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“You have so many books!” Liam signed, gawking at the shelves upon shelves of books I had in my basement. I looked at Katie, and we both began guffawing. I looked over at Liam, who was looking at us like we had gone completely mad, which made me laugh more.
I’d been collecting books since I could read - my brother Ben and I picked up the hobby together. Wherever we went, we bought books. Garage sales, the mall, anywhere - books. Eventually, our rooms became too small to house them, so our parents gave us the basement. We spent days painting it, and setting up christmas lights along the walls and ceiling, so it could be the perfect reading environment. After the bookstore in our town went out of business, they sold us a few of their shelves for 10 dollars a piece! It was lovely!
“Not nearly enough,” Katie signed, her signing making it obvious that she was mocking me. It was true, though! I wanted more. Not because I wanted to read them though, mostly because I wanted the connection between my brother and I to last.
“I gotta go,” Katie signed. She walked over to me and hugged me, “Love you care-bear,” she signed, smiling.
She walked over to the window that lead into our backyard, shimmying out of it like the pro-window climber she was. I laughed as she shook her butt desperately, trying to get it out. Once she was gone, I gave my attention to Liam, who was wandering aimlessly through my shelves. I smile turned up on my lips as I followed him, running my fingers along the spines of the books he passed.
I waved my hand, trying desperately to get his attention, yet - he continued to focus desperately on the books surrounding us. I mentally groaned - just an hour ago Liam had promised me I’d never have to use my voice around him again.
“Liam!” I huffed, a deep set glare on my face. He turned, his large smile fading as he saw my glare, “You promised I wouldn’t have to use my voice anymore!” I signed, a frown setting deeply on my face. He stepped closer to me, wrapping his arms around me.
I sighed, wrapping my arms around his waist. I wanted to be mad, I wanted to yell at him, honestly I did, but as his grasp on me tightened, I felt the iceberg that was my anger begin to melt. I kissed his chest, and he ran his fingers through my hair.
I pulled out of his grasp, looking up into his sparkling eyes, “Pick a book, I’ll read you, my favorite passage,” I signed, leading him to a specific shelf, “But only from this shelf,” I smiled, letting out a light giggle.
He focused on the shelf a while, before pulling out my rough and tattered copy of “Looking For Alaska” by John Green. To say the book is my favorite, would be an understatement. I live and breathe that book, the words on it’s pages are like breaths of air to me.
I sat down on a the pull out couch, sitting indian style. Liam sat down next to me, handing me the book. I smiled at him, flipping through it for a while, trying to find just one passage to read to him.
“I have a few from this book, actually,” I said, laughing. Liam smiled, telling me to read as much as I wanted to. I smiled back at him, flipping to the passage I wanted to start with.
I cleared my throat, “When adults say, "Teenagers think they are invincible" with that sly, stupid smile on their faces, they don't know how right they are. We need never be hopeless, because we can never be irreparably broken. We think that we are invincible because we are. We cannot be born, and we cannot die. Like all energy, we can only change shapes and sizes and manifestations. They forget that when they get old. They get scared of losing and failing. But that part of us greater than the sum of our parts cannot begin and cannot end, and so it cannot fail.” I looked up from the book at Liam, a smile crossing my lips as he stared at me in awe.
“For a deaf girl, you speak and read really clearly,” He signed, laughing. I blushed, looking back down at my book, “Do you want me to read more?” I asked, biting my lip.
He looked at me a while, biting his lip now. I felt myself grow a deeper color of red, at which he simply laughed. I leaned into him, our foreheads touching now. He smiled now, the closeness of our proximity allowing me to feel his breath on my lips. I could feel it chapping them - I went to lick them, but just as I did, his lips met mine.
This kiss felt different than our normal ones, it was unlike any other we’d shared before. It was as if the feelings behind this kiss were becoming more and more genuine as our lips moved and brushed against each other.
“I love you,” I whispered, pulling his body in closer to mind. A bit of fear was in the back of my head - fear of the memories fludding back to my head, but for those few moments - those moments as his body hovered over mine and our kiss deepened into a make out, I blocked out the fear. I promised myself that Liam was different, that he’d stop when I told him to.
He said something, but the closeness made it impossible for me to read his lips, so I just smiled, pulling his lips back into mine.
His hands wandered my body, never resting as flashed between holding him up, and touching me everywhere. Not all of the touches were sexual, some of them were simply to feel the touch. I felt his hands though, suddenly land on the zipper of my jeans, and begin to fumble with it.
I pushed Liam off of me, pulling myself into a ball at the end of the couch. He looked at me with a confused stare I’d become so accustomed to seeing. I wanted to smile at the familiarity of it, but at the same time the fear of the memories - the contact, took over my body, causing me to shake. Liam’s face became sympathetic, he reached his hand out and put it on the top of my head, a half smile replacing his sympathy.
