Title: Hear Me Weep
Author: gddg3696
Disclaimer: I don't own Switched at Birth
Author's Note: My first SAB fanfic. Please leave tons of reviews!
'You can do this, Bay. Come on. Beat them to the punch.' I parked The Thing and walked up to the door.
Never. Belong. Forget.
Those were the signs I kept messing up, but I'd practiced them to a perfect tee last night. In a fit of mild insanity due to what I was about to do, I knocked on the door. Now this wouldn't have been such an act of stupidity if the only people living in this house were deaf.
I rang the light up doorbell to be greeted with a tired looking Melody.
"Hi!, I signed "I know it's early, 7:20AM, to be exact, but may I speak to Emmett? It's… important."
"Sure. He's in his room." Although she didn't look happy to see me, I'm sure she'd like me a hell of a lot better after what was about to happen.
"Thank you." I sighed.
I stopped as I raised my hand to Emmett's bedroom door ready to knock, this time more out of polite habit than relapse in sanity. I grab the doorknob.
"John?" I called. "JOHN!" I walked down to the kitchen to find an empty counter. The house felt so big and empty with no one around. "JOHN!" Where is that man…
"I'm out back, Kathryn!" I followed my husband's voice to an outdoor brunch set up. "Bay is out buying art supplies. Daphne's at practice, Toby's with Wilke, and Regina, is at work." I smiled and took a seat. "So I figured, we could have a romantic breakfast outdoors."
"Well you figured right then, didn't you?" I said as I kissed him good morning. "Anyway, I was looking for you because I was thinking about what happened the last week… and I think we're going to have to forgive Regina." I take a seat in a gorgeous wooden chair. John's face automatically strained at the mention of Regina's name.
"Kathryn, that woman…" I'm quick to cut him off.
"That woman raised our daughter. And she raised Daphne well, Daphne is a wonderful, beautiful, independent young woman, and Regina does get credit for that." John takes a tense breath but lets me continue. "If we'd found out that Bay wasn't our daughter, would you want to give her up? Do you want to give her up now and trade her for Daphne?" He stares at me defeated.
"Fine. I admit I would never want to give up Bay, even for Daphne. She is the one we have raised and loved her whole life." I nod, and smile, but I see a little argument left in him. "But. Regina could have contacted us. So that we could work it out legally. Now we look like a big fat scandal for attention, and the hospital will never consider any kind of legal compensation." I know my husband like no other. But I just shrug. The flowers in the flower pot are wilting, I should replace them soon…
"Maybe it's for the best. It's a long, unhealthy thing to put this family- this whole family through. Especially after everything's happened." John finally lets a smile show.
"Agreed. When Regina gets back, we'll tell her we've dropped the case, and from two parents to another, we understand. Now. Let's not let our breakfast go to waste."
I exhale sharply as I rip off the bandage. Ridiculous, her assumptions. "Rough sex? Cutting?" It's like she doesn't know me at all. I sigh, and put the new bandage on when mom taps me on the shoulder.
Bay. Oh. When you're deaf, you learn to get less surprised when people just show up next to you. But it's… I check my clock behind her. 7:22AM.
"I know it's EARLY, she exaggerates the sign, but I need to talk to you." She looks me over and swallows heavily. It takes me a minute to remember I hadn't put my shirt on after fastening on a new bandage. I grab my shirt.
"So how is your cut, anyway?" Bay asks. I frown. Is she stalling something? She couldn't have driven over this early to check on me, but I humour her.
"It's alright. Yours?"
"Fine." We both stand there a while before she begins to sign again. I'd ordinarily lean to kiss her, but I suspect that it would be a bad idea.
"So you should sit down." I laugh.
"What, did someone die?" When Bay doesn't even crack a smile at me, I actually do take a seat on the bed. I pat the mattress next to me, clearly indicating for her to join me. But she gives me a tight-lipped smile and shakes her head. I wait patiently for her to begin, as she paces around the room a little.
I see her touch the corners of one of my photos, one of us laughing together. I smile at the memory. Bay turns around, expressionless.
"We need to break up." She doesn't mouth the words, even. My heart immediately relocates itself to my stomach.
"What." Not broken yet though, I don't think. I stand up, next to her. She slowly repeats her signs as if I didn't understand her signing.
