A/N: HEy everyone! I hope everyone is doing well! So, just so everyone knows, it may be a few days before the next post. I have had a couple really big tests come up and next week is chalk full for them. So bear with me. Thank you to everyone who reviewed this last chapter, I want to shout out to EVERYONE but I can't do it individually because I'm pressed for time. I love you all so much and I hope you will all review and review and review and tell me what you think because it helps me think better and frankly, it makes my day.

SO one thing before I go. I've had a lot of people ask me about signing classes, books, websites etc. Two good websites are .com and The latter will actually do an online ASL class and the first one is a lot of vocab. If you are looking for a book, MASTER ASL is the BEST book in my opinion. I've had a few of my mentees use it and they adore it. Get the DVD though. You can get it through a bunch of textbook rental places for like $25 a semester. It's amazing.

Okay everyone...so here it goes!

"Ow!"

"You're mine now, Fields!"

"Paige! Stop tickling me!" I laughed uncontrollably. I kept trying to sign "parents", but she wouldn't let me have my hands free.

What had started off as us cleaning up dinner, ended up with her pinning me down on the couch tickling me halfway to death. I have to admit, I probably deserved it. Just as we finished dishes, I caught her off guard and used the kitchen's spray nozzle and sprayed her in the gut, effectively soaking her shirt. I laughed knowing full well that I caught her off guard and so I sprayed her again, only this time a little higher so the water sprayed all over her chest. Well, apparently, that was the wrong thing to do.

Paige was a lot calmer than I expected as she took her hearing aid off and headed towards the living room. Confused, I followed. I thought I would have gotten some type of reaction and so at the point where she just walked away, I was seriously contemplating on whether or not I had seriously pissed her off. I didn't expect she'd be a person to get pissed off at something like that, but I was still getting to know her better. Maybe I had crossed a line? Maybe it brought back memories of her mom? I couldn't be sure. I was absolutely terrified that I had caused her pain in some way and so tentatively I passed the wall that separated the kitchen from the living room. However, I wasn't ready for what hit me, and what hit me, was Paige.

She had simply been hiding against the wall to where I couldn't see her and when I walked out into the open space, she scooped me up and threw me over her shoulder swiftly before playfully dropping me on the couch and tickling me. She had straddled my hips and grabbed both of my hands with one of hers, not relenting as I fought back with everything I had. I shrieked and laughed as I kicked and screamed, but she refused to give in. Minutes had passed and we were both breathing heavily and laughing uncontrollably. I knew that she couldn't hear me as I had seen her take off her hearing aid, but that didn't mean she didn't understand that I was trying to get her off of me.

I freed one hand and kept trying to sign "parents", but she had reclaimed my hand and continued wiggling her fingers on my ribs. I continued to kick and try to shriek, but it didn't matter. I never figured Paige was stronger than me, but I had been effectively proven wrong. I tried to gain a better vantage, but to no avail. Paige completely overtook me and she was using it against me. Finally, after I was completely out of breath, she sat up on her knees and signed "Finished?"

I nodded.

"you-say-sorry"

I signed "sorry"

"Sign-better" she looked at me with a devilish grin wiggling her fingers in the direction of my ribs.

I sat up as much as I could – which was very little as I was pinned down by her weight.

"I sorry p-a-i-g-e. Please forgive me?"

She nodded her head in approval before moving off of me completely and swiftly grabbing her hearing aid off the bookshelf where she set it minutes before. I laughed, still trying to recover before noticing the time as I grabbed my computer out of my bookbag and set it up.

"We're going to be late!" I scolded Paige as she just shrugged her shoulders.

"You shouldn't have sprayed me," she said walking into her room for a brief moment.

I opened Skype and waited for my parents to get on. Thankfully, I had still opened Skype before they got on. I hated making them wait, especially when I made the plans. Within a few moments, Paige reentered the living room in a clean tank top. It took me a minute to regain my thoughts as all I noticed for a few brief seconds were the exposed muscles of her arms and the exposed bit of cleavage that was completely visible to me the nearer she got. Paige had a fabulous body, that was inarguable and on top of that, she was completely modest about it. However, over the past week, I swore she would wear things that she knew accented certain features because when she would wear those things, she'd catch my eye and give me a certain look. I couldn't pinpoint the look, but it told me she knew I was looking.

We had all determined that it would be best if we chatted about 7pm PST so then it would only be 9pm EST as the clocks hadn't rolled back yet- though I was so looking forward to that extra hour of sleep. School was already kicking my rear end and we were just barely into October. However, I wanted to make sure we were able to get online at a decent time because I didn't want either side being too tired to communicate effectively because I knew the complications that could be tied into it. Paige grabbed a seat on the couch by me, and just in time, as my computer made a ringing sound and flashed telling me I had an incoming video call.

