A Silence to Remember (manxman)

Chapter 2

Josh

Two weeks after Christmas vacation, I got really sick. It wasn't the first time I'd gotten sick. When I was six, I had pneumonia and spent a week in the hospital, but I barely remember it. And then I came down with the chicken pox when I was eight and missed school for two weeks. My older brothers, Jeff and Jimmy, and my dad all got it, too. But nothing was worse than meningitis. I often forgot the word, but it suddenly popped into my head.

Meningitis was far worse than pneumonia. I was so sick, I was in the hospital for a month and out of school for two months. In the hospital one morning, I woke up with ringing in my ears as if I'd just spent three hours at a heavy metal concert. The ringing hadn't stopped since and it's only gotten worse. Over the past month, I noticed periods where I heard nothing, not even ringing. I preferred the constant ringing instead of blocks of silence. Sometimes I couldn't even hear my own voice, which was the worst thing of all.

Doctors said I was on my way to losing my hearing completely, but I didn't believe it would actually happen. No one else believed it, either. Jeff got sick, too, but I got sicker. So, after that, my parents split and Dad got full custody of me and Jeff. Jimmy just turned nineteen, but he came to live with us, too. I did nothing wrong, but Mom acted like I did. It wasn't my fault I got sick. It's not like it was Dad's fault, either, that I got sick. Still, I blamed myself for their break up. Growing up, I was oblivious to the fact that my parents had had issues in their relationship long before the divorce.

Dominick, my new friend—my only friend—liked to read a lot. Nobody else was nice to me. They all assumed I was retarded or something, but Dominick didn't. I was lucky we ended up in the same cabin. As I drew with chalk on the cabin floor, he read one of his Steven King books.

It rained a lot this summer. Instead of doing stupid activities, like learning how to tie different knots or making a wooden car for a pine car derby, Dominick and I preferred hanging out in our smelly cabin. Sometimes we'd sneak out and go swimming in the rain. I loved swimming in the rain. Dominick didn't like it as much, but he did whatever I wanted to do. He was a follower instead of a leader.

Dominick was the only one who knew about my bad hearing, so he looked out for me. Whenever I had to go to the bathroom, he'd stand at the door of the latrine because the lock was busted and I couldn't hear anyone knocking. Before his help, someone opened the door on me while I was taking a shit.

As I scribbled with the chalk, Dominick peered down at me from his bunk. I often caught him staring at me. His dark brown hair brought out the color in his big, blue eyes. He said something, but I didn't know what he said. Sensing I didn't understand, he climbed down the ladder to talk to me. As he knelt on the floor beside me, my chest tightened, like I was suffocating. My entire body burned when he was so close to me. I couldn't understand what was happening to me.

"Wanna play War?" Dominick shouted in my ear.

Dominick liked playing War because he always won. I wondered if he had a deck of trick cards or something. I agreed to play one game. I didn't like losing all the time.

In the middle of our cabin, we sat on the floor, playing the card game. Dominick's smile and his full, plump lips distracted me. The metal of his braces tugged at his bottom lip, leaving him with small cuts in his mouth. I wondered what it was like to kiss someone with braces. I wondered what it was like to kiss anyone.

And then I wondered if Dominick had ever kissed anyone. Before I left for camp, I caught Jeff making out with a girl on the couch. His hand was up her blouse and their kisses were wet and mushy. They kissed with their tongues. I couldn't imagine kissing a girl like that.

When I thought about kissing Dominick, my heart pounded with a confusing mix of emotions.

What if I liked boys the way Jeff liked girls?