style="font-size:15px;"> “I’m Akinli, by the way,” he said, waiting for me to respond. I gawked at him, not used to people pressing past my silence. “I know it’s weird.” He’d misread my confusion. “Family name. Kind of. It was a last name on my mom’s side of the family.”
He kept his palm outstretched, waiting. Typically my response would be to flee. But Elizabeth and Miaka managed to interact with others. For goodness’ sakes, Elizabeth cycled through lovers regularly without ever saying a word. And there was something about this boy that seemed … different. Maybe it was how his lips lifted into a smile without him seeming to even think about it, or the way his voice rolled warmly out of him like clouds, but I felt certain snubbing him would end up hurting my feelings more than his, and that I’d regret it.
Cautiously, as if I might break us both, I took his hand, hoping he wouldn’t notice how cool my skin was.
“And you are?” he prompted.
I sighed, sure this would end the conversation despite my kindest intentions. I signed my name, and his eyes widened.
“Oh, wow. So have you been reading my lips this whole time?”
I shook my head.
“You can hear?”
I nodded.
“But you can’t speak … Umm, okay.” He started patting at his pockets as I tried to fight the dread creeping down my spine. We didn’t have many rules, but the ones we did have were absolute. Stay silent in the presence of others, until it was time to sing. When the time came to sing, do it without hesitation. When we weren’t singing, do nothing to expose our secret. Walking down the street was one thing, and so was sitting under a tree. But this? An attempt at an actual conversation? It landed me in a very dangerous realm.
“Here we go,” he announced, pulling out a pen. “I don’t have any paper, so you’ll have to write on my hand.”
I stared at his skin, debating. Which name should I use? The one on the driver’s license Miaka bought me online? The one I’d used to rent our current beach house? The one I’d used in the last town we’d stayed in? I had a hundred names to choose from.
Perhaps foolishly, I chose to tell him the truth.
“Kahlen?” he read off his skin.
I nodded, surprised by how freeing it felt to have one human on the planet know my birth name.
“That’s pretty. Nice to meet you.”
I gave him a thin smile, still uncomfortable. I didn’t know how to do small talk.
“That’s really cool that you’re going to a traditional school even though you use sign language. I thought I was brave just getting out of state.” He laughed at himself.
Even with how uneasy I was feeling, I admired his effort to keep the conversation going. It was more than most people would do in his situation. He pointed at the books again. “So, uh, if you ever have that party and need some help with your cake, I swear I could get my act together long enough not to ruin everything.”
I raised one eyebrow at him.
“I’m serious!” He laughed like I’d told a joke. “Anyway, good luck with that. See you around.”
He waved sheepishly, then continued pushing his cart down the aisle. I watched him go. I knew I’d remember his hair, a mess that looked windswept even in stillness, and the kindness in his eyes. And I’d hate myself for holding on to those details if he ever crossed my path on one of those dark days, like the days when Kerry or Warner had encountered me.
Still, I was grateful. I couldn’t recall the last time I’d felt so human.
“What do you want to do tonight?” Elizabeth asked, flopping onto the couch. Outside the window behind her, the sky was fading from blue to pink to orange, and I mentally ticked off one more day of the thousands I had left. “I actually don’t feel like going to a club.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” I threw my arms up. “Are you sick?” I teased.
“Ha-ha,” she retorted. “I’m just in the mood for something different.”
Miaka looked up from our shared laptop. “Where is it daytime? We could go to a museum.”
Elizabeth shook her head. “I will never understand how you are so into such quiet buildings. As if we aren’t silent enough.”
“Pssh!” I gave her a pointed look. “You, silent?”
Elizabeth stuck out her tongue at me and hopped over to Miaka. “What are you looking at?”
“Skydiving.”
“Oh, wow! Now that’s more like it!”
“Don’t get any big ideas. For now I’m just researching. I’ve been wondering what would happen with our adrenaline levels if we did something like this,” Miaka said, taking notes on a pad beside the computer. “Like, if we’d get an above-average spike.”
I chuckled. “Miaka, is this an adventure or a science experiment?”
“A little bit of both. I’ve read that adrenaline rushes can alter your perception, making things look blurry or causing a moment to look frozen. I think it’d be interesting to do something like this, see what I see, then try to capture it in art.”
I smiled. “I admit, it’s creative. But there has to be a better way to get a rush than jumping out of a plane.”
“Even if things went wrong, we’d survive, right?” Miaka questioned, and they both turned to me as if I was an authority figure on the topic.
“I think so. Either way, you can count me out for that particular adventure.”
“Scared?” Elizabeth made wiggly ghost fingers at me.
“No,” I protested. “Simply not interested.”
“She’s afraid she’ll get in trouble,” Miaka guessed. “That the Ocean wouldn’t like it.”
“As if She would ever get upset with you,” Elizabeth said, a tinge of bitterness in her voice. “She adores you.”
“She cares for all of us.” I tucked my hands in my lap.
“Then She wouldn’t mind if you went skydiving.”
“What if you’re terrified and start screaming?” I proposed. “What would that do?”
Elizabeth, who was preparing to pounce on my worry, backed down. “Fair point.”
“I have twenty years to go,” I said quietly. “If I mess up now, it’d make the last eighty years a waste. You know the stories about sirens who went wrong as well as I do. Miaka, you saw what happened to Ifama.”
Miaka
