A/N: I'm glad to see everyone responding so positively to Johanna and the new story in general. I can understand if it's harder to read than my last one, since I went and changed some rules on you, but I hope I can clear up some confusion!
Bold text is sign language. I guess I should say ASL since I specified that Johanna is from Virginia.
Text in italics is Johanna's interpretation of spoken words—and she doesn't always get it right! Pretty much, it's what she thinks other characters are saying out loud. (I'll still italicize the occasional word for emphasis like in the sentence before, but I'm trying to get away from doing that too much. There, see? I just did it again…)
"Text in quotation marks is that which Johanna reads or writes—text messages, handwritten notes, instant messaging, etc."
Johanna's unspoken thoughts are mixed in with the rest of the narrative—sometimes in the present tense, sometimes in the past tense. I usually set thoughts apart by putting them in italics, but I wanted to stick with using italics for spoken words.
I hope this helps, and I'm sorry again if it's confusing! Let me know if this next chapter is easier to read.
I'm going to take a page out of erinyoukai's book and give personal to shoutouts to Exactlyamanda, Kopland, ZorraVixen, Alice, OceanTide, CoreoftheCookie, an anonymous reviewer, 4ever205—and of course erinyoukai. Thank you so much for reading, reviewing, and offering ideas and advice! ~binaryguppy
Too Sweet
There was no ticket booth, no admission fee. I just strode in beside Nathaniel like I belonged there—like everyone else there seemed to belong.
I'd guessed right when I assumed Nathaniel was popular. He knew each and every one of the high school kids who passed us by, all of them smiling at him and joking with him. Who's this? they'd ask him when they noticed me standing there, fussing with the corner of my composition notebook with my thumb.
Nathaniel would answer something like this is Johanna, she just moved here or this is Johanna, my new neighbor—not this is Johanna, she's deaf. I was given handshakes and smiles and nods of the head—not unsure glances or wide-eyed stares.
"What's the occasion?" I scribbled on a new page of the notebook. "Does this school always have a carnival?"
He took up the pen and tried to write and walk at the same time. "The PTA threw our graduating class a carnival because almost all 120 of us are going to college. I think it's supposed to be like an after-afterprom party."
120? That's it? No wonder he knows everyone here!
Oh, and it never even occurred to me to ask Nathaniel how old he was. "You're eighteen?"
"Yeah, I just graduated last month. How old are you?"
"I'll turn eighteen in July," I answered. Not legal just yet, Handsome.
We had to stop in between two midway kiosks; clearly writing while walking wasn't going to work. I offered him my back as a hard surface. While Nathaniel wrote, I watched a girl with jet black hair and too much makeup try to pop under-inflated balloons with a handful of dull darts while her boyfriend hovered over her shoulder and tried to guide her throws. I wondered briefly if my and Nathaniel's behavior looked as affectionate as theirs.
Nathaniel handed me the notebook over my shoulder so I could read his response. "My sister is your age. She'll be a senior next year, same as you."
Oh. He must have thought I was going to this high school. "I've only ever been to deaf schools," I wrote when he turned to let me use his back. "Mom thought it would be best to homeschool me, since I only have one year left."
"I was kind of worried about you going to school here, anyway," he wrote. "None of the teachers know sign language, and there are no other deaf students. Homeschool is probably the best option."
He was kind of worried about me? Did I come across as a helpless little girl, like a second little sister? That wasn't at all what I wanted Nathaniel to think of me.
I brushed off my annoyance and switched the focus of the conversation from me to him. "What about you? What are you doing now that you've graduated? College?"
"I'm going to Indiana for pre-law. I'm leaving in August."
So he was leaving in two months to live a thousand miles away and stay there for four years. This might have been useful information to know before I developed an instant crush on him.
I guess whatever fun we had would be confined to this summer—and once he started school, all bets were off.
"You're going to be a lawyer?" I wrote, forcing my face to look impressed rather than disappointed.
"I'm supposed to be," he scrawled back unenthusiastically, his handwriting wandering off the light blue lines. It was all his dad's idea, not his, he insisted. He liked crime shows and mystery novels, but he wasn't sure about how he would hold up in a real-life courtroom.
There was no joy in Nathaniel's eyes when he wrote out the plans that had been made for him. In fact, he looked more depressed the more I pried.
Nice going, Johanna. You're at a carnival with a boy who is easily a nine or nine point five out of ten, and you're depressing him.
I looked around, trying to think of a distraction.
"Lemon shakeups!" I doodled in the margin. I was starting to get thirsty.
Nathaniel smiled at the randomness of my comment, and seemed to appreciate the subject change. "I'll get you one if you want."
I shook my head dismissively and dug around in my wallet for the appropriate amount.