"We. Need. To. BREAK. UP." She enforces the last two words and I grab her hands to halt her signing. I shake my head.
"I get your signing. But I don't understand what you're saying to me." I can't believe this. Things were… were going great, weren't they? She just shakes her head at me.
"Please let me finish. Just sit down, and I'll…finish. Don't interrupt. Please." Bay still doesn't mouth the words, with concerns me. It means she knows I'll understand the signs, that she practices this.
"I was naïve. I thought that… We could relate, somehow. Even just through art. But that was stupid, she signs forcefully. "You made me think we could be together. And I believed you. But that's a lie. I flinched. "The truth is, she said, shaking breath. "that I can't sign, and you can't speak. You can't hear, and I'm not deaf. And this is never going to work. I saw what your mom said, about me changing you, and she's right, you shouldn't have to…" I suddenly stand up to grab her hands and stop her so I can sign, but she just pulls away. I take a deep breath and sign anyway.
"This is about my mom? Bay, I told you, she will like you. She will, who wouldn't? Just because you're not deaf doesn't mean you can't learn to sign! And at this point I kind of lost my nerve a little, because admitting what I was going to say next was a little embarrassing. "And just because… because I'm not hearing doesn't mean I can't learn to speak. I've been thinking about signing up for speech therapy."
Through my whole little speech, Bay was preparing her hands to interject her opposing point, but tilted her head confused when I got to the last sentence. I took out my phone and typed, SPEECH THERAPY and showed her.
"NO!" she said aloud. Well, really, she screamed. I could tell. Bay threw my phone on the bed. "NO, NO, NO!" she signed this time.
"This is what I mean, you shouldn't have to change for me, or for anyone. You should be with someone you don't have to learn new things for."
"Bay, I don't speak because I've never needed to. My whole family is deaf, so are my teachers and friends. But I want you in my life, you're making an effort to learn my language, so I should make an effort to learn yours." I reached to grab her hands. But she pulled away again.
"I was never around hearing people, so I never needed to. Now I am, so I do."
"Maybe you should stop being around a hearing person. Hence, the break up." I frowned.
"You think you're not good enough for me? What, that I should date a deaf person? Like what, like.." And then I caught her staring at my 'Daphne shrine'. "Daphne?, I signed. "Is this because of Daphne? We don't like each other Bay, we're best friends, that's it." Irritated, she balled her fists, and started signing faster than I've ever seen her.
"No! That's a lie, you love her, you've always loved her, everyone knows it, everyone's always seen it but her and now…"
"Did she ask you? To break up with me? I can talk to her, Bay, it's not…"
"No! She didn't ask me to do anything. But she told me something."
"What?"
"Something that made me realize that we don't belong together." I locked my jaw. "We will never belong. We will never work, and I can never make you happy." Now I balled my fists.
"At the end of the day… I'm not the one you're supposed to be with. Daphne is."
"What is it with this Daphne theory! If her and I were going to ever get together, it would have happened by now. She's not the one I'm with okay, you are."
"Not for long." She whispered. I shook my head at grabbed her to kiss me. Bay just pushed me away again. Now it was broken for sure.
"You're not doing that! You're not going to kiss me just to lure me in and make me forget all I have to say!" I sat back down, with what felt like a golf ball in my throat. Good thing I didn't have to talk.
"Come on, Emmett. We were kidding ourselves. You and I both know that this… this is a lost cause. No one even knows we're dating. We can both just forget about this."
"I don't want to forget about this, I want to…"
"Daphne likes you, okay? She's perfect for you. Your mom LOVES her, she signs, she's known you forever, and she wants to be with you the same way you've wanted to be with her since you were kids. So be with her, and let's just… forget about this." Bay shook her head and walked out. Like it never happened.
"Daphne, never Bay" I saw her mouth to herself as she look one last look at my photos, and took my favourite one.
"Emmett, talk to me sweetie, you can't just live in your room." I plead with my hands, but he doesn't even look at my hands. After Bay stopped by yesterday, he hadn't so much as left the room unless he was getting food.
"I guess you were right." Emmett signs this without even looking in my direction. Only staring from his bed at the photos on his wall. "You got what you wanted." Confused, I quickly sign.
