Sweet Soul

  His dark eyes narrowed. “Just never seen you like this before.”

  My stomach rolled. I hated being the center of attention. I shrugged, but my mind drifted back to the girl’s lost face as I sat in front of her in that alley. Thought back to the light touch of her hand over mine when I’d given her coffee and the blankets, when I’d told her I would stay. When I’d sat beside her and her head fell against my arm as she fell asleep.

  Like a hot coal in the pocket of my jeans, I could feel her scribbled thank you note burning through the leather of my new wallet. I had no idea why I’d kept it, why it meant so much to me. Now that she was here, in my house, in our spare room, it somehow felt poignant.

  “Lev?” Austin pushed.

  Keeping my head downcast, I replied, “You should have seen how she was living, Aust. She was alone, soaked through from the rain, huddled against a dark wall in a stinking alley. Only after I’d stopped that asshole from attacking.” I shook my head and raked my hands through my hair. “She has nothing, Aust.” I lifted my head and pointed at us both. “If it hadn’t been for you, for your football, that could have been us. We were dirt poor. And without Mamma; if you hadn’t been drafted, what the hell would have come of us?” I flicked my chin in the direction of the spare room above us. “She’s living the life that could have easily been ours.” A lump built in my throat, and I sat back. “And she’s sick. Her eyes, how weak she is, her silence…” I cleared my throat and rasped, “She reminded me so much of Mamma that I couldn’t leave her. Helpless, you know? So I had to help her. I needed to, something within me compelled me to.”

  “Fuck, Lev. Why didn’t you tell me?” Austin asked. I shrugged.

  “When I came back from calling Lex, she was gone. I looked for her for the past few days after class and training, but I found nothing.”

  “Until tonight?”

  “Until tonight,” I concurred.

  Silence bounced between us for several minutes, until I heard the murmur of low voices. I turned in the direction of the stairs. Lexi and the doctor were coming down. Unable to wait any longer, I got to my feet as they entered the living room.

  Lexi’s eyes fell on me and she smiled.

  “Is she okay?” I asked.

  Lexi looked to the doctor, and he spoke first. “The girl has pneumonia.” My heart sank when he said these words, then it began pounding like a drum. The doctor continued. “At the moment it’s not bad enough for her to be hospitalized. I’ve given her a starter shot of strong antibiotics, and left a week-long course for her to take orally. I’ve also arranged for an IV to be brought in to rehydrate her.”

  I blew out a breath of relief, but then Lexi stepped forward. My eyes darted to her. “Doctor Bell found something else, Levi.”

  The relief I had felt was crushed. “What?” I questioned in trepidation.

  “The girl is deaf in her left ear, with only a small fraction of her hearing functioning in the right,” the doctor explained.

  My eyebrows furrowed. Suddenly images of her staring at my lips and her silence flooded my mind. “How did you find that out?” I inquired.

  The doctor pointed to his right ear. “She had a small hearing aid in her right ear, but it’s not working. The device is not the best, it’s the most basic type, and the way she has been living seems to have degraded what assistance it might have afforded.”

  Cold infused my body. “You mean she has been living on the streets with no hearing?” Lexi’s face showed the sympathy I was feeling. The doctor nodded his head.

  “I’ve done a few simple tests, but I’ve organized for a friend, an audiologist, to stop by tomorrow. As I explained to Lexi, it’ll be costly to replace—”

  “We’ll pay, whatever the cost,” I said, interrupting the doctor.

  A smile spread on his lips. “Don’t worry, son. Lexi already arranged that side of things.”

  “What now?” I asked.

  The doctor picked up his bag. “It’ll take a few weeks for her to regain her strength. She’s mostly starving and severely dehydrated. Thankfully, it’s making her sleep most of the time. The moments she’s awake she may be incoherent. We’ll treat that too, then it’ll be about recovery to get her back on her feet.”

  I looked to Lexi, who nodded her head at my silent question. “She can stay, Lev. After she’s feeling better, which could take a few weeks, and she has her hearing and strength back, she can decide what she wants to do. She appears to be over eighteen, around your age, I’d guess. Whether she wants our help or not will be down to her. You know the drill from the center.”

