With a sigh, I dropped my head into my arms. I probably just made my entire community seem like a bunch of psychos to her.

.

September gave way to October, and I was finding that being mainstreamed wasn't as easy as I thought it was – the closest thing I could compare it to was Desert Voices, where I'd come home every day to take a nap before doing my homework, completely tired from school. Forks High was, in many ways, very similar – I'd begun taking naps again, for one.

Not that I didn't like the school. I did, in fact; it was only that I found myself straining to read my classmates lips in Gym, and willing time to slow while I dreaded lunch in fourth period. Once I got home, I was just tired from keeping up with people. I felt like I was working twice as hard for the same grades I was used to.

My lethargy had been gradual, of course – so much so that I didn't even realize it until we had a day off the second Friday of the month, due to some teacher planning day, or town holiday I'd never noticed or cared for.

Once I did realize it, I decided to take advantage of my day away from school. Charlie had taken me driving enough in the past two months that I finally had my driver's license – something I decided to never mention to my mother, for fear of a lecture – so I was essentially free to do as I liked for the day. I had the truck dad bought from Billy Black, and for a moment considered visiting the Blacks at La Push before realizing I didn't know if they had the day off, too.

There went that plan. I glanced around my room. I certainly didn't want to stay home all day, but I didn't know what I could – perfect. My eyes lit onto the Visa gift card Renee had sent me for my birthday, and I had a plan. I'd spend the day at the mall in Seattle, and have some time to myself, no need to try and keep up with people, or even interact with them outside of checkout. Grinning, I grabbed a memo pad and pen, shoved them in my purse, and blazed out the door.

...Five minutes later found me in my room again, a bright, embarrassed red that perfectly matched the waist of the pajama pants I was wearing. I hurriedly changed into jeans and a t-shirt – I'd need to do the laundry soon, I only had one clean shirt left. Fittingly enough, it read, 'No, I do not read lips today.'

Shrugging, I decided the Universe was telling my my fatigue was justified, and slipped the tee shirt over my head. I smiled to myself as I strolled out the front door, grabbing my denim jacket from the hook on the wall and swinging my keys around my fingers. Today was going to be a good day.

Traffic going into Seattle disagreed with me. Judging by the looks some of the other drivers were giving me, they weren't any happier with it, and blamed me. Though that may have been my music. I didn't see what their problem was – it was just loud enough that I could comfortably feel Beethoven's Cello Sonata No. 2 playing. Two-thirds the stereo's full volume wasn't that loud.

The roads finally cleared slightly somewhere past the city line, and I spent perhaps an hour driving around the city, completely lost. The mall was in Northwest Seattle, yet I found myself driving past the Space Needle as it towered high over the Seattle Center. I grinned, imagining the height, forgetting momentarily that I was lost.

Eventually I stopped and asked for directions, using the notepad I'd grabbed nearly four hours prior as I ran out of the house. I frankly couldn't be bothered to read lips at that point – that was the reason I'd chosen to get out of the house, after all. The man at the gas station was very polite, and didn't stare or jump away when he realized I couldn't hear him. Writing was still, however, the most boring way of communicating in the world. It was easier than reading lips, however.

But still boring.

Finally, I was on my way to the mall – it was nearing noon, at this point, and I was getting hungry. I pulled into the mall parking lot, unexpectedly finding an open spot near Macy's, and followed my nose to the food court.

Getting there, I grinned at the sight of the Red Robins – burgers! I shifted my purse on my shoulder, and got into line. A pimply boy, maybe a year younger than I was, stood at the cash register, and smiled cheerily at me. His name tag read 'Corey.' "Hello! How can I help you?" he signed.

I blinked.

Looked down at my shirt.

Looked back at boy.

"You're deaf?" I asked, surprised. To my disappointment, he shook his head.

"Hearing. I'm a CODA. My mom's Deaf – she's over there, with some of her friends." He looked at me for a moment before asking. "Did you just move here? I haven't seen you before, and I'm always here for the socials."

"Socials?" I asked. Corey held up a hand, and turned his head. Looking in the same direction, I noticed a dark-haired woman, in her mid-twenties at most, shouting at him to hurry up something. He grinned sheepishly.

"Sorry. What would you like to order?" he asked.

I nodded. The woman must have been his boss, telling him to hurry me up. "One Simply Grilled Chicken Salad and a Freckled Lemonade, please."

The boy nodded, repeating my order back to me to confirm it. I went to move away after getting my change back, but he touched my arm, grabbing my attention. "The Deaf socials are the second Friday of every month. Go ask my mom about them, she's right there."

