Endless struggle

Chapter one, Elena

I remembered waking up, and seeing the frantic looks in my parents eyes, and feeling horror through all my limbs, as I realized that they were trying to speak to me. At first I didn't realize what the problem was. Just that they were mouthing something to me... Then I tried to talk, and nothing came out. I could feel that I was making noise, but I couldn't hear it...
What's happening to me?! I thought, but the awful truth dawned on me soon.
.
Now, 7 months later, I was almost used to it. I got woken up every morning by a handy little vibrating device thing, and went to school to a special school for deaf people, like me. Sometimes I still got freaked out by the eerie silence that greeted me in the morning, but I new by then that nothing was hiding under my bed. You're 14 now, Elena. I silently scolded myself, you can't get upset by childish things like monsters anymore!!! I got up and got ready for the day.
I still missed my old school, and my old friends, but I still got to see Katelyn. Katelyn and I had been friends since preschool. We lived next door to each other for about two years, until she moved to a bigger house, still nearby. I'd been teaching her sign language, though I was still learning myself, so we could now speak pretty fluently to each other.
The school day is basically getting to class, learning some stuff about the 'deaf world' , doing some math, science, etc, and then you leave a few hours later. one of the only differences from my school and normal school, is that at my school, we all get treated differently. We all have teachers specially trained to teach us, we don't have 'morning announcements ' and... Well, pretty much exactly what you would expect a school for people like me to be like.
There WERE some perks to being deaf, sort of... You didn't have to hear all the annoying noises that drive some people insane, like airplanes, siblings, strange ringing noises in your ears, Girl Scouts knocking on your door in the middle of your favorite episode of Sofia The First (I honestly love that show, even if it is for younger kids), things like that. But you also couldn't hear important, even dangerous things. like smoke alarms, timers, people breaking down your door (that's never happened to me just fyi), etc.
Well.... The day went as it usually did. Go to school, come home, read, (I LOVE reading!!!) watch tv (with captions), and then be bored for the rest of the day. usually, people who are bored listen to music - no - or just stare into space while listening to the ac or something - no - I can't do those things. Everything feels... Blank. I can't hear the dramatic music in movies that tells most people what's going on, I see a caption that says: *dramatic music*
Or something like that. Well anyway... Katelyn said she was busy, so I just read my book for a while.
For me, reading was like hearing. It's like... I could hear in my head. It took me places that I couldn't go to because of my deafness. It kept me always wanting more. Always staying up late until I'm too tired to focus. Reading gave something to think about when I'm lonely, or bored. It made me always think about, possibilities. Happy endings. And it gave me hope that someday, maybe my life could change in a good way.