"Hey Mom!" I said as the screen populated showing my mom sitting at our kitchen table.

"Hi Emily!"

"Where's Dad?"

"I'm right here Emy," he said sitting down beside my mom.

"How's school sweetheart?" my mom asked.

"It's good. Really good actually. I'll tell you a bit more in a minute. But first," I motioned for Paige to scoot closer to me. "I want to introduce you to Paige."

I began signing as I was talking to the surprise of my parents when I mentioned introducing Paige.

"Mom, Dad, this is Paige. Paige, this is my mom and dad"

"Hi Mr. and Mrs. Fields. I'm Paige," she said politely.

"Nice to meet you dear," my mom said happily as she watched me sign to Paige what she had said.

"Emy? Why are you moving your hands so much? Are you doing sign language?" my dad asked me curiously.

I signed what my dad had said to Paige.

Paige and I talked earlier about the video chat. Since Skype was sometimes pixelated and since sometimes the voice would lag, it would be more difficult for her to understand everything my parents said. I decided at that moment that I would just try to sign everything they said – even if she understood from being able to hear or read their lips. I wanted the practice and it would be a good ice-breaker into the subject.

"Well, yes, actually. That's what I wanted to talk to you about so badly, but I didn't want to tell you over the phone in our 10 minute phone calls. Paige is deaf."

Paige confirmed my statement by nodding head.

"She's on the swim team and she is working towards medical school. She's seriously smarter than Spencer. But anyways, since we've been I've been learning to sign and I'm getting really good at it. I actually went to advising yesterday to set a major."

My parents just smiled and me and listened while I continued. My mom seemed amazed at my hand movements, and I smiled internally.

"I decided to dual major in Education Psychology and Social Work and minor in Deaf Studies. After meeting Paige, I realized that I really want to help the deaf community – especially kids. I am taking ASL in the Spring. The professor is Paige's friend's mom and she told me that because I'm already signing so well that by the time I'm in my second semester, I may be able to help her teach or be her to-go-to tutor for the other students."

"Wow, Emily." My mom spoke first.

"Emy, I am so proud of you," my dad interjected.

I smiled over at Paige and gave her a little shoulder to shoulder nudge.

"You two have no idea how Paige has helped me see what I want to do. She is seriously the strongest person I've ever met and I'm actually tutoring with her. She tutors and one of her clients has a hearing kid and so I'm teaching Casey some basic math and some reading comprehension. Basically, I help her with her homework. It's so awesome."

"That is fantastic honey. We're so proud of you."

"So Paige," my dad asked. "Emily said you want to go into medicine?"

"Yes sir," she confirmed with a nod. "I am a Biochemistry major and I want to go into pediatrics. I'm actually contemplating pediatric surgery."

I just looked at her. I knew she wanted to go into medicine, but she hadn't told me she wanted to go into pediatrics or pediatric surgery. The moment I didn't think Paige could get any more inspiring, there she went… becoming more amazing with each breath. She seemed like she wouldn't stop until she crashed through any and every barrier or stereotype that could ever possibly be put on her. No one could accuse her of having no drive.

The conversation went on for about another hour. It was comfortable and my parents were very taken by Paige. They actually started talking to her more than they talked to me, which made my insides warm, but also a tad jealous. However, I brushed that off because I knew they didn't mean anything by it – they weren't intentionally ignoring me. I was genuinely elated that my parents seemed to like Paige so much.

My parents continued to ask Paige questions about her family, why she decided to go into medicine, and why she chose UCLA. Paige was classy as ever – answering their questions fully while still being vague on the details of the most intimate part of her life. They asked her how her classes were going and then out of nowhere my mom started asking her how to sign certain words. So there we sat at 8pm having an impromptu sign lesson with my mom on the other side of the country. Paige even gave her her own sign name after she had taught her a few signs and saw my mom's interest.

A sign name was basically a shortcut for referring to a person rather than fingerspelling their name constantly. Paige's sign name was the letter P pointed to her sternum and going down slightly. I found out by her Aunt Kathy that Paige's name sign was actually the sign for "hungry" only with a "P" because she was always hungry. Usually signs are very appearance related, and Kathy told me that the nickname she gave Paige was relatively against the ASL naming rules, but she couldn't help herself, it was just so fitting. I had to agree. Paige had given me a sign name the weekend we met, which was an E and flowed down the side of my face like my hair waved down past my shoulders. It was a descriptive naming.

I was able to show off my signing skills to my mom by helping her sign things that Paige was teaching her. It was almost as if we were physically sitting right in front of each other. Paige excused herself for a minute when Aunt Kathy got home and my mom told me that she thought Paige was an amazing young woman – funny, personable, and very bright. Internally I beamed at her approval and thought that if something ever did start between Paige and me, maybe my mom wouldn't be upset at all. She seemed to like Paige well enough. While Paige was away, I was able to explain everything in more detail – how we met and what caused the sudden collision of our worlds. I told my mom about Santa Monica – the complete truth regarding the two dads just to gage her reaction. She didn't cringe in disgust, so that was good.

