Laura Anderson - Song of Summer

I stand up, Bender in hand, and take a small bow, feeling like a fraud. I didn’t really do anything, after all. They shouldn’t be clapping for me, they should be clapping for the music. All of a sudden, I remember why I ever played this in the first place. I look up, seeking the one face I want to see more than anything in the world.

But Carter is gone.

Carter

I tear off my tie and throw it on the ground.

If I had my bike right now, I’d drive off and never look back.

I wish I’d never left my house that day in July.

I pace and my thoughts are so loud I can almost hear them. They rattle in my head and bang against my skull and through my fingertips. I want to punch something.

I should have seen this coming. I should have known better. It’s not possible. Not for me. Other people can bend and conform and mold until they become someone new. Not me.

And all those people who could hear? They were brought to their feet. Businessmen and farmers and teachers and children and people who were so old they could barely stand. They didn’t want to stand at first. At first they were content to sit and listen. And it wasn’t like a concert—not like the concerts I used to see. Those were a mass hysteria of people each trying to outdo each other. Fanboys and fangirls who wanted attention and euphoria. No, these church people were moved. Literally. They were acted on by an unbalanced force. All I felt was a tremor in my feet. The tremor didn’t even come from Robin.

I watched her so hard. I didn’t see someone who made others’ soul senses tingle. She looked like a beautiful but scared girl playing an instrument and singing. She glanced at the audience twice, I think. She wasn’t looking at them for their approval. She wasn’t looking to connect with them. This was no show, so they did not stand for Robin. I don’t even know if they stood for the music. They stood for the way the music made them feel. For the soul sense that was activated. Because the music illuminated something that the words alone could not.

It’s hot. And bright. I pace in the dead August grass of the church lawn. The sun beats down on me. I take a deep breath. Letting the air out slowly keeps frustrated tears at bay. I put my hands on my head, running them through my hair and feeling the scar on my skull behind my right ear. It makes me want to scream. But even my scream shows everyone that I’m different. That I don’t belong here. I belong back in New York at my school with my friends and my family and my bike.

But I’m trapped. No way home except in an old sedan where music is securely buckled between me and my girl.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see Robin bolt out the heavy front door, skirt swinging around her knees. Her eyes find me. No. Not now. I can’t do this now. I turn away.

She taps my arm and I shake my head, refusing to face her. She takes ahold of my arm and steps in front of me. I catch a glimpse of her “I’m sorry” before I turn away again.

Her grip tightens and she steps in front of me again. “Carter!” she signs. “I’m sorry! Okay?”

I shake my head and turn away again. I don’t want to sign with her. I don’t want to see signs on her hands. I don’t want to share any more of myself with her.

Her hand relaxes its grip on my arm. Out of the corner of my eye, I see it drop and dangle by her side. She runs her fingers through her hair and shakes her head, walking over to a large rock in the landscape and sitting heavily, her blue skirt crumpled. Her head is in her hands, her elbows on her knees.

She’s crying, hair covering her face in a cascade.

I swallow and sigh. My feet take me to her, almost against my will. I kneel down and put my hand on her knee. She looks up at me, her blue eyes red and wet. Shaking her head, she looks away.

I place my hand on her wet chin and gently guide her face back to mine. “I’m… sorry,” I sign, but I don’t know if I am. “I’m sorry I was so mad.” There. That’s better.

She shrugs and sniffles, taking a shuddering breath.

“No, I’m sorry,” she signs. Her lower lip is curled under and it wavers with each gasp for air. “I thought… ,” she pauses. “I thought I could make you want to hear.” She bites back tears, presses her lips together, and looks away again.

I withdraw my hand. We sit like that for a while, her on the stone, me on the ground. I’d known it all along, really. From the moment she asked me to come. From the moment I met her, I knew that she would want me to hear. I shouldn’t be upset that it happened, I should be happy that she accepted me for this long, right?

I touch her face again and she turns toward me. “I know,” I sign.

“I’m sorry,” she signs again, eyes pleading with me.

“I know.”

Slowly, she draws a pad of paper and a pen out of her skirt pocket. She flips past a summer’s worth of conversations and I wish it could transport us back in time, before all this happened.

