Whispers in the Dark

Jackson's Story

Piper

¨Wanna jump off?" Jackson asked, looking towards me while swinging. 

My heart was fluttering in my chest, my smile grew until it touched the end of my ears, and I was so happy. I felt like a gleeful little kid again. 

I nodded my head. 

He grinned. ¨Okay. On one, two, three!¨ 

We both jumped off the swings, sailing through the air. I felt like a beautiful bird flying through the night sky....until I fell clumsily downwards. 

Then, I realized I landed on top of Jackson! His face was inches from mine, and my cheeks became red. He laughed, making me relax a little and laugh too. 

¨We're both terrible at doing that," Jackson said, making me grin. 

I rolled off of him and onto the grass. We both gazed up at the countless constellations that covered the night sky. I raised my finger, tracing them. Then, Jackson gently put his hand on top of mine, sending shivers down my spine. He turned his head, his eyes staring deeply into mine.

¨So,¨ he started, biting his lip. ¨I've never asked this before because I didn't want to seem rude, but why did you go mute?¨ 

I shook my head.  I let go of his hand.¨I don't feel like telling you that right now.¨

He looked pained by the removal of my hand. ¨Alright, you don't have to tell me then.¨ 

¨Thank you," I signed, relieved that he didn't keep asking me more questions. ¨What's your story? How you become hard of hearing?" 

"Really? I want to know why you became mute and you don't tell me, but now you want to know how I became hard of hearing?" 

"Yes, that's right," I said, "I barely tell other people why I'm mute. Especially not strangers."  

He looked at me with hurt in his eyes. "But we aren't strangers, are we?" 

"Kind of. I mean, I barely know you." 

Jackson bit the inside of his jaw. "Okay, Piper, this might sound weird, cheesy, and romantic but I feel like I had known you my whole life. Like maybe we met in our past life and we found each other again in this one." 

I smirked. "You really can't stop flirting with me, can you?" 

"No, I wasn't even trying to --"

"Stop," I signed. "It doesn't matter if you were trying to flirt with me or not. I want to get to know you. How did you go hard of hearing? You don't have to tell me if you don't want to."

"Well, it's a pretty boring story. One day when I was eight, I asked my mom why my head felt funny. 'Did you bump it into the wall again?' she joked.  I said, 'No, my head has felt funny for three weeks. It felt like I was underwater or something. Or like a dog was barking really loudly and I couldn't hear anything else. Then my mom's eyes went wide. That was when I knew...I knew that what she was about to say would change my life forever. She told me that my grandpa felt the same way. That when he went to the doctor, the doctor diagnosed him as Hard of Hearing. 

I turned my face towards him, looking into his memorizing brown eyes. "So, did you go to the doctor, then?" 

"Yeah."

"What did the doctor say?"

Jackson laughed. "What do you think the doctor said?" 

My grin was as wide as the Brooklyn Bridge, and I chuckled. "I mean, I know you're hard of hearing. I just want to know if the doctor knew." 

He laughed and laughed and laughed. I wanted to make him laugh all night long. When he laughed, his eyes twinkled like the stars above us. It was beautiful. 

Then, all of a sudden, he stopped laughing. His face grew extremely serious. 

"Jackson, what's wrong?" I signed. Did I say something wrong?

"N-nothing." he stuttered, looking away from me. 

I tugged on his arm, making him look my way. "Tell me. You can tell me anything. I won't judge or tell anyone."

Jackson smiled. It wasn't a gleeful smile, though. It was an extremely sad smile. It ripped me apart on the inside. 

"Luckily, since my grandpa was hard of hearing, I knew sign language already. So, I started using sign language to communicate. I signed with my mom, and she was fine with it. She supported it. Of course she supported it, she had a hard of hearing dad. My dad, on the other hand, did not support it. When I started signing to him, he said 'Stop it! Stop it!' I will not have a deaf and dumb person in my house! I was so surprised when he said this. I didn't know he felt this way about deaf people. 

"The thing was...I still loved him. Even when he verbually abused me. Even when he physically abused me." he said, tears streaming down his face. "M-my love for him made me blind to the fact that what he was doing was wrong. I thought I deserved it. I never told my mom what he was doing because I didn't want him to get in trouble. Then, one day, my mom found out. She opened the door to my room and saw my dad beating me with his belt and calling me a retard. She pulled dad off me, slapped him in the face, and told him to leave the house. To leave forever. She didn't want him back no more. She told him he couldn't  talk that way to her son. So, that's why I never sign. I think of my dad and I don't sign." 

Tears filled my eyes and flowed down my face like a river. "I'm so sorry," I signed.

I squeezed his hand, and he squeezed back. He cried and cried and cried. I let him cry. I could tell this was something he kept inside of him for so long, until today it exploded like a bomb out of his lips. I could tell his heart burned with sadness. My heart burned too.

"I thought that was supposed to be a boring story." I said.

Jackson's lips formed a crooked smile. "Well, I didn't know I was going to tell the whole thing. It's just...it's something about you. I feel like I can tell you anything." I looked at him ans smiled. 

Holding hands, I felt that he was my soulmate. My whole life I didn't believe in soulmates, but when I met Jackson I had this feeling. It was like the universe wanted our paths to collide, wanted us to be together. 

Now, it was my job to comfort my soulmate, to heal his wounded scars on his heart. Maybe he'll heal my wounded scars too.