Chance (4 page)

"But..."

She pinched him again and he eyed her, rubbing his arm.

"
No
.  No
but
. You're my friend, I already love you.  But I need to convince myself this is real before I let myself fall too hard.  Hearing, 'It's not you, it's me'  from some guy I've gone out with twice?  That I can handle.  But from you?  You're the one I'd want to actually get it right with."

He sighed, deeply and desperately, "I don't know how much time I have."
  

"Kai, you're back to scaring me again."

"Mary… I told you about my parents."

"Right."

"You asked me why they kept me at the school, why they waited so long to put me with hearing children.  Why they waited, nearly until it was too late.  I always told you I didn't know, but that wasn't entirely honest."

He rose, and Mary nearly stoppe
d him, but purpose infused him with unexpected strength.  Caped in blankets, silhouetted against the light, he paced to the window and looked out into the courtyard.

"My parents have a disorder that causes gradual, progressive, profound hearing
loss.  They were able to hear as small children, but by grade school it began to degenerate.  By their teens, they were both completely deaf.  Part of their bitterness towards the hearing world stemmed from the culture shock of being thrust from one world into another, and having to cope."

She shook her head. "They wanted to spare you by forcing you to live among the deaf?"

"No," he looked back at her. "They wanted to spare me because the condition is genetic."

Mary
stood, a hand at her heart.

"Kai.
  You're going deaf?"

"I thought I escaped it, but about a year ago I started… missing things.
  Just here and there.  Traffic, background noises, women's voices especially.  Certain frequencies went in and out.  I put it out of my head for awhile, but then one of the neighbors complained how loud I ran the TV.  Without realizing it I'd been turning the volume up on everything for months, a little at a time."

"Oh God.
Kai."

"It's al
l right.  I can't say I'm unprepared.  My parents were cruel to a child who can hear, but I suppose they did a kindness to a man who can't."

She walked to him, stepping carefully around the picnic sprawl, and still he followed her with his gaze
.

"Will it go completely?"

"Eventually."

"How long?"

"Technically I should have been deaf years ago.  I hoped it would happen gradually, but it's been progressing pretty quickly.  A year, maybe."

"I'm sorry."

He searched her as she stood close, listening with his eyes to the simple symphony of her face.

"I'm not."

"Kai…"

"Don't misunderstand," he flickered.
  "I'm not looking forward to it, but I'm resigned, for lack of a better word.  Speaking wasn't much easier for me than sign, but at least it wasn't so isolating."  He'd managed a timid smile until now, but it suddenly failed him.  "I'm… most afraid of the isolation.  I'm afraid to be trapped inside my own head again."

Mary slid her hands into his, let his eyes drop watchfully as their fingers laced together.

"Were you afraid we couldn't be friends?"

"
No, I knew you better than that.  But one night on the train… I was looking at you, you were talking to me, and suddenly I started to lose your words.  It had happened with other people, but never you – frequencies vary from voice to voice – and that one was finally deteriorating.  I'd never been so afraid to lose something.  The sound, the inflection, the music of you.  It was like being pulled away from you."

She smiled at him gently, touching his face.

"You don't love me, you love my voice."

"No," Kai shook his head, more certain in the affirmation than any she'd ever heard him make. "It's you.
  I can live without sound, without voices, I can live at arm's length with the world again, if I have to, but not without
you
."  He squeezed her hands, eyes intent. "
You
, Mary.  Not the women in the gowns and the tiaras, or the girls on the dance floor, but
you
.  I love
you
."

Mary eased close to him, and his chin tilted down as he gazed into her face, watchful and sad.

"Kai, I—"

"You don't have to say it.
  If you don't feel it, you don't have say—
OW!
" he backed away from her with a weak, wounded grin.  "Stop
pinching
me."

"Then stop telling me what you think I'm going to say.
  If I want to love you, I'm going to love you, and you'd better just shut up and deal with it already."

He moved in again, "Then
do you?"

"You already know I do."

"I want to hear you say it," His hands grasped the small of her back, pulling her to him.  "I want to hear it so many times that I don't forget the sound of it when I can't hear anything else."

Her arms draped his shoulders, wrists crossing at the back of his neck.

"I love you," she said softly.  His eyes closed, luxuriating.

"Say it again."

"I love you," she pushed her forehead to his, then kissed his cheek.  He pulled her tighter.

"Again," his voice a whisper.

She smiled as she leaned close to his ear, "I love you."

Kai's arms closed around her tightly, crushing her close, and he hid his eyes in the hollow of her shoulder.
  Gently she smoothed the soft hair at the back of his head.

"Are you okay?"

           "It's a good sound.  Mary…"

"
Hm?"

"Marry me."

"You only want to marry me because you won't be able to hear me nag."

He leaned back enough to press his brow to hers.

"What if I were serious?"

"What if y
ou were?"

"Do you want me to buy you one of those big white Very Wang gowns, with the rhinestone tiaras, and the ball room with three hundred guests?
  I… make very good money, you know.  I could give you the wedding of your dreams, if you wanted it."

She pressed back against his forehead.

"First? It's
Vera
Wang."

"Oh."

"Secondly, despite what I say to women on the salon floor, I think those gowns are hideous abominations, and the women who wear them look like bloated parade floats."

"I see.
  Is there a 'Third'?"

"Yes.
  Third?  Buy me a plain white silk dress and a plane ticket somewhere with a sun-drenched beach, and yes, I'll marry you."

"
If
I were serious."

"
If
you were."

Kai fell quiet.
  But not for too long.

He said, "I'd like to hear the ocean."