I couldn't tell my mom anything that I hadn't told her already, because again, I didn't know what was going on inside me. Was I gay? Was I straight? Did I have a crush on my best friend? Was it something more? There were so many questions that I could ask and sometimes in the middle of the night I found myself pouring over those questions until I realized that if I continued questioning what I felt, I would only feel the question and not the feeling. That was the night I decided to just take everything day by day and not to worry about anything until something actually happened. If something happened, I would address that part of it and leave the rest for another day. Eventually I would create myself. I hated the expression "find yourself". I didn't need to be found, but rather I knew I was creating myself. I was making choices and allowing myself to experience things that would shape and mold me into a woman that I wanted to be…a woman I could be proud of.

Around 9pm we finally got my mom to decide to go to bed. It was a fun two hours filled with many laughs and a few stories here and there. My mom told Paige about the time when I all I asked for Christmas as a toilet. During my 8th year in middle school my parents decided to spruce up the guest bathroom – which was also my bathroom. Well, my mom saw the "energy efficient" toilet with the lovely little "star of energy saving approval" and decided right there and then that we were going to have an "energy efficient" toilet. What she didn't realize is that the toilet would never flush. The mechanism in it made it so the water pressure was so low that it didn't matter how much toilet paper was in it, it always got backed up. It was absolutely embarrassing. Thankfully, all of my friends got the biggest laugh out of it because they all played "who can clog up Emily's toilet". Finally, my 11th grade year, I'd had enough. In late October my parents asked me what I wanted for Christmas and the ONLY thing on the list… a better toilet! That is all I wanted. I was tired of having to mess with the stupid thing any time I needed to pee. Paige thought all of it was absolutely hysterical and it was probably even funnier because I was still helping to sign the whole conversation. After the story Paige asked if I ever got my toilet with a big red bow. Sadly, no. No I did not. I never got that toilet and that was probably the number one thing I loved about being away from home. I finally had a toilet that flushed!

When we finally said goodnight, Paige and I packed up my computer and migrated to her room where we each changed into our pajamas and laid together atop the covers. Paige began channel surfing for a show or a movie as I laid my head down on the propped up pillows, my feet resting atop hers. She settled on some type of super hero movie – Captain America I think. I wasn't watching the movie so much as I was watching her. Finally, I decided to sit up and face her for a brief moment before signing "thank you".

"For what?" She responded.

"For meeting my parents. My mom really likes you."

"They seem like they are amazing and they must be to have such an amazing daughter."

I smiled goofily at her and I found her hands with mine. She looked at our hands and then looked up at me, grinning from ear to ear.

In that moment I didn't even know what I was doing, I just knew that I was letting my body lead me as I leaned towards her and pressed a chaste kiss on her cheek. The moment my lips touched her skin I felt electricity shoot through me and my face flushed. I pulled back and saw her face a mirror image of mine. We had something. It was undeniable and she didn't seem willing to stop it either. I felt like a school girl – barely even knowing how to comprehend any of these feelings. We stared into each other's eyes both adjusting to whatever it was that we were feeling. I looked down at her chest and saw that her breath was shallow, just like mine. I felt this overwhelming urge to press my lips against hers, but I was not going to rush this. We were perfect just the way we were. If things were to happen, they would happen in time and so I did my best to shake it off and I changed the subject, still a bit overtaken by the intense experience of kissing Paige's soft cheek.

"So, what do you want for your birthday, now that you're going to be an old woman?" I prodded trying to ease the tension.

"Ha!" she laughed. "Just don't forget the Depends or the walker," she joked. "Better yet, forget those. I want a toilet!" she said mocking me.

I shook my head as I turned over and found my most comfortable spot – my head lying right on her chest. Usually the position was reversed, but I now knew how she felt when I was holding her. I felt Paige shift for a moment and I could only assume by the way she twisted her body that she had taken her hearing aid out. But as her movements stilled, I felt her hand rest on my back and her fingers begin playing with my long dark locks. It was soothing. One of my hands was resting over her stomach and after she tightened her arm around me in a small hug, she laced her fingers with mine. I stared at our entwined fingers for minutes. I had never felt this way before. Kissing a guy never gave me the butterflies I had just from simply locking hands with Paige. It was something so innocent but it brought out the deepest parts of me. I was on an amazing adventure with an extraordinary person. Whatever happened in two weeks would happen in two weeks. But for that moment, I was lying in the most peaceful place; tomorrow would begin a new day with a journey all of its own.