Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeey, throwing together a little group chat for us all
She’s included me in a message with her, Izzy, and Alex. We start making plans for another hang at the Coffee Garden tomorrow afternoon. I’m glad to have something else to look forward to this weekend, since today was all over the place. It’s been a while since I was added to a group chat. I’m so glad they want to hang out with me again.
Time to get cozy and decompress from every emotion I’ve experienced these past ten hours. I change into sweats and undo my braids. My hearing aid and cochlear implant processor go in a case on my bedside table. Scooping Cheese up, I hold him close as I get in bed. “We’re staying in today,” I sign to him. He’s easily mesmerized by my fingers. “You like that? I know you do. You’re so silly,” I sign, my thumb and pinkie outstretched and twisted in front of my nose. “Silly.”
Then he reaches out to nip at my extended finger.
“Cheese,” I say sternly. Yet, having made his point, he curls up beside me, content. We sit here scrolling through videos together for a couple hours, until my mom comes barging through the bedroom door.
“What?” I ask.
Of course, I can’t hear what she’s saying, but she continues to talk, even as she sees me move to put my cochlear receiver back on. Couldn’t she wait a second for me to at least have one-sided assistance for this conversation?
“I’ve been shouting for you. Dinner has been ready for fifteen minutes.”
I motion with my phone. “Like I’ve told you before, you can text me.”
“Why weren’t you—” She continues saying something else as she walks over to my beside table and hands me the hearing aid.
I take it but keep it in my hand. “Because I’m just relaxing here.”
“What if I’d been shouting because there was a fire?”
“Ithinkthe cat would have alerted me to any real danger…” I point up to the regular alarm on the ceiling. “Or, you know, they make some with flashing lights.”
Mom crosses her arms, her voice matter-of-fact. “Unless you’re sleeping, you need to be wearing these. I shouldn’t have to keep reminding you.”
“Oh, so I should wear them in the shower?”
“Enough of that. You know what I mean. Now get yourself downstairs.” She stands there, pointing at the door. I wait for her to leave first, but she doesn’t budge.
I roll my eyes. “You can go.”
“Downstairs. Now,” she insists.
Cheese is still beside me, so I gently nudge him away. He was cozy and is annoyed to be moved.Me too, buddy.I slide my hearing aid back into my ear and hurry out of the room, not giving my mom another glance.
Am I not allowed to be comfortable at home? This should be the one place I can relax and not deal with all the bullshit hearing expectations of the world. But I can’t do that when I have to fight to exist as I am within my own family.
On Monday, Jackson’s waiting for me at our lunch spot. His eyes are wide and puppy-dog apologetic. There’s nothing visibly wrong with him—no arm in a cast or foot in a boot.
“I’m so sorry. Wait,” he says, then signs, “I’m sorry.”
“Are you doing all right?” I slide my books to the edge of the table and take a seat, pulling out my lunch bag. I still have no sense of the severity of his doctor visit. “What happened?”
“It was just another weird medical thing,” he says, skirting around the details. But he makes a stumped face. “I seem to be having a lot of those lately.”
“Really, like what?” I’m being nosy. But he looks perfectly fine, so I can’t fight this curiosity. I know it’s not right of me to make any assumptions like this. Kind of ableist, actually. I hate when people look at me and do the same. Yet, after Cody, I’m having a hard time taking things at face value. “But you don’t have to share if you don’t want to.”
“They said it was vertigo.” Jackson fidgets with his fingers. “I got really sick, and then when I was back home, I just completely crashed for the rest of the weekend.”
“Oof, that does sound like a rough morning. And that’s happened before?”
“No, never.”
“You said this was another weird medical thing. What else was there?”
“Just the leg thing that cost us the state game,” he says, but that doesn’t jog my memory. “I thought I mentioned it before.”
