Ant and Dec Prompts

You're not deaf?

The bus was late.

Again.

Shivering, I wrapped my arms around myself and studied the grey sky with a frown. The rain beat down mercilessly and I stepped back further into the shelter, desperate for some kind of warmth. Under my breath, I cursed Dermott for not picking me up. It had already been a long day at school and I just wanted to be at home.

Impatiently, I scanned the road for any sign of the bus, relief visble on my face when I finally saw the familiar bright lights in the distance.

As I climbed onto the bus, I greeted the  driver with a tired smile and turned to find a seat. The smile slightly dropped from my face when I realised that the bus was completely full. Awkwardly I walked down the aisle, stuttering an apology to the person I accidentally hit with my bag when the bus started moving again.

There were no spare seats towards the front, so I prayed there would be a spare seat next at the back next to someone decent. Luckily, as I neared the end of the bus, I found two spare seats; one near a boy who looked my age, and the other next to an old woman who looked as if she'd drank some sour milk. Feeling as if the lady would bite my head off if I even looked in her direction, I chose to sit next to the boy.

I just had to ask him to move his bag.

I cleared my throat loudly, hoping he would notice and make space for me. But he carried on staring out of the window, completely oblivious to me standing there.

I started to get uncomfortable with everyone watching me so I asked him, "Excuse me? Can you move your bag please?"

Again, he didn't react, so I sighed and decided to just sit next to the old woman, who looked at me with disgust. I perched on the edge of my seat for the whole ride, trying to get away from her. I entertained myself by deciding to study the boy. He had dark spiky hair, blue eyes, long lashes and from everything else I could make out, he seemed quiet and cute.

Too bad he was so rude.

At my stop, I gladly escaped the evil woman and greeted the rain. I thanked the bus driver and I noticed that the boy also got off with me. As he started to walk away, I shouted at him.

"If you didn't want me to sit next to you, you could have just SAID!"

Unbelievably, he walked away into the rain and didn't even turn his head towards me. I was gobsmacked. I'd met some rude people over the years, but never someone who didn't even acknowledge my existence. I turned to walk home, and tried to just forget it all, knowing that it would annoy me for the rest of the day.

I alerted the whole house to my bad mood when I barged past Dermott as he opened the door for me and ran up the stairs. I threw my bag on the floor and flopped down on my bed, thinking of all the homework I had to do. Minutes later, my mam's concerned face poked out from behind the door.

"Are you alright, pet?" She asked, lovingly. She came to sit on my bed and stroked my hair. "Quite an entrance you had there. What happened today at school?"

Sighing, I ranted about everything to her. At the end of it all, she looked thoughtfully at me.

"Is he deaf?"

"What?"

"The boy? Is he deaf? It would explain why he didn't hear you, or talk to you." She explained.

"Ummm... I don't know," I admitted sheepishly. She frowned at me. Then she gave me a lecture about judging people.

The next day, he was there on the bus in the same place. Thankfully, the bus was nearly empty so I sat right at the end of the bus. As I walked past him, I decided to ask him something to just make sure that he was deaf and not just rude.

"Hi! Do I know you? You seem familiar."

No answer.

Satisfied, I walked away and sat by myself at the back, looking at him for the rest of the ride. This time, as we got off together, we made eye contact and he gave me a small smile. I found myself smiling back at him.

He's so cute! I thought to myself.

Over the next few weeks, he would regularly come on the bus, each time he would sit in the same place. To me it became his 'special seat', and I would never sit there. We would share a small smile and a nod in greeting every day. I told my mam about the small friendship we had (if you could even call it that), and she gave me the idea to learn a bit of sign language for him. Excitedly, I went off, happy that he would get a small surprise tomorrow.

The next day, school dragged by and seemed to last for days. When it was finally over and I was waiting for the bus, for some reason I had butterflies. Probably because his smile was so cute.

For once, the bus wasn't late, and I climbed on with a wide smile. I almost ran to the boy and I had to calm myself down before he thought I was some kind of creepy weirdo. As I walked to him, he looked up and we shared our smile. This time, I didn't look away and I started signing to him.

Suddenly, he pulled out his earphones.

"I'm sorry, I can't read sign-" he started.

"OH MY GOD!!! You're not deaf? I'm so sorry. Oh my god, I'm so sorry, I thought you were deaf because you never respond when I talk to you. So I tried to learn some sign language to talk to you..." I tailed off to a mumble and I could feel myself turning redder and redder.

He burst out laughing. "Wow! I never thought I was worth learning sign language to talk to! "

"I'm so sorry, how can I possibly make it up to you?" I asked.

"Well, you can accompany me for a drink." He said, "I'd love to hear more about a guy who learned sign language for a guy who cant read it!"

A/N: Ok so this took me ages to write and I didn't know how to finish it but yeah!

I went to the park today and my brother challenged me at the monkey bars and I did them. I felt so PROUD because i haven't done them in years. But now my hands really hurt.