  I blinked, then blinked again, knowing that I would do anything I could to make her stay, to get the help she desperately needed. “Can I go up and see her?”

  The doctor nodded. “She’s sleeping. The medication I’ve given her will keep her sedated, just in case she wakes and becomes frightened at the strange surroundings. She won’t hear you either, son. But yes, you can see her.”

  I nodded my head at the doctor in thanks, then pushed past them to climb the stairs. As I picked up speed, Lexi called out, “I cleaned her up some. As much as I could. I’ll get her into the shower when she’s stronger.”

  I stopped as Lexi spoke. “Thank you,” I called, and quickly headed to the room. I quietly pushed through the door. The room was dark but for a dull side lamp. My eyes immediately focused on the bed in the center of the room. My heart swelled seeing the girl looking so tiny under the white sheets. Then it nearly burst through my chest when I stood beside the bed and truly saw her.

  A breath lodged in my throat. Lexi had done a real good job of cleaning all the dirt from her face. Her hair had been combed and Lexi had taken her out of her wet clothes and dressed her in some cream pajamas.

  And I couldn’t stop staring.

  I’d thought she could have been pretty before, but witnessing her lying here in this bed, her face calm from sleep, cleaned up and warm, she looked like an angel.

  The girl’s hands were lying on her stomach as she slept. Two wide silver cuff bracelets wrapped around both of her wrists, and a gold necklace lay around her throat. I could still hear her chest crackle with the fluid in her lungs, but she looked peaceful. After seeing how uncomfortable she was on the ride home, this was good.

  The room was silent as she slept, and I dropped down to the sit on the side of the bed. The girl didn’t stir, but my heart thundered in my chest. I opened my mouth to speak, but immediately shut it when I remembered she couldn’t hear. My head dipped to the side as I watched her. Her eyes fluttered under closed lids. I wondered what she was dreaming about.

  My eyebrows furrowed when I wondered what it was like for her to live in a world of silence. With the hearing aid she heard the world, but Christ knows how long she’d been living without that device. Wandering the streets, hungry and homeless, the noise of Seattle on mute.

  She must have been terrified.

  I didn’t know why, but as her finger twitched on her lap in sleep, I found myself reaching out and holding her cold frail hand in mine. I swallowed and blinked at the sight.

  It was the first time in my life I had ever held hands with a girl.

  The pretty girl who lived in silence.

  The one I’d needed to save.

  The one I’d wait beside to wake up.

  Chapter Five

  Elsie

  I came home from school to see the door of our small apartment open. My heart raced in panic as I feared what I would find on the other side of the door. The lock had been snapped off and I closed my eyes. The landlord would come calling again, demanding for it to be fixed. My mom was on her last chance with him. It wouldn’t be long until we were back on the streets.

  I turned my head to the right, desperately trying to hear if anyone was in our apartment. I couldn’t hear anything, so I pushed the door open and stepped inside. My stomach immediately plummeted. Our studio apartment was trashed, our one chair and side stool overturned, all smashed up.

&nb
sp; My eyes tracked across the room to the bed that Mom and I shared. I sighed both in relief and pain as I saw my mom lying on the bed, alive and breathing but passed out, her empty syringes strewn beside her. My mom’s arm was stretched out, the track marks from where she’d shot up were still prominent against the paleness of her skin.

  Running to the kitchen, I rushed to the far cabinet. I needed to check the tin was still there. It was rent money that I kept hidden. If I didn’t keep it hidden, my mom would use it to buy drugs.

  I jumped up onto the counter top and stretched my hand up to the highest shelf. Panic rushed through me when I couldn’t feel a thing. My hand picked up speed, swiping along every inch of the old cabinet, but nothing was there.

  I jumped off the counter and searched the floor, only to see the upturned tin hidden behind the bust door. I knew I’d find it empty. I knew that my mom’s supplier had come for the money she owed.

  Feeling as though my feet weighed a thousand pounds, I walked to the tin, feeling no surprise when not even a dime spilled out to the floor.

