For The Sake of Science

Chapter Two - A Silent Storm

They sat in the room for an hour talking about the end of their freshman year of High School, their plans for the upcoming year, and teasing one another with inside jokes. Cole was sitting next to Emily on the floor, leaning against the bed Casey, Star, Ian, and Matt occupied. James and Amanda were practically snuggled up on the couch, grazing hands. The room was lit with Amanda's reading lantern, giving it a cozy ambiance. The clouds had only grown darker. The whole situation was a turn of events, but no one seemed to mind. It was nice to be away from home and get a break from the noisy bus. It was rare everyone had time to just sit and talk without anything else to do.

Emily heard the warning beeps her hearing aids make when the power was dangerously low. Star who had been sitting above her noticed the little light begin to blink yellow. Emily looked up at her with wide eyes.

"Shit," Star groaned.

"What, what's wrong?" Ian rubbed her arm.

"My hearing aids are about to die, and I can't charge them because of the power outage," Emily sighed.

"Oh, I didn't even think of that," Amanda frowned, "How long does it give you from the warning beep till the battery dies?"

"Around twenty minutes, they're five years old and the battery doesn't hold the same charge it used to," Emily could normally tell the charge using her mobile app but had to use her manual settings since she couldn't bring it with her.

"Hopefully, the power will come back on soon," Cole chimed in apologetically.

"Hopefully,"

Emily had been born Hard of Hearing into a fully hearing family. They barely knew what sign language was let alone how to navigate the hearing world with a deaf child. She had a deaf mentor who happened to attend their small Baptist church that taught her American Sign Language. She began learning ASL as a baby, was prescribed hearing aids at the age of four, and her elderly mentor passed away when she was only seven years old. Her parents never reached out to the Deaf community to search for another mentor, instead, they paid for her to attend ASL courses at a local community college all throughout middle school. She sat in large classrooms and at signing socials with students triple her age. Emily somehow managed to absorb the language well enough through her less-than-ideal learning environment. She started going to a Deaf summer camp in Washington around the age of ten and met many friends. They all lived in California, Washington, Martha's Vineyard, and Texas so it was hard to stay in touch, and never got to visit them any other time of the year. All those places had large Deaf communities, but nothing in her small town other than a Deaf church with members over the age of fifty. She had made the tough decision to take the year off camp to do the internship at the Aquarium.

Everyone in her class growing up knew she wore hearing aids. At her mainstream private school, she preferred to talk with everyone, who had forgotten about her invisible disability. She could catch most conversations with her hearing aids on but often struggled in louder and dimly lit settings. Even without her hearing aids, she could probably carry on a conversation in a quiet well-lit room. But of course, she had been thrown into the worst possible scenario with no way to charge them. She tried to brush it off but began to worry about how she would do without them for a while if necessary. Star knew enough ASL to carry on a level-two ASL conversation, but not enough to have full, serious discussions. She pretended that her friend's hard work to learn her language was enough, but deep down it wasn't the same. She missed her Deaf friends. She began to wonder if this had all been a mistake. She had worried that she should have gone to Washington again.

"Emily, do you want to go on a walk and see if we can find someone who has a way to charge them?" Matt asked.

Matt could be annoying at times, but he was good at reading people's emotions. He always knew when she was upset, and she had come to appreciate that about him.