All Which Remains

Chapter 7

Chapter 7

Arron

Ramelan leaves, and I watch him leave. What's that about? Does he not want to see my room? I sit down on my bed and contemplate my existence. How could I have messed up talking about Dad's job? I know what he does, and yet, I freeze. I put my head in my hands. I can feel my face heating up.

Soooo embarrassing.

I want to scream, but I know that if I do, Ramelan will be able to hear it from wherever he is in this house. My parents won't care, but I will. Why do I care so much about what Ramelan thinks? Everything's just too confusing right now. I lift my face out of my hands and look around.

Crap.

My room's actually really messy. I start to "clean" up. Meaning, that I grab everything that I see and stuff it in my closet.

Almost as soon as I finish, Ramelan walks back into the room. He looks surprised that I'm breathing so hard.

"Hey, you alright?" He asks me, not walking into the room, but still managing to make me feel like he was right up against me.

"Yeah– Yes, everything's fine. I was just doing some... last minute cleaning."

Ugh, why did you tell him that?

"Also, you're welcome to come in? I—if you want." Ramelan looks flustered.

"Oh, yeah..." He says, his voice small and quiet. He walks in quickly, like he was psyching himself. Then, he stands in the middle of the room, not once letting go of eye contact. I gesture to the bed, trying to make this less uncomfortable.

He doesn't move.

I cough into my hand and say, "You can sit on my bed?" Again, I gesture to the bed. He finally breaks eye contact with me and sits on the bed. He looks out the window mindlessly. A spike of deja vu goes through my heart. I double over, panting. What's happening? In a second, Ramelan is standing over me. He's saying stuff, but I don't know what they are.

I can't breathe. What's happening?

I start to freak out. No air is going through my lungs. I try to focus on Ramelan, but there are tears in my eyes. I reach out, and he grabs my hand and squeezes it, trying to calm me down. Finally, I'm able to hear him.

"It's going to be okay," He's saying it over and over again. Like it'll become some kind of spell. I guess, in a way, it does. I start to calm down. I lean into him, and he hugs me. "It's going to be okay," He says it a final time.

He holds me as I sit on the bed. I can feel his breath in my hair.

"What was that?"

"Panic attack. I think," He responds. I don't really know what a panic attack is. I've never seen one, only heard about them.

"Do you get them?"

"Sometimes." He doesn't elaborate.

We decide to sit in the living room for the lessons. Mostly because Mom doesn't want us to have my bedroom door closed, and because Ramelan said that he really likes the living room. I don't know why.

So, we're sitting criss-cross on the floor by the coffee table. Ramlean lays out a bunch of papers with letters and hand signs along with certain hand signs that make up a sentence.

"'A' is ___, so 'B' would be ___." I can tell that Ramelan's trying, but he's not cut out to be a teacher. It's not that I don't want Ramelan to teach me, it's just that I want to be fluent in sign language within the next few years.

Maybe I should ask my actual teacher, she knows sign language.

"Hey, Ramelan," I try to say this in the nicest way possible, "It looks like you're having a hard time, so should I ask Mrs. Hadi to teach me instead? I know that you want to, but..."

"You're right." Ramelan looks sad. His hair covering his eyes. Another sense of Deja vu hits me.

What the hell is happening to me?

I breathe in and out. Ramelan doesn't try to fight me. He looks away. I don't get it, why is this so emotional? Why does it feel like something is breaking between us? I stand up and grab Ramelan's hand. He looks at me, surprised.

I smile at him. "Come on," I say, guiding him to the kitchen, "Just because you can't teach me sign language, doesn't mean that we can't be friends. And obviously," I roll my eyes, "I want to be your friend."

I place him in a chair. He looks really embarrassed, so I try to pull my hand out of his, but he holds on.

"I'm just going to the chair next to yours. Let me go?" Ramelan shakes his head.

Instead of letting me go, he pulls me onto his lap. I feel my face heating up.

"He–- he–y...," I can't help but stutter. His face is so close to mine. I can just reach out and... touch it. Instead, I pat his head and get up. My face feels so warm. I turn away.

He can't see my expressions now, right? Mom is standing right there, in the doorway to the kitchen.

Shit.

Did she see? Mom looks away from me, and starts to whistle nervously. She's just as good at pretending she didn't see anything as I am.

The air between the three of us is incredibly awkward. I'm sure that I could cut it with a knife.

I'm tempted to actually grab a knife, but then I would look insane in front of Ramelan, and I can't have that.