He gently pushed my hand down, his lips forming the words no, I insist. "I still owe you for scaring you the other day," he elaborated on the notebook.
Fair enough. I guess I'd let him buy me something, if it made him feel better.
We momentarily retired the note-writing routine while we waited in line at the concessions stand. Laden with food and drinks, we found an out-of-the-way part of the courtyard to settle in the smashed-flat grass and eat.
The pink-orange strawberry lemon shakeup I ended up with was thick and pulpy, crunchy with strawberry seeds, and refreshingly cold. I sheepishly offered Nathaniel a taste before I drank too much of it.
He didn't take the plastic cup from me. He slurped from the edge of the almost-overflowing cup while I still held it in my hands. Ugh! His face twisted into a grimace. Too sweet.
Too sweet? Did I read that correctly? The one I was drinking/eating was turn-your-face-inside-out sour, even in spite of the strawberry syrup and mixed-in sugar. He must not have had much of a sweet tooth, judging from the way he licked the salt from the soft pretzel he got for himself. He tore away part of it and handed it to me. I accepted and unabashedly sucked on the part that he'd touched with his fingers.
I didn't even know his last name, and he already had me quite literally eating out of his hand.
The carnival gradually got more crowded as the sky softened into a yellow sunset. Nathaniel looked over at me when I heaved a heavy sigh and caught me staring at him. Again. Having fun yet? he asked, swallowing the last bite of pretzel. At least, I think that's what he said. It was hard to tell, since his mouth was full.
Whatever he said, I agreed with, nodding enthusiastically. I ran my tongue across my teeth to rid the spaces between of latent strawberry seeds.
"Now what?" he asked, resorting to the notebook again.
Ferris wheel? I suggested lamely, assuming he would figure out what the sign meant. One hand stayed still while the other traveled around it, as though turning a tiny imaginary wheel.
I assumed wrong. "You want to…watch a movie?" he scribbled.
I couldn't resist laughing at the look on his face. "No, that meant 'Ferris wheel.'"
Oh, he sighed through his laughter.
Our laughter only grew when we got closer to said Ferris wheel. The cars were much smaller than they looked from far away and were probably meant for children. Nathaniel was about the same height as me; he might have even been an inch shorter than me without his shoes. I wondered if both of us would even fit in the same car. Nathaniel watched me make a fool of myself as I wedged into the swinging metal car first, and he mashed himself in next to me, his hipbone digging into mine. The hairy-armed attendant lowered the safety bar over our laps and with a labored jolt, the wheel resumed its slow turning.
As we neared the top, there was another jolt when the attendant stopped the ride to let someone off, making our car swing from its clunky metal hinge.
Trying to awkwardly communicate with a hearing boy was way more fun on a Ferris wheel. Our close proximity was one thing, but then there was the view. Sweet Amoris really was obnoxiously beautiful. From thirty feet up, we could see the whole town stretched out in front of us—even the sparkling ocean in the distance behind a hazy line of evergreen tress.
I didn't even notice at first when ten, fifteen, twenty minutes rolled by, and we still hadn't moved. When I glanced down at the carnie operating the ride, he was bent over the non-functioning generator, trying to get it to start again.
Super. We were stuck.
…But was being stuck in a tiny carnival ride with Nathaniel really so bad? I didn't even pretend to think so.
"Looks like we'll be here for a while," wrote Nathaniel, leaning the now bent and crinkled notebook against the lap bar.
"Good," I wrote back sideways since my right hand was at an odd angle.
I was starting to think I was a secret genius for getting us into this situation in the first place. He seemed as content as I was to stay like this the whole night.
Being so close together made looking at each other difficult, so we watched the scene below. It was like a Where's Waldo? illustration of activity. Over at the guess-your-weight kiosk, a bratty-looking blonde girl got insulted when the barker pegged her at 137—which I thought was pretty accurate. A tall, busty, long-legged girl in a short white dress was chatting up everyone she saw and taking arm-length self portraits with her digital camera.
One couple in particular caught my eye. I noticed Nathaniel was watching them, too. They stood out like sore thumbs among the other high schoolers. The boy was covered in tattoos, as tan and tall as his girlfriend was petite and ghostly white. They must have been swimming; their shirts clung to still-wet skin and their hair was in wavy tangles. They pulled apart a freshly spun cloud of pink cotton candy and fed the pieces to each other, oblivious to whatever else was happening around them. The boy reached over with his free hand and curled a finger around the back belt loop of her shorts, pulling her in to kiss her forehead with what were probably sticky lips.
As Nathaniel watched the scene play out, he wore a strange, grimacing half-smile that broke into a bizarre little laugh.
I wrote my thoughts down on the notebook to show Nathaniel. "Those two seem…close."
