Tone Deaf(63)

I untangle my hands from hers and slowly sign, “My dad killed my mom when I was ten.”

I wait for her to recoil and run away, but all she does is reach up and brush her fingers against my cheek. Her touch is firmer than usual, like she’s trying to brush the memory straight out of my head, and I close my eyes, appreciating the contact more than I thought possible. There are no sparks like before, but there’s warmth in her touch that fights off the cold chills I always get when I think about this.

“So you grew up in the foster system?” she guesses.

“No. I wish I had, but no.”

Her gaze turns inquisitive, and I hesitantly go on. “He didn’t physically kill her. I mean, he wasn’t the one to give her the pills. But she had psych issues, and she was suicidal. Instead of helping her, my dad drove her off the edge.”

“So you blame him for her death.”

I nod. “Of course.”

She doesn’t judge me, or tell me I’m wrong, or try to change my mind. She just holds me closer, wrapping her arms around me so tight that I don’t think I could leave if I tried. But, strangely, I don’t want to leave. Somehow, it feels right to tell her all this, like our relationship wouldn’t be real if she didn’t know the truth about me and my past.

My vision blurs, and it takes me a moment to realize it’s from tears. This is the second time she’s made me cry since I met her, but this time, I don’t feel ashamed. She wipes away one of my tears, just like I did for her. “Tell me everything,” she says.

I swallow hard. “Both my parents were deaf. I learned to speak English because my mom insisted on it, but as soon as she died, my dad wouldn’t let me talk around him. He always resented having a kid who could hear, so he insisted I use sign language.

“I had a lisp all through elementary school, because I didn’t speak enough. I got picked on for it, but that didn’t even begin to compare to my home life.”

I squeeze my eyes shut, and Ali brushes her fingers across my cheek and lightly kisses each of my closed eyes. After a long minute, she seems to realize that I don’t want to admit to anything, so she says it for me.

“Your dad abused you. Like mine.”

I nod and shudder, hating those words. Yeah, I was young, and yeah, there probably wasn’t anything I could do about it. But . . . what if there was? What if I could have stopped it, what if I’d tried harder, what if I just wasn’t strong enough?

Ali sighs, seeming to read my mind. “It’s not your fault, Jace.”

“But what if it is? He was obviously mentally ill, and I knew it, and I always went and pissed him off, anyway.”

“If it is your fault, then everything you told me the other night is a lie.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You told me it wasn’t my fault that my dad hit me. So if you’re saying that it is your fault that your dad did the same thing . . . then I must be at fault, too.”

My breath catches, and I snap my eyes open, staring right at her. I hurriedly sign, “It’s not your fault, Ali. Don’t even suggest that. You did nothing wrong.”

She smiles gently. “Then you didn’t do anything wrong, either.”

Tears flow freely down my face, and Ali kisses each one away, her lips soft against my skin. I close my eyes, trying to figure out the emotions racing through me. There’s anger, of course, because that’s always there. But it seems subdued, and there’s also something else: relief. Other people have told me before that I did nothing wrong. But it feels different coming from Ali, knowing that she’s been through the same hell and believes I didn’t deserve any of it. She’s the first person who really understands.

She holds me for a long time, and I let her. We don’t talk, and Ali doesn’t try to counsel me or give me pity. She just presses me close to her, letting me absorb her warmth and strength.

Eventually, she holds up her hands and signs, “Can I ask you another question?”

“If you really have to.”

“Is this why you hated me so much at first?”

I frown. “I hated the fact that you were deaf and that you reminded me of my past. But I never hated you.” Guilt gnaws at me, and I add, “I’m sorry. How I treated you when we first met was wrong, not to mention idiotic. My dad had issues because he was too selfish to take care of his mental illness. It had nothing to do with him being deaf.”

Ali gives a slow nod, accepting this. She stares at me intently, and I can tell she’s trying to judge how fragile I am, and how many more questions I can take. I brush the back of my hand against her cheek, silently telling her it’s okay.

“Your whole obsession with health,” she signs, “I mean, all the health foods and exercise and stuff. Is that why?”

“Yeah. My dad had some sort of mental illness, and instead of getting real medication, he used meth to deal with it. He was always cruel, but when he shot up, he was downright vicious.”

“I’m sorry. You never should have had to go through that.” She hesitates, and then signs, “Is he in your life at all anymore?”

I shudder at the thought and shake my head. “No. He went to prison after he gave me that scar on my chest. There was no way he could explain away an injury like that, and he’d already been arrested before on a couple of minor crimes. So he got sentenced to five years.”