"What? Emmett, what happened?" He still doesn't look, so I tap my son on the shoulder. No response.
"It must be true then. 85%, what a staggering statistic." I quickly move in front of his face.
"EMMETT, I exaggerate the movements, TELL ME WHAT HAPPENED"
"Bay broke up with me. She said I belong with a deaf girl." I'm instantly flooded with remorse. I shouldn't have been so hard on them…
"Emmett, I'm sorry… maybe it's for the best"
"It's not, though! I thought I had it black and white. I was proud of who I was, I didn't need to speak. And I thought I could still be with Bay, but you, and Daphne, and even now Bay have told me otherwise, so it must be true!" Daphne?
"How is Daphne related to this in any way?"
"Well Daphne like me now." My eyes widen.
"You always had a crush on her growing up, but she dated other guys… I figured you'd gotten over her, especially when you started seeing Bay."
"But admit you think Daphne and I are perfect for each other."
"Oh honey, no two people are perfect for each other. But I do admit that you and Daphne together would be so much easier. She already signs, she already understands you, and the both of you have so much history…"
"Thanks mom. I get the point."
"Is this why you're avoiding both of them? Because you want to date Daphne?"
"I don't KNOW mom! I don't know, everything's mixed up and I just need to figure it out. And to make it worse, Daphne doesn't even know Bay and I are dating… I mean, dated." I sigh and put a hand on my son's back. "I just wished this whole thing… never happened."
I check my phone a third time in the last 10 minutes, and still no response. Just to make sure, I should see my sent folder… Oh. So I did send it, after all. 'Emmett. Why are you avoiding me? I haven't seen you since the party'. Friday was the party, and he hadn't called me all weekend. We've had weekends apart before so I didn't give it a second though. It had only been three days, but that feels like a while when it's my best friend.
Or maybe it feels longer now because I'm into him. Either way, he hadn't responded to my texts and I was starting to get worried. At school on Monday, he rushed to his classes with out so much as a wave. We had two classes together, Science and English, but he made sure to hide in the bathroom until 30 seconds before the bell. That way, when he waltzed in just in time, all the seats near me were taken, and he had no choice but to sit as far away as possible. Even lunch! I would rush out of my Math class just to see him riding off on his bicycle. I picked up my phone and called his house.
"Daphne?" He picked up?
"Emmett?" Finally! An explanation was due and-
"No, sorry Daphne, it is Melody." Oh.
"Oh, hi Melody. Is Emmett around? He hasn't been replying to my text. Well, texts." There's no signing for a moment, and I think she's hung up on me.
"Emmett has been kind of down lately. I've barely seen much of him; he's mostly just locked away in his room! Something must be upsetting him but he won't talk to me." I sigh.
"Alright, thanks. Tell him I called, at least?"
"Will do sweetheart. Tell your mother I said hello!"
"I will!"
"Will what?" My mom walks in the door with a grocery bag.
"Here, let me help you mom."
"Thanks honey. There's another bag in the car, why don't you put these away and I'll grab it, alright?"
"Sure mom." I check my phone for what I tell myself will be the last time. No new messages.
"Come on John, this is the perfect time" I sigh.
"Alright Kathryn." We walked out of our kitchen to see Regina picking up grocery bags. "Regina!" She turns towards us and looks like a child with her hand caught in the cookie jar. As if she was trying to sneak in her house and avoid confrontation.
"Hi John, Kathryn." We all stand there for a minute until Kathryn elbows me in the ribs.
"So Regina, listen… Kathryn and I were talking… Regina swallows loudly and puts down her bags, "and we think we've reached the decision that we can't be too upset. As parents of our daughters, we would have wanted to keep Bay as our own, as well. Although we do wish you'd approached us earlier, so we could work things out legally. Either way, we've dropped the case with the hospital, and all we want to do is to continue as one dysfunctional, albeit, family."
"Well… Thank you. I'm glad that you understand, and that you'd like to move on." I sighed, thank goodness we got that over with.
"We want to continue to be a part of Daphne's life, but we obviously can't force you to be a part of Bay's if you don't want to." Kathryn interjects.
"Bay… it's not that I didn't want to be a part of her life, I just… didn't know how! I couldn't just show up on your doorstep… I always wanted her." I smile.
"Then you might want to let her know."
