Please, Remember Me

Just Visiting

"Hello." I was standing in Aiden's doorway, and I gave him a small wave. 

"Hello, attitude with an 'H.'" He signed it with a huge smile on his face when he saw me there so I knew that me being where I was was okay.

"Jerk." I felt myself smile just a little as I took a few tiny steps into the room. They had moved him out of the ICU because his condition was now stable but he was still under careful watch none the less.

"What? It's your name now."

"Only other signers can give you your name. Leave mine alone."

"I can call you whatever I want. I'm a full time signer, thank you very much."

"Unfair, arrogant with an 'A'. Stop being a d-e-r-p." Derp isn't a real word but apparently it was an insult, I continuously heard the nurses calling eachother than when they messed up. I had to spell it out for him and he let out a laugh.

" So I'm a derp now, am I?" We switched languages so I just nodded with a triumphant smile on my face.

"Well, at least I can talk." It should have hurt me. But it didn't. That was Aiden's intention. Too bad that I had already accepted the fact that I couldn't talk.

"At least I am not bleeding internally." I had finally looked up the forms of blood in ASL. I sat down in a chair next to his bed and stared at him. He stared back in awe.

"Who can't talk now?"

"How did you know about that?" I rolled my eyes at his question as if the answer were completely obvious. He sighed deeply and for a moment, I felt bad for him. But just for a moment.

"You're going to be okay."

"How do you know?"

"I'm amazing. Just look at me." I gave him a small smile that told him to trust me. I hope he did. I didn't know anything about internal bleeding or anything but I knew Aiden would be fine. He had to be.

"All I see when I look at you is a twig with hair. Lots and lots of hair." I gave him a silent laugh at that. My hair was down today, a cascading waterfall of brown silk.

"I want to cut it. All of it, just all of it off but Gini says it's pretty the way it is."  Aiden nodded at this. He gestured for me to come over and turn around. He started fiddling with my hair when I did so and I couldn't tell him to stop even if I wanted to because that would involve turning around where he could see my hands. I felt his knuckles eventually start to brush my back and continue down as he did something with my hair.

"Done. Here you go Rapunzel. Enjoy." I felt my hair and what he had done to it. It was bumpy but out of the way.

"Who is that?"

"Rapunzel?" Aiden asked. I nodded. "Rapunzel was a princess who was locked in a tower by a witch. She had really long hair."

"What happened to her?"

"She was rescued and they lived happily ever after."

"Did she ever cut her hair?"

"In the movie, her boyfriend does. To save her from the witch." I nodded, as if this was a satisfactory answer. I had learned what movies were by watching television every Thursday when I wasn't learning to sign and wasn't having speech therapy. I touched my bumpy hair again in reverence to his tale.

"How are you feeling today, Aiden?" I didn't want to feel the edge of concern I did whenever I looked at Aiden, but I couldn't really stop myself. He looked a little fragile.

"I'm feeling okay. As okay as anyone with severe bruising and some internal bleeding can feel," he joked. I touched his shoulder and gave him a small smile, to hopefully reassure him that he would be okay. He just stared at my hand until I took it back.

"What are you doing here, Rapunzel?"

"I just came to check on you." But even as I signed the words, he just shook his head.

"I don't mean what are you doing in my room. I mean what are you doing here? In this hospital? You already know my story. It's only fair that I know yours." I wasn't prepared for this. I hadn't brought my whiteboard with me.  I didn't know how to explain, I didn't know if I had the words. I raised my hands to try to say something, anything to break the deafening silence, but it was like they were foreign objects that I didn't know how to manipulate. So I just put them down, and resigned myself to the silence until a high pitched voice broke it.

"Aiden!"