inkofhermajesty
For many years, he has learned how to spend his whole life for something that is beyond himself.
Disciplined, thoughtful, and very compassionate, Gabriel Elias Villanueva is ready to become a priest. He has chosen a path of devotion, service, and sacrifice, understanding that some things are meant to be relinquished rather than owned. He knows all the prayers. He knows how to listen. He is sure that he knows what it means to give and to receive love in return.
Then he meets Amara Celeste Reyes.
Deaf and unable to speak, she uses sign language - a language which is completely unknown to everybody around her.
People talk around her rather than to her. They make assumptions about her thoughts and intentions. They interpret her silence as indifference, misunderstanding her feelings of anger and frustrations as aloofness.
He does not understand her language as well.
Not yet.
But unlike everybody else, he tries.
A look - a sentence.
A gesture - a confession.
A silence - an answer.
And gradually he realizes that silence is not necessarily a lack of voice.
Sometimes it becomes language on its own.
As their relationship becomes an unidentifiable thing that they have both become unsure how to describe, he finds himself second-guessing all that he thought he knew about love and sacrifice.
What is it like when the person whom he could never hope to understand becomes the one whose voice he hears most easily?
And having spent his whole life training to be able to hear the voice of God, what does he do when the gentlest voice he has ever heard speaks right to his heart?