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Before he could ask, or start falling apart again, Wren was tugging him close and hugging him tight with one hand, the other rubbing a soothing line up his side. He could feel a faint rumble coming from his brother’s chest, but he knew Wren wasn’t speaking. He was just humming the way he used to do when they were younger.
The vibrations were soothing and soft, like the way Caleb always imagined a melody would be.
He pulled back after a beat and tipped his fingers from his chin. “Thanks.”
Wren shoved him with a small grin. “Go home. I have plenty of ice cream and cookies if you need comfort food. And the guest room is clean, so it’s all yours.”
Caleb reached out and squeezed a grip around the back of his brother’s neck in a gentle thanks, his other hand shooting him a four-fingeredIRLY, then turned on his heel, grabbed his keys from his desk, and escaped before he could delay any further. He really did just need some space from all the chaos. He’d figure out the rest as it came.
Chapter2
The only goodthing about the chatter in his class was the constant stream of noise. It allowed Bodhi to fuck with the settings on his app so he could adjust his hearing aids to filter them out and better hear the professor. At least, that’s what wassupposedto happen. His audiologist had promised him these new, gut-wrenchingly expensive little devices were capable of making his life easier.
And they did filter out the background noise. He’d give them that. They also had Bluetooth so he could stream music, which helped him when the chaotic noise of being on campus started to give him a migraine. But even the slightest sounds were overwhelming at the best of times, and he was fighting the urge not to shut them off completely and sink into his silence.
Being born deaf was probably the best thing that could have happened to his autistic brain because all he had to do was take his hearing aids out and it would remove one of the stressors that had him fighting off sensory-overload meltdowns. But he had lectures all afternoon, so there was no peace to be had that day. And while he had work which would allow him silence, it came with the demand for signing.
And Bodhihatedsigning where people could see him.
Most of the time it was the overwhelming awareness of hearing people staring at him.
And the rest was the humiliation of being surrounded by a bunch of Deaf people whose hands and fingers moved elegantly, like flowing water, while he was like a goddamn toddler trying to learn fine motor skills.
Bodhi’d had big dreams when he and his brother started college. He was free of his oppressive grandparents and their ban on sign language, which meant he’d be able to embrace the language that came naturally to his brain. And early on, he’d been motivated and excited to set foot into a culture he’d only seen on the internet.
His freshman year ASL professor had introduced him to Oscar, a former TA of his that occasionally worked as a Deaf mentor and had agreed to be his that first semester. But it didn’t take long for Bodhi to realize that maybe he didn’t fit in with Deaf culture, either. His brain just didn’t work the way other people’s did. In class, he was constantly and gently criticized for his slow progress, and his struggle with facial expressions, and his distracting stimming.
It was humiliation to watch his brother—his twin, younger by three minutes—embrace their identity and immediately find a place for himself while Bodhi still existed on the fringes, weird, unwanted, and unliked.
Ravi had gone out of his way to include Bodhi, but he also threw himself into the community—joining the Deaf Club and attending all the events, and going voice-off for nearly all of his day. He never gave up on trying to get Bodhi involved, but the more he pushed, the more Bodhi panicked.
And after his first year, catching several people taking videos of his conversations, Bodhi couldn’t bring himself to do it anymore. Every time he thought about people watching him like he was some kind of zoo animal, his throat would get tight, and the panic would overwhelm him, and he’d shut down.
Or, when it was the worst, he’d have a public meltdown. And he was goddamn sick and tired of those. He’d been determined save them for when he was hiding under his blanket in his dorm room so he wouldn’t have the same reputation he had in high school, but it was next to impossible when almost everything was a trigger.
The only comforting thing at the moment was that he was in his final semester of his senior year. And while he had another two years of grad school looming over him, he’d at least be almost done with all the jackass frat boys who either mimicked his accent or mocked his stimming fingers because they never quite matured past sixth grade.
He was looking forward to the day he didn’t have to do this anymore. Of course, that meant facing his future and figuring out what the hell he wanted to do with it, but that was a problem for future Bodhi.
Current Bodhi was busy giving up on trying to ensure he could hear his professor so he didn’t bomb his next quiz.
His stomach twisted in on itself and he took a breath until the nausea passed.
The door opened shortly after—he knew with the way everyone turned to look—and the crotchety old history professor hobbled his way to the front of the room. Even with the seat nearest to the podium, Bodhi could never understand Professor Johnson. His voice was a faint, wispy echo of what it had probably once-been when he was a younger man. Bodhi got by with borrowing notes from kinder students who sat near him, and doing more than the assigned reading in order to stay ahead of the information Johnson was giving. It wasn’t ideal, but he’d managed to scrape by on a B average that way.
“Good…time…begin. Notes…chapter…page two…ty. Who wants…first?”
He narrowed his eyes and focused on the professor’s lips, then prayed to God he wouldn’t miss anything as the lecture began.
* * *
Bodhi was halfway down the corridor and almost to freedom when he felt someone tug on his arm. The sensation shot straight up his neck, and it was only a lifetime of masking that kept him from visibly cringing as he turned to see a couple sorority sisters wearing matching pins and hair so similar, he struggled to tell them apart. He was pretty sure they sat in the back of Johnson’s class when they bothered to show.
The tallest one—who was presumably their pack leader—offered him what he assumed was a placating smile.
“Umm yes?” he said aloud.
“Yeah, so, you’re like…deaf, right? That’s what those things are for?” She pointed to his hearing aids, and he felt his cheeks heat up.
