Capture the World (19 page)

TWENTY-ONE

The real world

Silence is beautiful

A FAN OF paper sits on my floor, a rainbow of color. My camera is on, and I prop my phone up, held up by a stack of books.

I press record.

My hands fly, folding and unfolding paper, blue on green on brown on yellow. The world forms in my hands, an origami globe, and I hold it in my palms, offering it to the camera.

Setting it down gently, I pick up a yellow sun I made beforehand, show it to him, mimic it setting over the origami globe.

Then, laying it all aside, I cover my eyes with my hands, closing everything away. It’s dark because I’m shutting out the world.

My lashes flutter against my palms, and I drop them, peering into the camera before grabbing a basketball I’ve borrowed from the Morettis’ backyard.

Holding the ball above the paper globe, I drop it, and the globe smashes. Inside the paper earth, a handful of origami hearts rest, and they scatter with the impact.

I’m left with a crushed world—a sun setting on it—open eyes, and a handful of new hearts.

Smiling, I stop the video.

Press send.

TWENTY-TWO

The real world

Silent filmmaking

I CALL THIS the montage of silent films.

A few hours after sending Matthew my video, I receive one from him, and then suddenly it’s a thing. I reply; he sends another. Me. Him. Me. Him. Two days’ worth of videos where we say nothing, where we live inside a world of silence, and yet the videos speak more than words ever could.

It’s the strangest thing I’ve ever done, which is saying a lot because … well, Mom.

It’s work, all of these symbolic gestures that I have to decode in my head, and yet somehow, it makes the videos more. This incredible thing I doubt I’ll ever experience again. This incredible thing I doubt I’ll ever be a part of away from Matthew. He’s invited me into his world where words mean less than feeling.

His videos are a collection of images; these things I know define him. Things he wants and things he needs.

Him in bed patting an empty spot next to him.

Him walking through his house surrounded by chaos like he’s the eye in the center of a hurricane, silence barging through noise.

Him reading.

Him opening a door, waving his hand through it, like he’s opening it for me.

A sunset off of his back patio.

His brother, Christopher, lying on their living room floor flipping through photo albums. He’s looking at pictures of someone dressed in a football jersey.

His niece, Mia, climbing onto his bed, babbling. She didn’t get the memo about the silence, but he doesn’t mind. She tries to get him to talk to her, her tiny fingers patting his lips. “Talk, Matty!”

A picture of a younger Matthew when he was awkward and gangly, more legs and feet than anything, holding a picture of a basketball player. When I Google the team and number, I discover it’s a picture of Lance Allred, the first legally deaf player in National Basketball Association history.

Finally, in the final video, he holds up an origami butterfly—the same butterfly I dropped on the gym floor the day he sat next to me at the pep rally. He kept it. This little part of me. A piece of my paper soul.

My conclusion: Yeah, I like him.

MY VIDEOS ARE shorter than his.

Me and the origami world.

Me kneeling next to my mother’s bed while she’s sleeping, fingers steepled, eyes closed.
 

My aunt sitting in our living room drinking coffee while doing a crossword puzzle. My uncle in his recliner watching ESPN and National Geographic.

My origami empire, which I’ve never shown anyone. A room full of paper treasures. Little hidden pieces of me, of my mother’s fantasies, and my dreams. My kingdom.

A picture of me with my mom … before.

Me holding up a DVD case, my recent copy of
The Outsiders
, a heart drawn in permanent marker over Ponyboy’s face. It feels silly, but I send it anyway.

A sunset off of our back patio, camera angled toward the tree line, toward the bayou. There’s something about the bayou that calls to me, this grassy, muddy place full of hidden dangers. The waterways hide alligators, snakes, and trouble, and yet its beauty is its darkness, its mystery, and its resilience.
 

Me setting a stack of college applications next to the institution brochure where my mother is being sent.

Me on my bed, staring at nothing.

Finally, me in pajamas curled up in a quilt, because in the end, that is the essence of me. Comfort, love, and family.

His conclusion: I have no idea.

I hope he likes me.

TWENTY-THREE

The real world

Bow chica wow wow

IT’S FRIDAY NIGHT, and Aunt Trish and Uncle Bobby are out meeting with friends when there’s a knock on the back door.

Matthew stands on the other side. It’s cold outside, and he’s hunched in his jacket, his hands stuffed inside the pockets. His head is down. Air puffs rise from his mouth, white and anxious.