That was... so sweet. I nodded, grinning, and thanked him. Taking my order, I carefully navigated the bunches of tables, praying that I didn't trip as I worked toward the red-haired, freckled woman the boy had pointed out – excepting the pimples, she looked very much like her son.

I set my tray down on the raised area next to me, careful not to let the leafy plants growing from the top touch my food. The two women Corey's mother was talking to noticed me, and I smiled before saying hello. The women smiled, and Corey's mom turned around.

"Hello!" she signed, apparently the leader of the little group. "I'm V-e-l-m-a W-o-o-d-s, Velma*. Who are you?"

"My name's I-s-a-b-e-l-l-a S-w-a-n, Bella – I just moved to Forks this summer. Your son, C-o-r-e-y, over there, said to ask you about Deaf socials?" I furrowed my eyebrows in a question.

Velma laughed, and hugged me. I jumped slightly at the contact, but wasn't entirely surprised. She and her friends, Roxanne and Debora, invited me to sit with them, and the four of us spent the next hour or so talking, sharing back stories. How we went Deaf, where we were from, if we had any family that signed – detailed biographies, really.

Velma and Debora were sisters, only a year apart, and both lost their hearing in their late teens due to Ménière's disease, like their father and his brother. Roxanne had been Deaf since birth, and met the Woods sisters at her school's homecoming dance, which they went to with their father and uncle one year. She was nearly half a decade younger than the other two, and very expressive.

I was the only one at the table from out of state – I grudgingly admitted that my mother didn't sign, a major motivation for me to move to Washington, since my dad did. The three of them expressed sympathy, and assured me that there were plenty of other deafies around the state, if I just knew where to look. I wrinkled my nose and agreed, with one qualifier – "If I'm lucky enough to find a CODA to point out where!"

That got a laugh out of the women, and soon I found myself signing with other people around the food court most of them Deaf, but with some CODAs and ASL students in the mix, as well. All too quickly, my watch vibrated, telling me that it was four o'clock – time to check in with Charlie. It was difficult to believe I'd been loitering around the food court for three and a half hours.

I texted my dad, letting him know where I was, and exclaiming over the social. He didn't reply, and I shoved my phone in my pocket. He was probably out somewhere, chasing after some teenager taking advantage of the free day to shoplift or something.

Soon I noticed more and more teens and children showing up now that school was out for the day, and stood for a moment, dithering over whether or not to leave when a was knocked into from behind. I twisted around, somehow managing to loose my footing and fall over. I blinked, dizzy, looked up. A tall girl was looking at my with surprise abnd holding out a hand to help me up.

"I am so sorry!" she signed once I was steady again. "Are you okay? You're not hurt, are you?" I shook my head.

"Fine, it's fine," I reassured her, and her shoulders fell in relief. She had very orange hair – I wondered if it was dyed?

"Oh, good," she said. "I'm C-a-r-a B-i-a-n-c-h-i, Cara."

Shaking her hand, I smiled and introduced myself. "I'm I-s-a-b-e-l-l-a- S-w-a-n, Bella. Is your hair really orange?"

She grinned, her nose wrinkling, and put a hand up to touch the long strands before answering. "No, I dyed it this summer. It was supposed to wash our, but I think it likes me too much!"

We both snickered over that fro a moment. "So why did you dye it?" I asked.

Cara shrugged. "Wanted to. Brown is boring – Italian's nice, but I wanted something fun!"

"So you are Italian!"

"Yep. My mom and dad moved here when they had my oldest brother. I have three of them."

I'm certain my jaw dropped. "Three older brothers?"

The other girl nodded. "Three. First Antonio, who's twenty-one; second, Leonardo, who's nineteen, third, Luca, who's seventeen, and last is me, age sixteen."

"Wow," I signed, amazed. "I'm an only child, just me and my dad, now."

Cara's face feel out of it's seemingly-eternal smile and she touched my arm, trying to comfort me. "Your mom?"

I shook my head, and moved her arm from mine. "Fine. She lives in Phoenix, Arizona. I just moved to live with my dad, this summer – I'm happy about it. My dad signs, mom doesn't. Living with my dad is nice – I'm going to mainstream school for the first time ever."

"You go to hearing school? Same!" Cara grinned, her nose wrinkling like it had before. "I used to go to - here in Seattle, but they don't have a High School program, so now I go to R-o-o-s-e-v-e-l-t Rossevelt in the Deaf are you going to hearing school?"

"What's -?" I asked, confused.

Cara blinked. "Oh, my bad! - is Northwest School for Hearing Impaired Childred – snobby name for 'Seattle Deaf Kids School.' So why are you going to hearing school?" she asked again, very insistent. She reminded me of a dog with a bone.