  A flash of anger came and went. I only ever managed to feel frustration towards my mom for a few seconds, before intense sympathy for her horrible life took root.

  Sighing in defeat, I closed the door as tightly as I could and began picking the broken furniture off the floor. It didn’t take me long to clean up the mess. When all the debris was cleared, I packed the few clothes we owned into our small bag. It wouldn’t be long until the landlord came to evict us. The money that I’d managed to save from my mom’s welfare and disability checks was running with her bloodstream, and sitting in her supplier’s wallet.

  Making the apartment as clean as I could, I walked to my mom who was lying on the bed. A lump clogged my throat as I saw her blue eyes open, watching me. Her pupils were dilated, but I knew she could see me. It was rare that my mom wasn’t high. These moments were constant.

  Carefully moving the needle and foiled up heroin from the bed, I placed them on the floor. I sat on the mattress and stroked the damp strands of blond hair from my mom’s forehead. She smiled when I ran my finger down her face.

  “Hi mom,” I said. I watched as her eyes read my lips.

  My mom lifted her hand and struggled to sign. “Hi, baby girl.”

  I smiled back, but tears built in my eyes when I wondered what would come next for us. My mom, even in her drugged up state, must have realized this as she placed her hand on my cheek and said aloud, “No crying… baby girl.”

  I closed my eyes at the sound of my mom’s voice. She hated speaking aloud, as did I, because people only ever made fun of us. But we could talk to each other, free and without fear of mocking. And to me, her voice was beautiful. It was home.

  “Come,” my mom said, weakly tapping the bed beside her. Doing as she said, I laid on the pillow-less bed, facing her direction.

  Mom smiled at me as she stroked through my hair. Her eyes began to close, her body forcing her to sleep to cope with the drugs. But as with every night before she slept, she placed her hand on my cheek, as I did on hers, and she drew our foreheads together. My mom rarely spoke, instead she struggled by using her messy and mostly incorrect sign language, or through actions that were simply between her and I. Just like this.

  I love you.

  Our hands on each other’s cheek, and our forehead’s joined, was our ‘I love you’. Needing my mother’s comfort right now, I kept my hand on her face as she fell asleep.

  But I never slept. I never slept knowing the landlord would be coming to kick us out.

  Which he did two hours later, when we returned to the streets, to the cold and wet and rain, back begging for money, until they took me away.

  Took me away and ruined my life…

  My eyes rolled open and I lifted my hand to my cheek. For a moment I thought everything had been a dream and I was still on my bed with my mom’s hand holding my cheek. But my palm met my skin and I blinked and blinked as my fuzzy sight cleared.

  A white ceiling came into view, and it took me a few seconds for the panic to set in.

  Where am I?

  My body felt heavy and numb, but I told myself to move. Just as I rolled on the soft bed that I was laid in, the sound of a female voice met my ear. I froze. I heard a female voice. I heard. I racked my foggy brain to recall the last time that I had heard anything. I didn’t know how long it had been since my hearing aid had stopped working, but I knew it was a long time ago.

  My heart beat faster and faster, confusion and fear taking a strong hold of my body. Suddenly, someone entered the room.

  My breathing was shallow as my eyes slammed to the opening door, only to see a small black-haired woman walk in. When she cast a glance to the bed, she startled at seeing me sitting up. Her hand landed on her chest, and a smile broke out on her face. That smile calmed something within me. She looked kind. She appeared relieved as she looked at me with interest.

  “Hello,” she said clearly and slowly. Out of habit, I read her lips as she sounded out the words. The woman edged further into the room, and said, “My name is Lexi. You’re safe. You’re in my home.”

  I frowned and looked about the large room. My eyes widened when I saw the expensive furniture against the walls. I nearly gasped as the large window showed a crystal clear view of a river beyond.

  A hand landed on my arm, and my head turned in the direction of the woman. “Can you hear me okay?” she asked. I could see the concern on her face.

  My hand instinctively lifted to my right ear. I nodded my head when I realized I could hear, better than ever before. I could pick up background noises that I had never heard before. A sudden rush of happiness washed over me, and tears filled my eyes.

  I could hear again.

