Beautiful Ruin

Chapter 6

"I was beginning to think I made you up. But alas you're real." He doesn't wait for me to reply. He sits on the chair opposite mine. Giving me his full attention.

He is wearing the same black sweatpants and white tshirt as the last time I saw him. I have a sense of déjà vu at seeing him, only this time, we weren't locked together in a room. But we might as well be because he commanded all my attention, making everything else disappear.

I drop the book and use my hands to sign.

I am real.

"Yes, you are," he says, looking at me earnestly.

I tuck my hair behind my ear, suddenly conscious of my appearance. What did my black kinky hair look like to him? My big brown eyes? My wide button nose? How did he see my two colored plump lips? Did he think I was pretty?

Did he think my pink girly dress was pretty? What about my smile? Because I was smiling shyly at him.

Why would you think otherwise? Do I look unreal to you? I ask.

He reaches forward and tentatively pokes my nose with his pinkie finger. I move away, surprised.

"I'm pretty sure you are real," he says softly.

Did you have to do that? I huff, pretending to be annoyed.

Yes, I had to be sure, he signs.

I don't know why I was shocked that he knew sign language. Maybe because everyone around me didn't know it. When I was officially diagnosed, the doctors decided it was better I learned sign language so I could at least communicate. I did and hoped it would help. It didn't because no one in my family learned it with me. None of my so-called friends did too.

"What are you reading?" He points at the book.

I quickly pick it up and hide it behind my back.

He raises a brow. "Now I wanna know."

I use my free hand and sign. It's nothing.

"Then why are you hiding it from me?"

He was right. Why was I hiding it? Maybe because I didn't know what he would think of me when he found out I was reading a book written by a man diagnosed as clinically insane.

I bring it forward. He takes it from me and reads it out loud, "Haunted, a book by Ali Sandan."

I was hoping he wouldn't know who Ali Sandan was, but he surprised me yet again. "Nice. Though I don't know why you'd be interested in the mind of an insane man."

His comment stings a bit. Was he judging me?

"But the mind of an insane man is far more interesting than that of a sane boring man who refuses to see that red is violet. Nice choice," he winks.

I snort. Red isn't violet.

"Yes, it is," he says.

No, it isn't. You're insane.

"Aren't we all a bit insane?"

I pause and stare at him. He was right. We were all a bit insane in our ways. For example, I think he couldn't stop looking at my eyes because he liked them, or he couldn't stop smiling because he liked me. See? Insane. Insane thoughts.

"What have you gotten so far from the great mind of Ali Sandan?" he asks.

I hesitate, but he looks excited, so I swallow down my hesitation and show him the notes my friends, and I have written.