With his other hand, he formed the sign for “I love you,” which - honestly, I was taken aback by. I looked at his hand, his slender fingers slightly shaking.
“I,” I said, looking down. I closed my mouth, holding up a hand of my own now, and forming the “I love you,” for myself, now. He smiled a wide, happy smile. This was honestly something out of a fairytale for me, the way it happened so quickly.
...
That night, Liam and I lay on my bed, staring at the stars on my ceiling, the beautifully familiar plastic stars.
“They’re so odd,” he signed, laughing. His chest shook as he laughed, causing my head to move up and down as it happened. I rolled my eyes, slapping his chest playfully. I looked up at the plastic stars on my ceiling, biting my lip. Things like this - the nostalgic normalcy they left. I suppose when you’re life gets shook as much as mine does, normality is a beautiful thing.
I drew circles in Liam’s chest, as he ran his fingers through my hair. I felt so safe here - in his arms, under the “stars.” I scooted up so that my head was under his neck, and his chin was resting on the crown on my head.
“Are you hungry?” I asked, looking down to watch his hands. He sort of just grunted, which made me assume all signs pointed to yes. I giggled, crawling out of my bed and brushing out the wrinkles in the sweatshirt I’d stolen from Liam. I looked down at my bed to realize he’d fallen asleep. I smiled, covering him up with a blanket from the end of my bed, and making my way out of the room.
I walked down the stairs into the kitchen, a note from my mom on the table telling me her and my dad had gone out. My brother was playing video games as per usual, and I laughed as he got exploded by some random creature in the game.
He turned around, sticking his tongue out at me. I stuck mine out back, asking him what he wanted for dinner. He shrugged, “Spaghetti?”
I tapped my chin, turning to go through the fridge to see if we had stuff to make sauce. After some close analysis, I was happy to find that we did. I told Ellis that I could in fact make us spaghetti.
After a while of cooking, a sleepy looking Liam wandered down the stairs. I smiled at him, running up and crushing our lips together. He laughed a bit, returning the kiss happily. I led him over to where I was stirring the sauce, and handed him a spoon. He looked at me, pouting a bit.
“You have to help or you don’t eat,” I signed, shrugging. He looked over at my brother, who was still dead focused on his game, and then looked back at me. I rolled my eyes, taking his hand and staring him stirring the sauce. He groaned, which I just laughed at and went back to tending the pasta.
After about a half an hour, I called on Ellis to come and set up the table, which he did lazily and poutily - though, his version of lazy was not folding our napkins. My brother is a bit of a perfectionist. I decided to mess with Katie, and tell her to come over for dinner and that my brother wasn’t there.
....
Well all sat around the table, my brother staring at Katie as he spun the spaghetti around his fork. Katie looked disgusted, not only with him, but with me - which, obviously, made me laugh my ass off. This was pay back for her forcing me to go to the concert.
I looked over at Liam, who was also twirling his fork around in the spaghetti, but unlike my brother, he had the intention of eating it. He took a bite, and immediately looked like he’d been sent into heaven, which made me clap with happiness. He laughed, going back to his little slice of heaven.
Katie began explaining to Liam that she had to limit herself with my cooking, because if I cooked for ever more often, she’d weigh a thousand pounds. I laughed, rolling my eyes and focusing on my food.
...
At the end of dinner, Liam, Katie and I sat watching a movie on the TV in the basement. The movie was called “The Little Mermaid,” which was Katie’s absolute favorite - I hadn’t seen it in years, so to say I was excited to watch it is an understatement.
As the movie began, Liam snaked his arm around my shoulder, which made me shiver with excitement. I rested my head on his shoulder, a smile crossing over my lips.
“Stop being so cute, you make me feel like a lonely bitch,” She signed, groaning. I laughed. The crab called Sebastian was trying to get Ariel under control, because Ariel was being a brat as always. In that moment, I remembered how much I disliked Ariel. I glared as she cried about how much she wished she was a human.
“If I was a mermaid, I’d NEVER give that up!” I signed, my jaw dropping as she did more bratty Ariel things.
Katie and Liam laughed, “You guys know you wish you were mermaids, too,” I signed, crossing my arms.
“Especially Liam,” Katie laughed.
I picked up a pillow, and in one swift motion, knocked her off the couch with it. She rolled around on the floor for a while, as if I’d done serious damage. Obviously I keep bricks in all my pillows. Liam looked at me like I was crazy for not asking her if she was okay, but I just rolled my eyes and kicked her.
She jumped against my foot, and pulled me off the couch. “YOU WHORE,” I screamed, rolling violently around on the floor. This was me and Katie - we really were the greatest friends in the entire world.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Hello everyone! I hope you're all well! Remember to vote, comment, or buy soap! But it better be good smelling soap - not the nasty kind! Are any of you, like, really good at making covers? I want a nice cover for this story, and I'm hoping one of you could make one for me! No song! Heheheheheh. Mostly because I'm lazy and can't think of one. :P