Love is Deaf

Chapter 15

Malia woke up and looked around. It was dark, quiet. Quiet. Did the procedure not work? She begins to panic when she realizes something keeps bothering her. A ringing in her ears. She tries to press but quickly retracts when she feels bandages covering them both. Suddenly, a noise came from her machine. It was the smallest simplest noise. A beep. Followed by another. And another. She checked and saw it was her heart monitor. She heard her heart monitor. She could hear. The feeling brought her to tears. It was overwhelming. And she only heard her own heartbeat, what's gonna happen when she hears Kylie's voice? She can hear herself cry which only caused more tears to fall.

The door opens, she can hear, and the doctor walks in. "O-" she quickly stops him. Please, i want the first voice i hear to be my girlfriend's. He smiles and nods. I understand. Well, the procedure was a success. You have your hearing back. But it will take time to adjust to you being able to hear again and with speech therapy as well. But I'm sure you have a support system back at home with your loved ones so that shouldn't be a problem. Malia nods. Yes i do.

Good, now things may get overwhelming at times, mostly cause now you can't just shut your ears off. You'll always be hearing now. It's not like you can shut your eyes and they go away. Things will take time but I'm confident that you'll pull through and make a full recovery as well as regain your speech again. Malia nods and takes a deep breath. She can actually hear herself breathing. Everything was a bit overwhelming. He's right, she can hear everything. She can't escape. She hears her heart beating inside her. She hears her own breathing. She hears the noise outside the door, in the hallway. I'll come back to check on you. He leaves the room as she hears the door open and click shut. This is gonna take some getting used to. She hears more footsteps approaching, rapidly, as if they were running. The door swings open and she sees her friends. Kylie pushes her way through. "Malia." She sighs. Malia places her hands over her mouth as her eyes start to water. Her voice. Her beautiful angelic voice. She starts crying as Kylie rushes over and hugs. "Sh...." Malia leans into her as she cries into her chest.

Kylie looks at their friends, who simply nod and leave, giving them some time alone. "Why didn't you tell me?" She asks. Malia wipes her tears. I wanted to surprise you. "Oh, you surprised me alright!" They laugh. Malia caresses her cheek and smiles. She opens her mouth but nothing comes out. She hasn't spoken in years. Not like she can't but she's a bit rusty. She sighs. "I love you." Her voice comes out hoarse and raspy, given that she hasn't really spoken for a long time. Kylie bites her lip and starts crying. She leans her forehead against her. "I love you." Malia smiles and pulls her in for a kiss. She can finally hear her. She finally heard her. She doesn't think she can even get tired of hearing Kylie's voice. Especially when she's saying that. "I love you." She whispered. Kylie smiles and kisses her softly. "I love you. But you're not off the hook for keeping this from me this whole time." Malia laughs loudly and quickly stops. Is that what her laugh sounds like? Did she make that noise? "Don't." Kylie shakes her head. "I love your laugh." Malia smiles. "You're just saying that cause you wanna sleep with me." Kylie laughs loudly this time, throwing her head back and Malia decides that just became her new favorite sound, nothing will ever top that. Apart from maybe her saying 'I love you'.