he mumbles something in his sleep.

I feel myself smiling, while grimacing at the same time; never in my life have I slept that peacefully. I always had to pay attention to my surroundings when I was younger, and by the time I got away from my old home I got a bad case of insomnia. There's always panic keeping me wide awake and if I do sleep there's nightmares to wake me up sooner than later.

I sit upright and crawl from underneath my blankets. I know I won't be able to sleep so nicely as Makoto, so I better stop trying. I reach into my bag, which miss Tachibana found in her backyard, and take out a block of wood and my gouge.

I wrap the blanket around my shoulders before sitting cross-legged on top of my futon.

I start carving away at the wood. With every shaky stripe that stretches over the surface of the woodcarving, I scrape away my anxiety.

It's the way I've always done it, peeling away my fears and sadness layer by layer.

I carve and I feel the pain leave my body.

I carve and I don't feel like crying anymore.

I carve until my left hand slips and when I accidently puncture my finger with the gouge a little drip of blood creeps down my woodcarving. I don't even feel stressed out by the sight of blood; that's how calming carving the wood is for me.

So I keep on carving away at the wood.

It's always been my way of dealing with everything; my anxiety, my past and with the scars it gave me, my future and how much it terrifies me... And right now it's like a form of therapy; like a calm kind of music that sings you to sleep, or a little voice that tells you not to worry.

This little lump of wood is my personal guardian angel.