"Alright, perfect, we finally have enough amps to actually get a gig!" Toby says to me, rolling into the house.
"What?"
"I talked to my friend Max, and his dad owns a music store. Said they'd let us borrow an awesome amp. We just have to put up some flyers for them!" As if raising a proud flag, Toby waves what must be 100 flyers.
"Do we have to? There's like 100!" Toby looks down at the pile in his hand.
"Actually, there's more in the car." I groan. "Come on, Wilke. Both of us are out of cash, unless you want to start working already, we should be able to suffer a bit of manual labour to translate it to success."
"Can't we just…"
"Ask our parents for more money? No. I had to sell practically all my equipment just to pay you pack 1/5 of what I owed. Now I'm clean, but not in the clear, okay?" I roll my eyes.
"Yeah, yeah, National Parent Bank closed for renovations, I get it. A loan shark is out of the question?" Toby gives me a look. "Fine. Oh, I forgot to mention to you one itty little thing about the gig." Toby turns away from counting the flyers and takes a seat on the couch across from me.
"Hit me, Wilke."
"To get the gig, I sort of had to push an… well, I guess you could call it an angle."
"6 weeks until show time my man, out with it." I fidget with my phone for a sec.
"Well the boss, Rick Saks said that he saw us play at the benefit, and we had a raw talent to us, but he didn't know if we had what it takes." Toby nods attentively.
"So…?"
"So I told him about Emmett. He loves the deaf drummer angle, and insisted on signing us up right then and there!" Toby sighs and kind of massages his temple with his eyes closed. Come on, buddy.
"I dunno Wilke. We've exploited Emmett before… more than once, actually, it doesn't sound like a good idea." We'll never get another opportunity like this, and good boy Kennish wants to play the innocent card. Nice.
"Fine then, I'll dial up Ricky now. Do you want to tell him or should I?" Toby rolls his eyes.
"Cut the theatrics, Wilke." I take a deep breath.
"Look, Toby. I like Emmett. Really, I do. I've only spent a few moments with him myself, but you- and him- need to understand. This is show business, okay? So at the end of the day, you have to ask yourself- how much do you really want this?"
"Hello? Bay? I know you're in there, I saw the lights on literally two minutes ago." I press my ear up against the door. Is she… sniffling? "Bay, if you don't open the door in 3 seconds, I'm coming in." But before I can start counting, she swings the door open, effectively displacing me to the floor since my ear was glued to the door.
"What do you want." Bay says, flat. I've barely caught the look on her face when she turns around. But I can tell in the sound of her voice that she's crying, she's been upset. It's the same voice she used when mom made her return the package of paintbrushes she stole, and the same voice she used when dad forced her to try golf once. Mr. Bradshaw still had a faint scar on his eyebrow. I shiver, never again.
"Well I was wondering actually if you've heard of Emmett lately." She takes a sharp intake of breath and decidedly walks over to the sink to since some paintbrushes.
"No. No, I haven't Toby, and if you're really on an Emmett search, you should ask the most skilled hunter." It was interesting, the way she twisted the words Emmett and hunter. Not bad, exactly, but not very pleasant.
"Daphne's at a last minute practice, actually. And I figured since you two have been spending so much time together recently that maybe…"
"Maybe I had a tracking device on him?" Now she was practically spitting the words at me.
"Bay, would you knock it off? God, I know you have a lot going on but that doesn't mean you should try and make it worse, make everyone feel as badly as you do…"
"YOU DON'T KNOW, THOUGH. YOU DON'T KNOW HOW MUCH I HAVE GOING ON. AND TRUST ME, TOBY, she sobs. I can see her shoulders shaking, but still can't see her face. "I DON'T WANT ANYONE TO FEEL AS…" another break to catch her breath. Upset? Sad? What? "Unwanted. And worthless, and unlovable. As I do, right now."
"Hey, I say softly, and turn her to face me. "I know I don't say it often enough, but I want you around. I love you, sis. I don't care what that damn genetics test says. You're my sister, and you always will be. You know, you're the strongest one. You've been taking it much better than I ever could. And it's okay to break, okay sis? I'm here for you." She sobs and hugs me, and I know she's the one that's been my sister forever.
"Good, she whispers. I can just barely hear her. "because I'm already broken."