"That's Candace and Dakota," he explained. "It's impossible to pry those two apart. Trust me, I've tried. And I ended up with a concussion."
I'd concuss you, too, if you tried to pry me away from that, I thought, watching Dakota's muscles ripple. Candace's boyfriend might have been taken, but his sublimity was still undeniable and overwhelming, and I couldn't help but...appreciate him. The thoughts that sprang into my mind made me bite the knuckle of my index finger and take a sharp breath in through my teeth.
Nathaniel saw my moment of weakness and laughed, rolling his eyes. The two of us watched as Candace licked a tuft of cotton candy from Dakota's fingers and stood on her tiptoes to kiss him on the mouth as the sugar dissolved.
Ooh! I have an idea!
"You know what you should do?" I wrote excitedly. "You should send her a creepy 'I'm watching you' text."
No, he laughed, shaking his head.
"Do it!" I egged him on—and sharply poked him in the ribs.
He muttered something in protest, but wore a telltale smile as he dug his phone out of his shorts, pressing his body closer to mine in the process. "You'll rot his teeth with all that Candy," he typed, tilting the screed towards me so I could see it.
Now that is a creepy text, I told him with my wide eyes.
We giggled as we watched an unsuspecting Candace pull her own phone out of her pocket. She held the phone up to Dakota's face and had him read it to her—then she and Dakota both laugh-gasped and looked in all directions.
"Up here," Nathaniel texted again.
Dakota was first to see us, and returned Nathaniel's wave.
Candace cupped her hands around her mouth and yelled something up to us.
Nathaniel shook his head. I can't hear her, he muttered.
"You, neither?" I scribbled. "I thought it was just me."
Nathaniel guffawed, rocking the car back and fourth. Hanging around a hearing boy who ate up all my lame deaf jokes was a huge ego boost.
Candace texted Nathaniel back when she realized he couldn't hear her. He showed me her reply: "Is that Amber with you? Did she dye her hair again? And why is she taking notes?"
Who's Amber?
"No, it's not Amber!" Nathaniel texted back. "You need your glasses. This is Johanna. Her family just moved into Castiel's old house."
Who's Castiel?
"Still showing the new girls around even after graduation, Mr. Perfect?" read Candace's next text. Dakota leaned down to whisper something in her ear and plant a soft kiss in her wet red hair. She looked back up at him adoringly and nodded. They must have been making plans to go do something else—away from Nathaniel's and my watchful eyes. "Come find us when you get down from there. We can do that slingshot water balloon fight thing! Girls versus boys!"
"Maybe," he answered. "If we ever get down from here, you mean. See you around."
Bye, I waved to Candace.
"See ya," she texted Nathaniel. "Oh, and Mel is looking for you. Have you talked to her yet? About Indiana?"
Nathaniel closed out of her message without answering, his smile hardening into a straight-lipped scowl.
No, Nathaniel had not talked to Mel yet—and he didn't want to.
What was Mel sort for? Melissa? Melanie?
Was she his girlfriend? His ex-girlfriend?
And for that matter, who was Amber?
Was I a rebound girl? Did he bring me here specifically to make them jealous? I had only just met him, but I didn't think Nathaniel was capable of being that petty.
I decided I would look the other way, trusting Nathaniel until he gave me a better reason not to.
I needed so badly to trust someone. I wanted Nathaniel to be that someone.
Down below, Candace shrugged her shoulders and sighed, twisting her fingers around Dakota's and following him into the now dense crowd of people.
Now that Nathaniel and I were more or less alone again, we sat without passing notes as evening light receded. I could tell his thoughts were heavy from the way he avoided my eyes.
I was trying to think of some way to cheer him up, but suddenly a smile reappeared on his face. He turned his body around to look beneath him, his hips digging into mine again. The ride operator must have been trying to get his attention. Nathaniel fumbled with the pen and notebook, transcribing what he heard. "He said, 'You kids are being too quiet up there, and I don't like it.'"
I beamed and snatched the pen out of his hand. "What, does he want us to start making noise? Would that make him feel better?"
Nathaniel's light brown lashes squinted closed as he laughed, and his mouth formed my name. Johanna!
He reached to grab the pen from me, no doubt to write back something flirtatious, but he accidentally dropped it, and it fell to the ground below.
Sorry, he mumbled, barely moving his face. But really, he didn't look that sorry. And I certainly wasn't sorry. There were other ways to communicate besides pen-and-paper, after all. I should know.
His hand hovered just over mine, where it had been when he tried to take the pen. Slowly, as though afraid of scaring me, he brought his hand down to rest it on top of mine—and when I didn't shrink away, he breathed a sigh of relief.
I turned my head to look at him through my hair as the wind blew it in front of my face.
Maybe now was the moment I would gauge Nathaniel's nonverbal communication skills.