A Quiet Kind of Thunder(72)
To you, Rhys says.
To you, I respond.
He grins. To us. Bronze and Gold.
Bronze and Gold, I agree, then close my eyes to take a sip. I imagine hundreds of tiny bubbles fizzing down into my stomach. When I open my eyes again, Rhys is staring at me, the softest, sweetest smile on his face.
What? I ask, bashful, even though I know what.
He says it anyway. I love you.
I put my mug down on the table by the bed and lean into him, resting my head against his shoulder and breathing Rhysness. He puts his arm round me and squeezes gently.
When I break away, I sign, I love you too.
There’s a pause that stretches out into silence as we look at each other. I am giddy with happiness, light with love. Punch drunk with the freedom of being in this city, in this country, with this boy.
But mixed in with all of this is anxiety, tying my thoughts into knots, making me feel suddenly shy in a way I haven’t felt around Rhys for a long time. Even though nothing has happened yet my heart is pounding, maybe in anticipation, maybe with nerves. What happens now? What happens next? Should I just lean in and kiss him?
Rhys is still watching me, his smile a little more crinkled, as if he somehow knows the confusion of feelings running through my mind. He reaches over to the bedside table, grabs hold of his iPad and hands it to me. Find me a song, he signs. A song that is exactly how you feel, right now.
He’s trying to relax me, and I love him for it because it works. The anxiety dissipates like bubbles in a glass of sparkling wine. Beaming, I open up Spotify, my mind already scrolling through the options. There’s a tap on my wrist and I look over at him. Make it a good one. His eyes are so full. I could look at them all day.
When I make my selection and hear the first few beats, I am not sad that Rhys can’t hear it too, because I understand. He doesn’t need to. How had I ever thought that music was all about sound? It’s not. It’s about feeling.
Look, I sign, bouncing up off the bed. I’ll show you.
The song is ‘You Make My Dreams (Come True)’, which is a song by an old duo called Hall & Oates. It is the happiest song in existence, and it is impossible to listen to it without feeling happy. And if you listen to it while you’re already deliriously happy, it will make you do this:
? play it to your deaf boyfriend when he asks you how you feel
? dance around the room to bring it to life
? sign the lyrics as you jump from one foot to the other, spinning, twirling, laughing
? sing along unselfconsciously as you do this, because you are so happy you can’t believe you could ever want to be silent
? get to the line about being found, about never being the same, and burst into tears.
And it will make said boyfriend do this:
? turn the music up so loud you can feel the vibrations through your body
? jump up beside you and dance with you
? even though he can’t hear the music
? even though you both look like idiots
? put his arms around you when you start to cry out of the blue
? kiss your hair
? write I love you on to your skin
? say it out loud
? say it with his hands
? say it with his eyes.
‘I love you,’ I say into his ear.
The song comes to an end and then starts up again, jaunty. Rhys takes my hand and spins me, then pulls me in close. He lifts my chin with his fingers and kisses me, soft at first and then firm, opening my mouth with his, touching his tongue to mine.
We tangle around each other, his arms around me, hands at my hips and back and chest and neck. We kiss, kiss, kiss.
He pulls me down on to the bed and my heart is going, hummingbird-like, in my chest. There is no need to talk; our bodies are having a conversation of their own. Is this what it’s like for everyone? Do all couples know each other’s movements like this?
Rhys pulls away from me slightly to look into my eyes. His face is suddenly shy. He takes my hand, currently at his chest, squeezes it into a fist and moves it gently in an up and down motion. Yes? he is asking me. Yes?
I nod – yes – slowly first, then faster. Wait. I put my hand up suddenly and he retreats immediately. I touch his wrist – it’s OK – and then say out loud, ‘I am not losing my virginity to Hall and Oates.’
Rhys smiles and raises his hands, palm up, rolling his eyes sweetly as he does. I scramble for the laptop and turn off Hall and Oates. I’m about to turn back to him with the music off, but then something occurs to me. We might not be able to share a musical memory, but that doesn’t stop me making one for myself. I can soundtrack this, just for me, if I want to. A secret for myself.
With this thought in my mind, I glance back at Rhys. I realize I don’t know the BSL for ‘condom’, so I fingerspell the word instead.
For a second he just looks at me, then starts to laugh. Very romantic.
I’m suddenly worried. Do you have one?
He grins. Yes.
I flap my hands at him. Go on, then.
Rhys takes my hands, grips them together in a four-handed fist, then kisses my knuckles. When he lets them go, he touches his fingers to my cheek, his eyes locked on mine. There is an entire conversation in these gestures and in his eyes. When he turns to scramble in his bag for a condom, my fluttering heart has calmed. This is me and Rhys. Rhys and me.
There isn’t time for a soul-searching hunt through Spotify to find the perfect losing-virginity-but-for-my-ears-only song, so I go for the first song I think of. Passenger. ‘Heart’s On Fire’. Because it is, and also because the lyrics about eyes and touch are so perfect for Rhys and me.