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And, sure, you can't believe everything you read online… but still, even if only half of what I came across were to be true…
Wow.
Even without really knowing him, only going on physical attraction and on these unnamed fuzzy feelings running through me when I think about him, I can say that if Ididget to know him, this guy could rip my heart from my chest and smash it to pieces.
So, I should count myself lucky that he only meant to apologize to me on account of me being the poor little deaf girl and all, right?!
So, why don't I?
Why is it that I feel like I would do anything for him to really see me?
For him to look beyond the label that hearing-people keep plastering all over my forehead and care about what's inside the package?
Then again, why do I even want him to want me in the first place if I already know that I wouldn't let him come near me if he really did?
Relationships with hearing-people can be…complicated, to say the least.
Barring a few exceptions -like my mom, my brother, and a few friends here and there, like Penny— most of the hearing-people I've met couldn't accept me for who I was in the least.
If I was lucky, they avoided me, excluded me from any and all conversations, and ignored and dismissed me. Sometimes, it was worse, and they weren't nice to me at all. They mocked me and were mean to me, especially when I was a kid. They were surprised about my academic achievements when my parents brought them up, and not in a good way. They weren't pleased with my endeavors and my success in school. They were skeptical.
They didn't think someone who happened to be deaf couldeverdo anything big with their life.
They thought there was something wrong with my brain, like the fact that I was deaf meant that I wasn't sound of mind or something.
Most of the time, dealing with the hearing-world outright sucks. They can't see my being deaf as a positive, as a cultural part of my background, or as part of my identity without it having to be my whole identity. They can't see deafness as a thing that makes me different, not worse or better than they are, just different from them. They just can't.
So why would I want to get involved with a hearing-man, to begin with?
Let alone someone famous who –if I were to go in a really simplistic direction about things–makes noisefor a living?
Uh. I shouldn't simply want to be a psychologist in my line of work. I should have my own head shrunk ASAP.
God, I am such a mess.
CHAPTER11
Mia
I’m still distracted by thoughts of Carson —damn,Mr. Gabriel, I mean!— hours after I started my shift. I do one last careful check of the corner suite here on the fourth floor, taking my time and making sure my inattentiveness didn’t lead me to do a poor job tidying it up and that I remembered to resupply it in full of all the required necessities.
Thank God, this is the last room I’ve got to put to rights, and then I can leave. This afternoon felt endless, and I’m not sure I’m going to be able to work here without being jittery and up in the clouds until the guest from the Oriental suite and his bandmates leave the premises.
I’m going to have to ask Penny if she can snoop around and find out when they’re leaving.
I push my cleaning cart out of the suite and into the nearest elevator, taking my first full breath of the day. I’m finally done, and I didn’t run into him all afternoon.
All that’s left to do is park the housekeeping cart in the storage area and then get to the changing room so I can put mycivilian clotheson before I leave.
I’m both relieved and displeased at the thought, further confirming to myself that I’m a total wreck.
I’m almost to the door leading to the relative privacy —and safety— of the staff quarters when I bump into something so hard and unyielding that my entire body reels backward. Big strong arms shoot out to steady me before I drop to the ground like a sack of potatoes, and that’s when I realize I didn’t crash into something. I crashed intosomeone. And, judging by the way my heart is beating in my throat and by the woodsy, citrusy scent surrounding me, I’m pretty sure I know who he is.
Fuck.
I may not be an expert in men and how to have relationships with them —I’ve only ever had one boyfriend in my life, and that was years ago— but I’m positive I end up being pressed up against the white shirt stretched over his barrel-chest way longer than I should be.
I wiggle around a bit to be released, and when his hands slide down my shoulders to my back and then stop to hold my hips, fingers clutching me as if he doesn’t want to let me go, I move both of my hands up, palms out, and push them against his pectorals to gain traction and move out of his grasp.
