THANK YOU. I attempted a smile even though I felt like bursting into angry, frustrated tears all over again. MISS YOU SAME.

Melissa and I spent the next half hour catching up. As we were signing, it was almost like I hadn’t moved and was back in my old bedroom in New Jersey, procrastinating doing my homework with Melissa. She promised me we would FaceTime again after her first day back at Pratt, which wasn’t until next week, and fill me in on everything I missed.

It was eleven o’clock east coast time by the time Melissa and I signed off. I hated saying good-bye, but I still had homework to finish. And even though getting to see her face made me feel better, it somehow made me feel worse too. Our call reminded me that I had left so much behind in New Jersey—a life that had been happy and comfortable and full of people who understood me. If my first day at Engelmann had proven anything, it was that I was completely, utterly different from everyone else.

And there was no chance that was going to change.

Chapter 6

CHAPTER 6

When I lost my hearing, Mom got her hands on an assistive technology catalogue and bought me a new alarm clock called a Sonic Bomb. It was geared toward those with hearing loss and came with a vibrating disc you slipped under the mattress that would shake the bed when the alarm went off. The thing even had a red flashing light.

It was a nifty piece of technology, but it had a tendency to yank me out of sleep every morning and send my heart kicking into overdrive. It was the same way I woke up every morning in New Jersey, and now in Colorado, except instead of heading off to Pratt, I was going to be on my way to another dreadful day at Engelmann. That thought alone kept my heartrate from slowing back down to normal.

I rested my head against the car window on the way to school, focusing more on the way the bumps of the car were rattling my skull than what I was about to face on my second day of school.

HEY, Mom signed when she parked the van at the curb outside Engelmann. YOU WILL HAVE GOOD DAY. PROMISE.

I was very doubtful of this, but it was nice of Mom to say so anyway. I signed, SEE YOU LATER, as I unbuckled myself, blew a kiss at Connor in the backseat, and dragged myself out of the car toward school.