I’m in a long
,
white T-shirt and a pair of knee-high socks my Aunt Trish bought me two years back during my unicorn phase. It’s weird, and my face burns.

“Hey,” I say, surprised, holding the door mostly closed, leaving only a crack between us, so that it hides my socks and bars the cold.

I barely have the greeting out of my mouth when Matthew suddenly pushes the door open, slides his hand behind my neck, and kisses me.

I forget there’s a world and that I’m trying to capture it.

The kiss is that powerful, his fingers curling into my hair, his lips cold against my warm mouth, the stark difference so startling I gasp.

He lifts me, no effort at all, shutting the door with his foot before setting me on the bar in the kitchen.

He settles between my legs, his mouth never leaving mine.

I am breathing Matthew Moretti, and he is breathing me, which is probably the worst description of a kiss ever, but I don’t know how else to describe it.

It resuscitates me.

He falls back, and we stare at each other. No words. I’m not sure I even remember how to talk. We’re all of these things in my head now—images, words, and feelings—and combined all of it has turned us into this huge thing I can’t pin down.

He kisses me again. Words no longer mean a damn.

His hands grip me, one on my hip, the other on the nape of my neck, as if letting go means failing himself somehow. He never tries anything. It’s just a kiss and a grip, and yet it feels like everything.

He falls back again, breathing hard.

“Sorry,” he mumbles. “I’m so sorry.” His eyebrows pop up. “No, scratch that. I’m not … I’m …” He doesn’t finish.

My eyes go wide, unseeing. “What—” I begin, and then stop because I realize he’s staring hard at my lips. “You still don’t have your hearing aids in, do you?”

He doesn’t have to answer. By the way he concentrates, I know he doesn’t.

Suddenly, this is way more than a kiss. This is him
feeling
the world, hearing it the way he hears it, through sight and touch and feeling. Through descriptions of sunsets and book quotes.

Reaching out, I grab his hands, lifting them to my head where I place them over my ears.

I kiss him, my legs wrapping around his waist, capturing him. My fingers massage the skin just under his ears, feeling the scar I’d seen in one of his videos.

He breathes against my lips. Our tongues touch.

I don’t know what to do with all of the sensations running through me. It’s like I’m stuck in a wild whirlpool inside the massive Mississippi river, and the current is pulling me under. Down, down, down.

Ending the kiss, Matthew rests his forehead against mine, his chest heaving.

If he touches my chest, he’ll feel my heartbeat, feel the way its skipping, excited and a little scared. Like a bird trapped inside of me, fluttering to get free.

For a long time, we stand there, a world of letters, videos, and silent images between us, and it is the most powerful thing I’ve ever felt outside of the pain I feel when I think of my mother … gone.

Strange how this can feel as wonderful as that feels painful. Two different emotions. Both of them devastating.

“I should—” he begins.

“Shhh,” I say, my fingers touching his lips, stopping him.

I don’t know what Matthew is—what part he’s supposed to play in my life; if he’s going to own my heart or break it—but right now, I don’t want to hear anything.

We don’t make love.

We stare.

He touches my face, and I close my eyes. His fingers memorize me, his thumbs gently caressing my eyes, the tip of my nose, my cheeks, and my smile.

Reaching out, I return the favor, my fingers running across his forehead, drifting over his eyelashes, and his cheekbones before dropping to the prickly stubble on his jaw.

Deaf and blind, we learn each other in new ways.

I feel him, the way his lips twitch when I run my fingers over his chin, and I know without seeing his smile he’s ticklish there.

These things, more than anything, are what connects us.

He hasn’t tried to fix me, and I’m not trying to fix him. We’re just here while we learn to fix ourselves, okay with the broken parts and all giddy about the not so broken ones, the ones that make us laugh.

I am Reagan Reneè Lawson, the school’s potential basket case, and I have Matthew Moretti, the school’s extraordinary star basketball player in my kitchen exploring my face.

This doesn’t feel like my life.

I don’t know if he opens his eyes because I don’t, my fingers leaving his face to explore the skin beneath his T-shirt.

He’s hard and strong beneath my fingers, and I end my exploration at his back, my hands splaying there, my cheek falling against his chest.

There, sitting on my bar, I hug him, and it feels so good being in his embrace.

His arms envelop me, his chin resting on the crown of my head, his breath stirring my hair.

He smells like cherries, soap, and paradise. He smells like possibility.