"First, I need your phone number," I pulled down on my index finger then my middle, counting off. "Second, I studied the basics of sign language, you know, from my laptop," I smiled sheepishly.
She nodded, a lopsided grin hanging from her lips.
My eyes quickly flicked across her face, taking in the glow that seemed to illuminate her porcelain skin. Recovering from my quick awe-filled daze, I continued, "Saying that, I have something to show you."
My eyes shifted to my fingers as I tried to contort them into the correct signs. If all were right, it should have successfully spelt out 'hello sunshine'. Oddly, her smile dropped and she formed her hands in the sign for sunshine, a questioning look settling across her face.
"Sunshine," I said quietly. The tips of my fingers tingled and my palms started to sweat. Looking at everything in the room except her captivating eyes, I struggled with the words to explain myself, "Because, like, your name is Rainy and I find that quite ironic because, like, you make," I swallowed roughly, "the people around you happy, kind of like sunshine. So it's funny how everyone calls you Rainy yet you're more like sunshine. And maybe you should be called Sunny instead because, like, Rainy doesn't really suit you. It's a great name, but–,"
And I'm sure if she could, I would hear a laugh escape her lips. Her eyes were crinkled, and the ends of her thin, pale lips turned upward at my ridiculous rambling.
"Well, isn't that cute," a voice resonated, nearly causing me to snap my neck at how fast I turned my head. Eli stood in the archway to the kitchen, a smirk dancing along his lips, with his hand rested on top Owen's head. The youngest scrunched his nose at us, looking up to Eli.
"I think he could use a bit of work," Owen whispered (if it could be called that) to Eli, glancing back at me.
Of course, my face became redder than it already was from the original embarassment of stumbling over my words.
I watched as Rainy turned to her brother, twisting her fingers in a symbol before sending him an icy glare. From my little research on the subject, I could catch the last sign as the gesture for 'up'. I put two and two together, guessing she had said, "Shut up."
Rainy smiled up at me and nodded her head over to the living room, where I sat myself on the couch. My eyes followed her as she walked gracefully to the kitchen to grab what looked like from my position, a piece of paper and pen.
Her head turned to her brothers only to flick her wrist at them, shooing them up the stairs. Eli cocked his head before placing both his hands on Owen's shoulders, leading him away.
Tucking her legs underneath her petite body as she sat down, she started to contort her hands into different signs – the only one I recognized being for the word 'I'. When I gave her a puzzled look, she bit onto the pen's cap and jerked her head back in order for it to come off.
The action alone had me mesmerized when I caught myself staring at her lips for a second too long.
Rainy scribbled down on the blank sheet of paper. The letters spelt out, "I like it."
Upon seeing my eyebrows pull together, a smile tugged at the corner of her lips before she started to write again. "Sunshine," she drew an arrow, pointing to her previous message. My eyes flicked from the paper to her flushed face. She offered a small smile which I sloppily returned.
"Good," my voice was low as if I spoke too loud, the atmosphere would be broken.
We stared at each other momentarily. I allowed my eyes to drift across her features, letting them linger on her own eyes. I could never get used to the exotic color of her eyes; the blue dominated over the slight green-ness that outlined the iris. Nevertheless, the combination never failed to oddly cause every breath to escape my lungs.
Her hands collided together in a clap, bringing my attention back to what I was needing to focus on. Licking my lips, I looked down at the paper again where Rainy was writing a series of numbers on the corner of the page. After tearing off the small bit she wrote on, she extended her hand to me; the chipped blue nail polish that covered the tips of her fingers stood out against the white of the paper.
A grin pulled at my lips as I took it from her hand and shoved it into my back pocket. "Let's get started then, yeah?"
~*~
Three hours later, I found myself sat across from Rainy at a cafe near her house. A small sandwich was placed in front of me, and a mug was set diagonal to it. Steam rose from the cup while a tea bag soaked in the hot water.
Rainy looked over her food, picking up her desired utensil and stabbing at the pasta in her bowl. Her right hand held on tightly to a napkin while her left pushed the noodles around.
I took a sip of my tea, then set it down to pick up my sandwich. My eyebrows furrowed before I took a big bite, looking around the restaurant as I chewed. Wiping at my mouth quickly, I spoke, "If I say so myself, I think I'm doing fairly well at this whole sign language thing."
From our three hour learning session, plus the little research I had already done, I was convinced I had at least grasped the basics of sign language. Rainy made sure that I knew the alphabet – just in case if I didn't know a symbol for a word, I could spell it out – when she forced me to go through all the motions five times. Even on the way to eat, she tapped on my arm and started the doing the signs, stopping at 'C' and letting me finish.
I learned all of the essential phrases needed for everyday conversation like 'hello', 'how are you', and 'I'm hungry'. I used the latter to ask Rainy if she wanted to go to a late lunch; she smiled widely and clapped her hands excitedly before agreeing.
I looked across the table at Rainy when she nodded, swallowing the food in her mouth. She smiled at me and raised her thumb at me in the air.
"You know," I wiped the side of my mouth with a napkin, "I don't even know your last name."
Her head tilted and her eyebrows furrowed while she thought about it. Then, her lower lip jut out and she realized that I didn't know her last name, and she didn't know mine.
Her fingers began to spell out a word, until I finally registered it as 'Collins'. "Nice to formally meet you, Rainy Collins. I'm Louis Tomlinson."
She gave off a small smile and looked down at her food.
Then, it was silent again as we ate our food. As much as I wanted to have a proper conversation with Rainy, the only way for her to regain her speaking ability was to go through a traumatic event again – the exact thing that took away her voice. No matter how much I desired to talk, laugh, and even argue with her, I would never wish such a horrible situation upon her.
"So, what do you want to do after this? I mean- of course, I could, like, take you back to your house if you want me to. But, I thought we could see, like, a movie, like, after all that work, we deserve a break, right?" I quickly picked up my sandwich and took a bite from it, nervously looking around the cafe.
When I mustered enough courage to flick my eyes over to Rainy, I saw her cheeks were red and a soft smile hung from her lips. I caught the slightest movement of her head when she nodded, a lopsided grin overtaking my features.
"So a movie, then?" I desperately hoped she would answer yes, or that would be terribly awkward.
Thankfully she did, nodding with a bigger smile.
I took bigger bites from my sandwich and nearly chugged my entire mug of tea. Pushing my plate away from me, I scooted my chair back and rubbed my palms against my knees. I raised my eyebrows, saying, "If you're done, we can go. But– I mean, don't rush. I don't want you to choke or something– actually, just take your time. We have plenty of it. Sorry," I sheepishly apologized.
She looked up at me and shook her head, wearing one of the prettiest of smiles.
GUYS WTF I CAN'T TELL YOU HOW SORRY I AM OK
i have severe writer's block and i forced my brain to spit this out so i'm sorry if its utter shit
again, so so so sorry for the wait !! i'm aiming to update AGAIN this weekend, though i don't know because i'm hosting a graduation party at my house so i'll be really busy. then i have an ed sheeran concert on july 1st omg
dedication to cathartics bc i'm in love with her writing style and her book aesthetics :))
give this a vote and comment for me?
ILYASFM THANK YOU FOR ALL THE SUPPORT AND COMMENTS THEY MEAN SO MUCH TO ME
-kay