Better Off Alone (Adopted by Brendon and Sarah Urie)

5. Callie

So Brendon is Panic! At The Disco?  The band Natasha went on and on about. She'd write me pages of notes about them and the music and how much it sucked that I couldn't hear it. She gave me the CD and I showed her how I could 'listen' to it. The music had some songs with a strong beat and some with less of a beat. More, melodic, I guess is how it would've described. Fewer drums, anyway. And drums are the easiest to feel. And bass, if it's turned up high enough.

On the CD I had, I liked the song 'Don't Threaten Me With A Good Time' because it had a really fast beat.

Sarah and Brendon wanted to go for sushi, which I've never had, so I agreed. How bad could it be?

We sat and 'talked' for a while until they said we should head to dinner because they wanted to make a quick stop, first. I shrugged and said ok but asked if I could change quickly and explained about the spilled milk.

'Don't worry,' I wrote in my notebook. 'I didn't cry over it.'

They both looked at me and laughed. I smiled. I made a joke and it worked.

I ran upstairs and quickly changed my jeans and went back downstairs.

We got into the car and drove off. Brendon turned the music up again.

The first stop they wanted to make was at the mall. We went into the Apple store and they bought me a phone. They even found a blue one!  Sarah pointed at the cases and told me to pick one. I went over and found a case I liked and pointed to it. Sarah nodded and talked to the sales person who took it off the wall for us. He was talking to me and I had to shake my head and cover my ears. He looked at Sarah who explained that I'm deaf. He nodded and smiled at me and then turned to Sarah. They opened the box for the phone and the guy got a chip and put it in the phone. Sarah wrote 'that's a SIM card so your phone will have service for texting and calls in an emergency.  And you'll have data to download games and apps.'  I nodded.

Brendon and Sarah got the phone all set up for me and we walked through the mall a bit. There was a store called Hot Topic and they took me in there.

My new phone vibrated in my pocket. I took it out.

'Brendon's band has a lot of merchandise here,' Sarah texted. She showed me some of the t-shirts and sweatshirts. I also saw twentyone pilots shirts. Another band with great beats. The drumming was awesome. I pointed at those, too.

'You like twentyone pilots?' Brendon texted. I nodded.

'We're good friends with Josh. The drummer. Tyler too, but Josh lives here in California.'

I stared at Brendon. I didn't know the people in the band's names, but I did know the drumming.

'I'll invite Josh to come over tomorrow, too, okay?'

Pretty sure my jaw dropped. Brendon smiled.

They bought me a few t-shirts and sweatshirts and a pair of slippers that looked like Jack Skellington from Nightmare Before Christmas. I'd seen it a bunch of times. With captions, obviously.

Once they were done buying stuff, we got back in the car and headed to the restaurant.

When we pulled into the restaurant, I was a little nervous. Partially because I didn't know what to expect and partially because it had been a while and Brendon and Sarah had never taken a deaf kid to a restaurant. This would be... interesting.

We went inside and were led to a table. The waitress started talking to me and I shook my head and covered my ears. Brendon pointed at me and I saw him say 'she's deaf''. The waitress nodded and spoke to Brendon and Sarah.

Sarah got my attention and mimed 'drink'. I nodded and asked if I could have a Coke. Sarah nodded and then asked 'what is the sign for 'drink'?'

I showed her the sign that she had just done and smiled. She texted me 'look at that! I already knew one!'  I smiled and laughed.

'What's the sign for Coke?' Brendon asked.

I finger spelled Coke and then did the sign for soda. Or pop. Then texted them.

'You would spell the name of the drink, but the sign for soda is the sign that looked like opening a can.' And then I did the sign again.

'Can you teach us the alphabet in sign language?' Sarah asked. I nodded.

The waitress came back with our drinks and put them all in front of Brendon and Sarah. She looked at them and I presume asked about ordering. Brendon said something to her and pointed at the menu. Sarah texted me.

'We're going to do all you can eat, so you can try different things, okay?' I nodded.

She texted again 'take a look at the menu and see what you might like to try. We'll order a few things to start.'

I nodded again and started looking through the menu.

The waitress was standing pretty much with her back to me. She spoke to Sarah who frowned, looked at me, and said something that looked like 'she's deaf, not stupid'. 

The waitress looked at me and mouthed in a very exaggerated way 'would you like a fork or chopsticks?'

Brendon stood up and looked at the waitress.

He was mad. He was pointing at her and at me and at the table. I couldn't figure out what he was saying, but suddenly, another person from the restaurant showed up. He had a tag that said 'manager' and put his hands up as if to avoid a fight and asked if everything was okay. Brendon shook his head and pointed at the server and then at me. I saw him say the word 'stupid'. I really hoped he wasn't saying that I was stupid. Probably not since they'd literally just said that I wasn't.

People were looking over and had camera phones out and were watching. I was getting embarrassed.

'Can we go?' I texted Sarah. She touched Brendon's arm and showed him my text. He stopped yelling and looked at me with sad eyes. He nodded and texted back 'we'll go home and order in.'  I nodded.

Brendon glared at the manager and the server. 'Thank you for ruining our celebration,' I saw Brendon say. He spoke slowly so I would be able to read his lips. He put his arm around me and led me out of the restaurant. I kept my head down hoping people were going back to their own meals. Hot tears threatened to fall.

No doubt by tomorrow I'd be back at the Children's Home.