  I was no longer trapped in the silence.

  “Honey,” the woman said quietly as she sat on the edge of the bed. I stared at her, trying to recognize who she was and why I was here in her home. But she was a stranger to me.

  As if hearing my thoughts, she said, “You’re probably a little afraid and confused right now, but there’s no need to be.” I sat back on the bed, feeling too weak to be sitting up straight. Lexi, the woman had said was her name, laid her hand on mine. “My brother-in-law knows you, sweetie. We helped you a few nights ago.” Lexi’s head dipped. “You’re sick, honey. You have pneumonia.” Fear ran through me, but she quickly offered assurance. “You’ve been on medication and you’re responding perfectly to it. You’ve been in and out of consciousness for the past few days.” Her face wore the kind smile again. “It makes me real happy to see you up and awake.”

  I took a deep breath absorbing all that she was saying. I lifted my hand to my ear again, but this time, I held the woman’s eyes and pointed to the aid. Lexi nodded her head.

  “When the doctor examined you, he discovered your old hearing aid. It was broken beyond repair, but we got you a new one. The doctor told us you should have eighty percent hearing in your right ear now. He thought the last one only gave you about forty, if that.”

  That was why I could hear more. This woman, this woman who had cared for me, had given me back my sound. She had, in turn, given me back the world.

  Laying my hand on my chest, I lowered my head in thanks. The woman, seeming to understand my action, squeezed my hand. “No need to thank me, honey, it was all Levi.”

  My head snapped up at the mention of that name. The woman jumped, startled by my reaction. “You okay?” she asked.

  I opened my mouth to ask her questions, but she was a stranger. I couldn’t... I just couldn’t talk to strangers. I couldn’t let them hear my voice.

  I closed my mouth, when Lexi’s head tipped to the side. “Honey, can you speak?” she asked. I paused wondering if she would make fun of my voice.

  Speak, dumbfuck. Speak. Let her hear that horrible sound. She knows you can… but it’s embarrassing, isn’t it, dumbfuck? Your ugly as fuck voice is as stupid as you. Ugly and fucking dumb.

  My body stiffened
as I heard the echo of Annabelle’s taunts in my head. Heard her mocking laughter and dilapidating words circle my mind, and my body froze with fear.

  Too afraid to open myself up to judgment, I shook my head, no. I couldn’t speak. I wouldn’t ever speak again.

  Looking around me, I searched for the pen and paper I always kept with me, but I couldn’t see it. “What are you looking for, honey?” Lexi asked.

  Lifting up my hand, I mimed using a pen and paper. Lexi lifted her hand and walked to a dresser at the back of the room. She opened a drawer and brought over a pen and notepad.

  Shaking my hand to relax my tense muscles, I took the pen and wrote, “Levi? The boy from the alley?”

  I held up the pad of paper to Lexi and she nodded her head. “Yes, sweetie. I’m married to his brother. Levi lives here too, but in the pool house across the backyard.” I stretched my neck up to see the building Lexi was pointing too, and a flush of warmth filled my chest. Levi. Levi Carillo had helped me. He had saved me. Even when I’d pushed him away.

  Feeling Lexi watching me, my cheeks warmed and I wrote, “I don’t remember much.” I paused, a memory of me lying in strong arms filled my mind. Strong arms, bright gray eyes, and full lips that told me I was safe.

  My cheeks burned brighter and I dropped the pen, not willing to share this intimate memory with Lexi. It was just for me.

  Lexi shuffled forward, and asked, “What’s your name, honey?”

  Taking the pen again, I scribbled down, “Elsie.”

  “Elsie,” Lexi read when I held up the pad of paper. Her smile returned. “What a beautiful name.” Lexi’s smile faded, and she asked, “How old are you, Elsie?”

  I had to think hard about when I had my last birthday. Living on the streets, birthdays and dates didn’t really matter.

  Calculating the months in my head, I wrote, “Eighteen. I will be nineteen in a couple of weeks.”

  Lexi nodded again, and said, “Just a bit younger than Levi.” At the mention of Levi again, my heart seemed to miss a beat and the same warmth from before infused my body.