I HOPE, I signed back.

A miniscule drop of doubt had settled into the back of my mind at the thought of not being able to get an interpreter for my college classes. I waved good-bye to Kathleen and backtracked to my locker on the other side of the school.

Ever since Beau and I had become whatever we were now, he’d been perfectly happy to drive me home after school. Getting the ten extra minutes with him each day was fantastic. But there had been a quiet tension between us since the Steaming Bean. I knew exactly what it was and what caused it—that talk about cochlear implants and how he’d seemed to think things would magically become easier for me if I got one.

I just wasn’t ready to face it with everything else on my plate. If Beau and I kept on the way we were going, it’d come out soon enough.

I checked my phone after I grabbed everything I’d need for homework from my locker and saw that I had a text from Beau, letting me know he was waiting for me in the library. I found him at one of the tables across from the librarian’s desk, deeply engrossed in AP Statistics homework.

He looked up when I took a seat across the table from him and gave me a smile. No matter how weird it sometimes seemed like things had become between us because of the Steaming Bean incident, being on the receiving end of one of Beau’s smiles still got me feeling warm in some funny places.

“How was . . . appointment?” he asked, flipping his textbook shut.

FINE, I signed to him. SET UP MEETING FOR INTERPRETER.

A look of confusion crossed Beau’s face and he signed, WHY?

“It’ll be the same as Kathleen,” I said with my voice. “I’ll need an interpreter going with me to each of my classes every day.”

Beau nodded and signed, TRUE.

I sat there waiting while he gathered up his homework things and shoved it all in his backpack, and we left the library together. The ride home was uneventful, and my thoughts were tangled up with what Mrs. Stephens said about arranging an interpreter for my first year of college.

College was going to look a lot different for me and chances were I wasn’t going to get lucky twice and wind up with a great interpreter like Kathleen. But I’d made friends with Nina and Beau at Engelmann. It shouldn’t be too much to hope that the same would happen at Cartwright on the friendship front.

THANK YOU, I signed to Mom as she parked in the lot just outside Cartwright’s administration building. I KNOW YOU BUSY, BUT—

Mom waved a hand to cut me off, signing, FINE, with an exasperated smile. COLLEGE IMPORTANT, she added, yanking the keys from the ignition.

I KNOW, I signed in agreement.