Changed

The Start of Something Good

C-E-L-E-S-T-E, she said, all the while signing the letters in the air. She repeated the motions about a dozen times while standing in her vertical mirror. She had lost some weight since the last time she stood there, she noticed. Her stomach was flatter, her shoulders broader. She felt lighter. Her blond hair was in curls today and she loved the way it shaped her face, her blue eyes practically glowing in contrast with the blue sundress she was wearing. With one more check in the mirror, she found she was content. She looked almost happy. And she was. But she could tell there was a storm brewing inside her. Today would make or break her, pave the way for the next year. Today, she went back to school. And not just any school, but a new university. In California.

California was not Kansas. Back home she had had cities, but nothing like the new ones she was now part of. Buildings were taller. People were more plentiful. The lights were dizzying at night. The stars were almost impossible to see; Celeste loved how the buildings’ windows looked like her own personal stars. They weren’t the little gas balls in the sky that formed constellations that she was used to, but they were just as magical; they helped her get to sleep at night. Much better than counting sheep. California was her home now.

Celeste, with her twin brother at her side, would walk into the University of Southern California and start her future. If being a newly deaf student was hard, being a newly deaf student just starting college would be crazy, a possible train wreck. But if the past few months had proven anything, it was that she was strong. And she could take anything at this point. With a sigh, she grabbed her bag, which held her books and laptop, and walked, out her door into the hallway. Half way to the stairs, she found her brother, Quincy, standing against the wall, waiting. When he looked up and caught her attention, she smiled.

“Good Morning,” he said, while signing the words to her.

Celeste laughed. He had signed ‘Good night.’ He looked at her puzzlingly and was about to ask, but she shook her head and grabbed his hand to lead him downstairs, to the door, and out to the car.

---

The walls and walls of books in the University library had become her sanctuary in the short time she had been there. She wasn’t the only one who was silent in here. The whole building rang with stillness. She felt safe, where it was okay to be who she was, or at least who she had become. This was also the building her brother hated.  Smiling devilishly, she knew that she would be on her own for a while. She loved her brother, but he had been suffocating her; he wouldn’t leave her side all day, walking her to every class, even to her table in the café. Embarrassing. She was deaf, not an invalid.

But her annoying brother aside, she actually had enjoyed herself today. She felt like this was going to be an amazing year. She had fallen in love with the campus, the landscape was to die for, and there was so much history here. She had found herself researching the stories on all the buildings she had classes in earlier that day. Laughing, she realized a few months ago if someone were to tell her she would be this content in a library, she would have laughed and told them they needed to get their eyes checked.

Eyes. She sighed. Why couldn’t it have been her eyes? If something bad had to happen to her, why did it have to be her ears? To a musician, deafness is like death. She remembered thinking so many times that death would’ve been a better outcome. The institute, and Ms. Thomas, had taught her that things happened for a reason, and as cheesy as it sounds, God had a plan for each and every one of us. This time around, God thought she didn’t need her ears working to be all that she could be. All that she was. And plus, if her eyes were the body parts not working, she would’ve missed the gorgeous blue eyes staring at her from across the foyer. The eyes that appeared to be moving closer now. Much much closer.