Happy to have that sign cleared up, I nodded. "Okay, okay! I live in F-o-r-k-s, near the coast. It's three hours from Seattle, and I wanted to actually live with my dad. I went to the Deaf school in Phoenix, but I like my dad better than my mom, so I decided to stay with him while she travels with her basesball husband, P-h-i-l, Phil. Besides, if I went to a Deaf school here, my mom would never shut up about joining an oral program. I already talk just fine."

Cara's head tilted to the side, like she was trying to figure something out. "Really?" she asked. "When did you go deaf?"

"When I was a baby, three months old – I caught meningitis on the plane my mom took us on to leave my dad. I got better, but now I'm deaf. Mom wasn't happy, made me go to an oral school until I demanded not to. I didn't like it – the people were nice, but signing's easier than talking, you know? But Dad learned to sign, even though I didn't live with him. What about you?"

The taller girl shrugged. "When I was four, I had a bad fall. I was climbing the tallest tree I could find in the park, and my dad startedd yelling at me. 'Cara! Cara! Come down, you'll get hurt!' So I start climbing down, and a raccon wakes up. It's scared, I';m scared, it hised, and I lost my footing. Fell down the rest of the way and hit my head. I broke my arm, and when I woke up, I was deaf. Doctor said it was eighty percent hearing loss, and to be happy I was alive. My dad yelled at him. He's very loud."

My phone buzzed in my pocket, and I grabbed it with one hand, asking Cara to wait with the other, it was my dad. I smiled slightly at the message, and answered before putting it back in my jeans pocket.

"What did he say?"

"Wants me home by ten, so I think I need to go now – I have to buy things for my room – a table, curtains, a lamp. To make it my own, you know?"

Cara nodded. "That's fine. Do you want my email address? That way we can keep talking."

I grinned. "Perfect. I'd love that. Here, I have some paper..."

Ten minutes later, Cara and I had a exchanged email addresses, actual adddresses – which were actually fairly close, compared to Seattle; she lived in Port Angeles – and promises to Skype. I'd somehow managed to get Velma, and by extension Corey's, emails and phone numbers as well, so that by the time I finally left the mall, fifteen minutes had passed, a wide smile plastered across my face.

Ross was, to my surprise, not too busy. Then again, I thought, glancing at my watch, it was only five-fifteen. Most people didn't get off of work until at least five-thirty. I spent some time looking around before deciding on buying anything. I came across several interesting things, and kept them in mind – I had one hundred dollars on the Visa gift card from Renee, twenty dollars of birthday money from Phil, and about eleven dollars of my own cash in case I needed extra to cover tax.

Firming up what I could afford in my mind, I set off toward the furniture, and at half-past six, left the store quite happy. I had my pretty bedside table, a navy-colored lamp with a blue-splotched white shade, indigo curtains, heavier clothes for fall and winter, and a very cheap, large oddly-shaped mirror so I didn't have to keep walking in on Charlie while he shaved in the morning. It had originally been forty dollars, according to the old price stickers – I got it for six.

I was able to fit everything inside the cab of the truck, which was a relief, because I was worried it may fall out if I couldn't strap it down in the bed. The high likelihood of rain and my lack of waterproof cover also factored into my nerves.

The nightstand did not fit into the cab willingly, however.

When I got home, it was to the smell of spaghetti and Chinese take-out, which meant one thing, and one thing only – the Blacks were here to watch a sports game. I took full advantage of this when the ads came on and enlisted my father and Jacob to help me with my things, while Billy and I... directed. And chuckled at Jacob's moaning about the weight of the wooden bedside table. I couldn't make it all out with my hearing aids, not with the rain, but his lips and body language were definitely easy to read.

Between the four of us, all my things were in the kitchen by the time the game was back on, and I spent the second half pulling my things up to my room.

Looking around, I decided I liked my room. Blues dominated the space, but it wasn't a boy's room. No boy beyond the age of five would stand to have powder blue walls, if they even tolerated it that long. The variety of warm woods in my furniture complimented each other and dark floor well, and the contrast with the walls was pleasant.

My mirror hung on the same wall as the window, and my lamp and end table sat right by my bed – no longer would my books sit on a suitcase! They could go in the bottom of the nightstand, now! I spent some time arranging things on the table, setting up picture frames and the books I was currently reading and the like, before being satisfied.

All my clothes were put away, and after kicking off my shoes, I decided that the only thing left to buy was a rug – the hard wood was cold. My poor frozen toes.

.

* "A-p-p-l-e, Apple," is to signify finger-spelling a name of either a person or place before showing its name sign.

I'm not entirely happy with this chapter; I think it's an important building one, but I'm worried it's too short – what do you guys think? What do you want to see happen? Let me know! Thanks, and make sure you EatYourRikkios! (I love adding that ;-D)