Love is Deaf

Chapter 1: Mark or Marcus?

"Where were you yesterday?" Janet, my best friend, hisses at me. She mimics a jab with her pencil.

"The dentist!" I flinch away from her, smiling, and getting into my seat beside her. "These pearly whites don't pearl themselves."

She rolls her eyes, laughing as I tapped my molars.

"So, anyway," she begins, cutting her eyes. "I've been dying to tell you since yesterday...."

"...What's going on now?" I ask, trying to sound interested.

"Jake Bellinger?" She says his last name with a hard 'B', clasping her hands together, looking at me intensely. "Star of the track team, lives in The Hills, and calf muscles like you've never seen."

I turn my face up at her. "...He's a dick, Janet. Like, one of the biggest douchebags in this school-"

"Also, one of the hottest," she says, with a wave of her finger.
"Eh," I shrug.

"Regardless," she rolls her eyes. "He's asked me to go on a date with him tomorrow night."

I raise my brow, seeing the trainwreck from a mile away. "If you keep talking to him, he's gonna get you to like him, get in your pants, and then completely ignore you."

"How would you know?" She scoffs.

"'Cause he's a prick, Janet," I sigh with exasperation. "You and I, and the rest of the Pennwood High, all know what he did to Rebecca Slater last year, and let's not even get into that."

"Rebecca is..."

"Rebecca is a girl who got caught up with the wrong guy; that guy being Jake. Janet, she had to switch counties."

"Well, in case you didn't know: people change, Ari," she crosses her arms. "We literally talked on the phone for hours, do you really think I'm not capable of seeing what's good for me and what's not?"

My eyes widen as I suppress the answer that almost flies out of my mouth.

"He's just... really cocky," I say, giving up.

Janet rolls her eyes in defiance. "Okay, so he's cocky?! That doesn't mean he's trying to screw me over. Plus that thing with Rebecca was literally over a year ago."

I sigh, shrugging my shoulders, and giving up. "Fine. Just... be careful."

I hold my hands up in defense as she gives me an accusatory look.

To me, Janet was everything she ever needed to be, but she always... wanted more. Attention from guys seemed to be the thing that filled her with whatever she felt was missing. I hadn't paid it much attention in later years; however, Janet's obsessive... sporadic behavior seemed to reveal itself to me more and more as we grew older together. Every two months or so, there would be a new guy and a new situation, which led to new problems. I became worried for her, and found myself constantly wondering if there were secrets she would hide from me. With each guy she'd "be" with, after it was all over, she'd dump her emotional baggage out on me; and now that I think of it, each time it ended, a piece of her would be taken away. I also noticed, each time it ended, she grew more hesitant to tell me things.

The 'warning' bell rings and I watch as Janet stiffly reaches for her compact mirror and lipgloss. She flips her blonde hair and quickly applies the gloss before handing it over to me.

"Want some?" She blinks.

I shake my head. "No thanks."

I watch as other kids pile into the classroom, some a little early, some almost late... and one boy who I didn't recognize.