Deaf, Hard of Hearing, but NEVER Hearing Impaired

II

My ears no longer hurt in any other of my classes.

In English class, we are given a work period.  Work periods are to be spent finishing up any incomplete assignments and work.  I'm already finished everything, so I put in my headphones and blast the music.  The first song on my playlist being Enamel by SID.  I have a very wide range of music preferences.

I feel a crumpled piece of paper hit my head.  I furrow my brows at the paper.  Why would someone throw this at me?  I unfold it to read the short message written on it.  It reads: "Yo, what's a girl gotta do to get your attention?"  I recognize the handwriting and look up to see my friend Kayla looking at me from the other side of the classroom.

No one is allowed to talk during work periods.  Teacher's rules.  The only mistake the teacher made was never saying no signing.  Kayla and I are major smart-asses.  To avoid getting in trouble for talking, we sign to one-another.  The teacher can never get mad at us.

Since Kayla is done her work as well, we spend the rest of the period signing back and forth.  Although, I must admit it to be tricky to concentrate with music blasting in my ear.

I initiate the conversation without a topic in mind.
"How was your day?"
"Fine. You?"
"My ear hurts, but I'm fine."
"If you say so..."

• • •

I walk home from school by myself. On average, it takes me half-an-hour to arrive at my house. I turn on the tenth anniversary of Les Misérables to listen to. I hum along to the music as walk down the main street towards my home.

Humming along, I decide to set the alarm on my phone. That way I won't have to listen to that annoying alarm clock in the morning. Problem solved.

As I take in the scenery around me, something catches my eye. There's a cat up in a tree, cowering from a dog that looks to be barking up at it. That seems normal enough, except the dog is on a leash with its owner directly nearby. Holding the leash, there is a girl talking to another girl. Neither have noticed the dog barking up the tree; they seem too absorbed in their conversation. I wonder what they're talking about? It would be nice if I could tell.

I think about this as I walk up my driveway. That's when I have a great idea. I head inside to ask a favour of my aunt. I ask her if she can teach me how to lip read.

I spend the next three hours learning the basics of lip reading. How different vowels look, and put them together with other syllables. It may not be an exact science, but it seems pretty neat.

Just as we go to move on to R and H sounds, I realize the time. It's about six o'clock. Today's a cadet night; I need to get ready.

As I begin changing, my parents arrive home. My aunt, no longer having a reason to stay, goes home.

I finishing changing into my uniform and check it in the mirror. The black pants are free of cat hair and have a nice crease in the front. The belt is done up properly so that the brass is only visible in the front. My blue cadet shirt is wrinkle free and the sleeves are rolled up properly. I put my hair up in a bun and place the corps ball cap on top of my head.

My dad then drives me the fifteen minute down to our building, the barracks.

Once there, I soon find my closest friend from cadets, Violet Kruden.

"Hi, Heather," She greets with her hands, "How're you?"

A few months back, I began teaching Violet some sign language. Now she is proud of everything she knows.

"I see you are more fluent with signing now, Violet." I complement her with sign.

She proudly nods. "Yup, I even know what you just said." She states happily.

Our conversation is cut short by a voice calling out to us, or rather, to Violet. "Kruden, I must question what you just called her." A girl who is taller than us both walks over.

Her last name is Carou. She also attends the same school as I do. She even knows sign language better; she started learning it before I did so it's natural that's she's better than me.

Her short dirty blonde is obstructing bits of her vision as she sends us a confused look from beyond her glasses. What she's questioning is my name sign. To her, it probably looked like Violet was insulting me. My name sign is the sign for "weird" but with the letter H. Violet's name sign is also "weird", only with the letter V.

"Don't worry, Carou," I assure her, "That's just my name sign. It's fine." I dismiss it easily.

She shrugs and leaves it be. She leaves Violet and I to our conversation once more.

Throughout the night, I'm constantly being used as an example. I spend most of the night merely following the voices of people calling me. Running around exhausted, I mumble under my breath, "I wish I couldn't hear them calling me."

My final task of the night is demonstrating marching drill for new entries. As I march around the room, the angle the commands are coming from changes continuously. Only being allowed to look directly ahead of me, I have to listen carefully to each command in order to do the movements correctly.

• • •

By the time I get home, I'm extremely tired. As I'm heading to bed, my parents call me outside

"Which one do you think, Heather?" They ask.

I don't even bother to look at what it is they're asking my opinion on. I can tell that they want me to be the tie breaker. If I answer their question, it will start a fight between the two.

Before I know it, that fight starts anyway. They begin disagreeing about who I'm going to side with.

Attempting to tune them out and calm down, I stand there with my eyes closed. I listen as their disagreeing turns into bickering. As their bickering turns into arguing. As their arguing turns into yelling. I'm beginning to become annoyed already.

Then my phone starts going off. Searching through my pockets to no avail, I'm becoming more and more agitated.

Soon after, I hear cop sirens approaching from the distance.

A car turns the corner and smashes into our neighbour's car.  The alarm on both cars—the neighbour's and the one that crashed into it—start going off. 

The police cruiser arrives with it's sirens still blaring.  The officer doesn't bother to turn off the siren as he steps out and arrests the reckless driver.

Too deeply involved in their argument, my parents fail to notice any of the ruckus going on only fifty feet away.

There's just too much noise right now. Both my parents' yelling. My phone going off. The police siren roaring about. The man screaming his innocence. There's even a plane loudly flying low above us. With all these sound at once, I'm at the end of my patience.

"Would you all shut up!" I yell out my frustration. No one even heard me.

I can't take the noise anymore. "I WISH I COULDN'T HEAR ANYTHING AT ALL!!!" I scream before running to my room.

Little did I know that that sentence would come to be one I would regret indefinitely...