“I just want us to sing,” she writes. “With millions. For eternity. Like it says in the song, you know? I want us both to sing.”

She holds the pen out, her eyes begging me to answer. Finally, I take the pen and write back. “What if my version of heaven doesn’t include singing?”

“But it can!” she scrawls, writing so fast I can barely read it. “If Heaven is a place where everything is perfect, then you can hear and we can sing!”

And there it is. Plainly stated. There are no deaf people in her perfect world.

A tear wells up and rolls down my cheek before I can stop it. I look away and wipe it off. Thankfully nobody’s outside on this sleepy Sunday morning. I get my breathing under control. My throat is tight but there are no vibrations. Good.

“I see,” I sign, looking someplace above her head, avoiding her eyes. “I’m sorry. For everything.” My hands stutter. “Done,” I sign. “We’re… done.” I don’t walk away, though. I just stay crouched in front of her, the cold from the ground seeping up through my jeans.

She shakes her head and bites her lip, the tears rolling down her cheeks again. Her shoulders shiver.

She kisses the top of my head and hugs it to her chest. I relish her softness one last time, breathing in the scent that is so distinctly her—not shampoo or perfume or anything artificial—just the soft scent that makes her who she is. Her hands run through my hair, over my head, but her left hand stops on the right side of my head. Her whole body stiffens as her fingers slowly explore the scar.

I look up. Her mouth is open. Her eyes, stunned, find mine.

“Oh my God,” her mouth says. She lets go and stands up and backs away, still facing me. “Oh my God!” She doesn’t bother to sign. She doesn’t need to, her words are so clear. “You!” She points at me. Her eyes are wide and red and her mouth has forgotten to hold itself shut. “Why?” she yells. The vein on her neck is standing out. I’ve never even noticed it before.

I wonder what my face is saying.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” It’s almost like I can hear the words. They’re being shot at me. Forced at me. “Why didn’t I know?”

I stand up. “It’s not what you think,” I sign, but she waves me down and turns away, not wanting to see my explanation.

At that moment, Jenni bursts out of the church door. “What’s going on?” her mouth asks.

Robin points and turns to face me, angry words spitting out of her mouth: “He could hear if he wanted to! He can hear.”

Robin

“Get him out of here, I can’t look at him,” I shout, turning away from Carter, not caring if the church windows are open, not caring if the whole world can hear me.

I turn back to him. “How could you do this? You know that music is the most important thing in my life! You know that! And you hid this from me?” I don’t bother signing. The words don’t matter anyway. He knows how I feel.

“Robin.” He signs the name-sign he gave me at the park all those weeks ago.

“Don’t,” I say. “Don’t you dare.”

He tries to sign something else, but my brain doesn’t care to wade through the pain of translation. I hold up a hand and turn to Jenni.

“Can you please take him home?” I ask her, my face hot, the tears practically evaporating before they have a chance to drip off my chin.

“Um, sure,” she says. She places her hands on my arms. “Are you okay? What happened? What do you mean he can hear?”

I look over my shoulder. Carter’s sitting on the rock I was just sitting on. The rock where he dumped me and I hugged him and kissed him before finding out what a liar and a fake he is.

“You know that implant? The kind that Trina has?”

She nods.

“He has one.”

She glances over my shoulder at Carter, who, I guess, is still sitting on that rock. “What?”

I shake my head, pressing my lips together hard so I don’t cry even harder. I take a deep breath. “I felt the scar. On his head. In that same spot where Trina’s is. I don’t know why I’ve never felt it before, but I know that’s what it is.”

Jenni still looks confused. “But Trina’s CI is so obvious—I mean, it’s under her hair, yes, but it sits on the outside of her head.”

“No,” I say. Explaining something takes the focus from my heart to my head, giving me a chance to recover. “There are two parts to it—the outside part is removable but there’s a part that’s implanted right under the skin. That’s permanent. That’s what the scar is from.” I walk away, arms folded across my stomach, as though I could hold all the hurt in. I look back up at Jenni. “All he would’ve had to do is put on the outside part and switch it on. That’s all he would’ve had to do to hear me. That’s all.”