Page 95 of Read My Lips

“Hi,” he signed, glinty and glad to see me, like he didn’t think I’d made a tit out of myself yesterday at all. I didn’t deserve that after the way I’d walked out.

Taking me in, his eyebrows knitted. “Ben, are you alright?”

Well, fuck. I wasn’t now he’d gone and asked.

“She died,” I blurted. “My Mam.”

“Jesus. What happened?”

Simon’s forehead rumpled, anguished, shocked. Because of course he was. I’d trauma-dumped a random fact with zero context. He didn’t know I suddenly needed to tell someone something true, so I didn’t flit out of existence because nobody knew me.

“No, I mean, when I was a kid.”

“I’m sorry.” The softness of Simon’s voice lay over me like a trap. The lure of understanding, and kindness and warmth made my skin prickle horribly. “Ben, why are you telling me this now? We can talk later, I promise.” He was frowning gently at me like I was small and tender, in need of protection.

Only, I wasn’t small and tender. I’d wormed into his bed, into his home, lying to him about so many tiny things so he wouldn’t turn around and see I wasn’t who he wanted at all.

“No, you need to hear this. Gran – today. She said some stuff about Mam. And me. And I’m just – I’m done with pretending everything’s okay when it’s not. And I know those pictures I took aren’t what you ever wanted. They’re not even true.

“I-uh. I wanted you to know how important this job is to me. Mam died. And—”Hot tears pressed in at the backs of my eyes, clogging up my throat. I signed an explosion, cheeks puffed out for the length of the fall-out. My world, up in smoke. “Overnight... Home, my language. Gone.”

I shouldn’t be telling anyone this on a video call on the top deck of a bus. But if I was in the same room as Simon, I’d never get any of it out.

“They didn’t like Mam signing. Gran and Grandad. Really didn’t like me doing it. Grandad used to…” Tightness ghosted through my hands. The echo of him pulling my arms down sharply by my sides. “He’d tell me to stop.”

Simon stilled. “Tell you. How?”

I blinked, stunned by his sharp tone. How was detail Simon wanted like a pulled thread on his favourite coat. It’d ruin the look. Damage the fabric. He can’t have wanted the ins and outs of my failed family. But the question in his eyes stayed solid.

Consciously, I flexed my knuckles. Staying signing was better. Grandad’s voice couldn’t ring through so clearly. “You’re not deaf, Ben! Stop pretending.”

Simon went so still I thought the screen had frozen, his face swept with a terrifying neutrality. Then a ripple of tension flexed through the muscle of his jaw.

“I don’t think I like your grandparents very much.”

A multicoloured tangle of guilt swirled in my gut. Gran was it: All the family I got lotteried by the giant tombola in the sky. Whatever she thought about me, I didn’t get another one.

“They looked after me though. This difficult kid, messing up their retirement, moving into their home, eating all their groceries.”

Simon wasn’t buying it.

“Difficult kid. Their home. Their groceries. Ben, listen to how you’re talking about yourself.” He sounded angry. But Simon Azie didn’t get angry.

“They didn’t have to take me in.” Anger bubbled out from beneath the lifetime of gratitude I’d smothered it under. Why was he picking so many holes?

“They didn’t have to make you feel unwanted.”

Oof.

Was all that scribed into me so deep he could read it?

The bedroom that wasn’t really mine. The posters I wasn’t allowed to stick up. All Mam’s things there had never been the space to bring. The language I wasn’t supposed to use. The clothes I couldn’t wear.

Everything I had was theirs to take away.

Simon’s expression darkened. “That isn’t love, Ben. That isn’t family.”

“Thing is”—I forced a laugh—“it’s the only one I’ve got.”