“What about my hurt? What about what was taken from me?” Morgan signed. “He had me pinned against a wall, he was inside me, and I couldn’t even say no. No one hears me, no one sees me. I’m just Benjamin Atkins’ pretty, deaf, dumb, daughter! Messiah sees me!”

“Messiah is no good for you,” Ethic replied, with sympathy. He pulled a pamphlet out of his back pocket. “My position isn’t changing about him. I know you feel different and you act out because you want to bop around here like your little friends. Everybody sees you, Morgan. We hear you. I hear you. I believe that there is a queen in there and you’re trying to dumb yourself down to be like everybody else. You not being able to hear allows you to look at the world through a different lens. I respect your perspective, Morgan, but I know that everything is harder for you. I know there is a part of you that I can never understand.” He handed her the paperwork in his hands. “I think you’re fine the way you are, but if you want to hear, there is a surgery that can help. I’ve been considering it for years and I have the money put up. You are chasing behind Messiah, but I want you chasing your dreams, baby girl. You can go to college, you can do more than flaunt around this town. Flint isn’t the kingdom it used to be when your daddy was running things. It’s the wild, wild West and I don’t want you caught in the crossfire. Just think about it and let me know what you decide.”

Morgan looked down at the paperwork, and when she raised her eyes again, Ethic was gone. For years, she had wished for this. She had never thought it could be possible; but as she sat on her bed and flipped through the pamphlet, tears came to her eyes.

Messiah would have called by now if I was normal. I scare him. I scare everybody, she thought.

She had always been the girl who got stares.

“It’s because people never saw a girl so pretty,” her mother used to tell her.

Morgan knew better. The stares were caused by misunderstanding. They were from discomfort. She was the pretty girl who talked with her hands, who had no voice. She was tired of being that person. She knew, before she ever read one word of the information, that she would go through with the procedure.

She hoped the world sounded as beautiful as she imagined it did in her head; but most of all, she hoped Messiah’s voice was as deep and strong as she suspected. She wanted to hear him say he wanted her; and even if he didn’t, she had to hear his denial of her to believe it.