hello.
tyler begins to sign to herself in the mirror.
hello. my name is-
she stops for a moment to think.
tyler. my name is tyler. how are cats?
she pauses. no... that wasn't right. she definitely made a mistake somewhere.
back to the beginning.
hello. my name is...
what was it?
... tyler. how are you?
she grins at her own reflection, proud.
she or them pronouns, please.
she opens her phone to her lock screen (which was a photo of a baby wombat. like... seriously, have you seen those?) to check the time.
7.47am.
yikes, she better start making her way towards school.
today she was wearing another pair of black jeans, and a pastel pink sweater, as it wasn't one of the warmest days despite it being spring. her makeup was simple, yet effective:
black winged eyeliner, nude eyeshadow, and pale lips. also a shit ton of highlighter.
because why not?
she had 'amazing' cheekbones to highlight as well as possible.
exiting her building, locking the door behind her, she hides the key under the doormat before beginning to revise more of her signing.
it is a lovely day.
she looks up at the dark sky, shaking her head.
the weather is bad, today.
she corrects herself, again.
her pace increases as rain starts to fall.
rain.
she signs, trying to recite everything she knew.
thank you for helping me, joshua.
by now she was entering the school gates, into the already pupil-full building.
i'm scared.
it was amazing how no one understood what she was saying. is this what it was like for joshua: walking down the corridors waning to express something, but you need full eyes on you, and fluent ASL signers?
that must suck. it was hard enough for tyler who had a voice and no anxiety.
she clears her throat, walking over to josh's group of friends' table.
there was brendon.
so she taps his shoulder, and he quickly turns to see, smiling. "oh, hey ty. you ok?"
tyler nods gratefully. brendon was such a great guy.
"y-yeah. where's josh?"
the dark haired points over to an (almost) empty table-
and sure enough, josh was siting there on his own, staring into space.
"he's over there. things got a bit too crowded over here, bless. i hope he's ok, you should check, he needs some help relaxing anyway."
tyler nods understandably.
"o-ok. th-thank you."
