Silence
A/N: See others for disclaimer notice.
His wet hair dripped with seawater, stringy and blonde. He lived for the water, for surfing. For freedom. He sat on his board, surveying the dying waves in the mid-morning sun; he'd been here since five AM. He was probably late for school; definitely late for school. Maybe he was destined to skip school today; no, he was just destined to be late, he decided as he clambered out of the ocean. The sand was hot beneath is feet.
Twenty minutes later he jumped off of his bike, now fully clothed, yanking a small yellow comb through his long, sun-bleached hair unsuccessfully. He slunk into the attendance office, keeping his head down.
"You're late, Peralta. Again. And I don't suppose you have any sort of note."
He didn't seem to hear her. The secretary didn't particularly like him or the kids he hung out with, but she felt sorry for him sometimes. The boy just never seemed to be running on time to her. She sighed, looking at his crestfallen face for a few moments.
"Get to class, Stacy."
She nodded toward the hallway, handing him a pink pass. Stacy said nothing, walked out into the hall.
Some girls giggled at him as they passed, headed toward the restroom. Stacy was always late, except when he was going to work. People assumed that he was always on time since he wore a watch half of the time, but he really only looked at it to see if he was late to the Noodle Company, and that was never until after three o'clock. You'd never know that he was going deaf, you'd never tell. His friends could tell. They wouldn't believe it, he wouldn't acknowledge it. It worked out well.
Sitting in calculus, Stacy made the amazing discovery that his skipping of breakfast, followed by a nearly brutal surfing session before school, was making him increasingly hungry. He regretted this as his stomach protested loudly, to the amusement of the girl sitting next to him.
"Having a problem there? You really should eat breakfast, you know." She giggled, smiling fakely in an attempt to flirt with the blue eyed boy.
He wasn't in the mood for it. Therefore, he proceeded to ignore her and suddenly seemed very interested in his blank paper. Then he remembered that he'd forgotten to brush his teeth this morning, and that his breath was probably horrendous, which made him even less compelled to come up with a sarcastic remark.
After calculus was lunch, Stacy recalled just as he discovered that he had no money for it. This disappointed him greatly, given his now extreme urge to eat as much as he could get his hands on.
The rest of the day was a disaster. Stacy arrived home at midnight, burned out from working an eight-hour shift at Venice Noodle. He crashed onto his bed, ready and willing to sleep. He had nearly succeeded when there was a greatly disturbing knock upon his window that even he heard clearly, and was sure that his parents could have possibly heard. If they hadn't been so preoccupied by sleeping (his mother) and watching television (his father). He stood groggily from his bed and slouched over to the window, hair sticking out in every direction. He opened the glass, rubbing his eyes gingerly as Sid tumbled in. Stacy recalled that he hadn't had a screen in his window for the past five years as Sid smacked his head against the dresser.
"I told you not to lean against the window after you knocked…" Stacy murmured.
"Yeah, right. I forgot. Wake up man, one of the big houses in Santa Monica is on fire. Dude, you have to come see this. Can you believe it - they did it for insurance money! They're standing outside in fancy clothes, there's no way it started accidentally. You gonna come with?" Sid rambled, climbing back out thorough the window.
"What? Oh, I guess." Stacy answered pointlessly, as Sid was already standing outside the window, tapping his foot impatiently. Stacy grabbed his skateboard and clumsily extracted himself from his window, board first, as he did almost every morning, and followed Sid to the street. The younger boy was not very good at skating, he had a balance problem, and Stacy always felt that he needed to go slower so Sid could keep up. He imagined that it was hard, not being as good as his friends at something they all loved so much. It made him wonder what it would feel like if he went completely deaf. His father was hard of hearing, so he didn't exactly know if genes had any effect on his hearing loss, or if it was because of environmental factors.
Nevertheless, as he skated toward his nightly dose of excitement, he had no trouble forgetting the fact that his hearing was getting worse, or occupying himself with having a conversation with one of his friends.
Fin.