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He snorts a laugh. “Well, two of us are.”
“Right.” I roll my eyes, smiling as I think of the twins and their strange, almost supernatural connection.
Silence falls between us for a moment, and we just watch each other in the quiet stillness of the room.
When I speak again, my voice is a little lower, a little softer. “Can I ask you a question? You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to.”
He adjusts his position on the bed, hooking one leg up on the mattress so he can turn toward me even more. “Shoot.”
“Have you always had a hard time hearing?”
I can see him hesitate for a second, deciding what to give up, which parts of himself to reveal. I brace myself to hear him say he choses option number two, to not answer, but instead he shakes his head lightly.
“No, not always. Since I was a little kid though.”
“And your parents know, I’m assuming.”
He cracks a smile. “Yeah, they know. And the guys know.”
“And that’s it?”
“No. A few of the teachers at Linwood know. Some other relatives.”
“And Iris.”
He pulls a face. “Yeah. She knew. I don’t know how the fuck she found out. I’m positive Lincoln didn’t tell her. Maybe she just saw something that tipped her off, like you did.” He shrugs lightly, lips tilting up sardonically. “The guys help me when they can. Sometimes I still miss things though. I’m good, but I’m not that good.”
“No, you’re really good.” I sit up straighter in the bed, leaning toward him a little. “You’re amazingly good. But…”
When I trail off, he lifts his eyebrows in question, prompting me to continue.
“Why?” I murmur. “I mean, you can obviously function just fine with whatever hearing loss you have. So why does it matter if people know or not? It doesn’t affect the way you navigate through life. It doesn’t hold you back.”
His face goes still, and for a moment, I think maybe I’ve just insulted him horribly. An apology is on the tip of my tongue when he speaks softly.
“No. It doesn’t hold me back. But if people knew about it, they would.” His gaze leaves my lips to focus on my eyes, and I see discomfort churning in the light gray depths of his irises. “They’d make judgements about me before they even knew me; they’d assume I need help or special treatment when I never even asked for it. It’s easier this way. People judge me for who I am, for what I do, not for one thing they think they know about me.”
His words hit me right in the chest, so true and so familiar that I could’ve spoken them myself.
That’s it.
That’s exactly it.
It’s the reason I don’t tell people about my childhood leukemia. The reason only my closest friends and neighbors back in Bayard know about it. As soon as people find out I had cancer, that becomes what defines me for them. I can never shake it. And I fucking hate it.
River is still looking at me, and I don’t know quite why I do it, but I reach up and tug down the tank top strap from my right shoulder.
That gets an immediate reaction from him. Heat and surprise flare in his eyes as he watches the movement, then his gaze darts back up to my face.
I don’t even have to look to find it. My fingers move to my port scar unerringly, tracing the small mark the way I’ve done hundreds of times before.
“Do you know what this is?” I ask.
He watches my lips, then glances back down at my upper chest, his brows furrowing slightly. “A scar?”
I breathe out a small laugh at his simple, honest answer. It’s true. That’s exactly what it is. But in the world I’ve lived in since age ten, the world I’ll always be a part of now whether I want to be or not, it’s so much more than that.
Anyone from that world would know exactly what this scar is from at a glance, and they’d know every moment of fatigue and drudgery and nausea that came with it.
