Chapter Three

Abigail

I looked around the lunch room where you pick up food. No one cared enough to watch me. Most were too busy hanging out with their friends and/or texting on their phones. I did a double check before I reached out and grabbed an orange, slipping it in the pocket of my jacket. I didn’t have money for lunch and I was hungry again. I walked out of the lunch room and into the cafeteria. I kept my head down again and made my way toward the back of the café where not a lot of people were. I sat down alone at a table and took out the orange. I grabbed a napkin that was on the table and laid it out, beginning to peel the orange.

*

Scott

“One more time,” I told Shay and he groaned. “Come on, I need to do this right.”

“Fine, whatever,” he said, holding the scene up from my phone. I started doing the hand signs I learned from an app. I found one on my phone for sign language. I was just doing basic ones like ‘How are you’; ‘What is your name’; ‘Do you like Kings High’.

After I was done, I dropped my hand, “Well?”

“Like before, bro, you got it all,” he said, putting my phone down. Victoria, Shay's mate, came up to the seat next to him and he kissed her.

She smiled before turning to me, “Shay told me the exciting news, Scott. Now the question is: where is she?” she asked as she looked around the café. “I can’t wait to meet her.” Around the table my brothers and their girls chuckled.

“Calm down, Victoria,” Shay said. “There’s a little problem.”

I snapped my head up from the phone and growled, “There’s no problem, Shay. Just because she’s deaf doesn’t mean there's a problem.”

Victoria eyes widened, “What? She’s deaf?”

I shrugged, “Yeah, so?”

“She’s still amazing,” Colleen said to add onto my point. “A little shy, yes, but she’s amazing and nice. She can read lips perfectly.”

“Must be an expert for how fast you talk,” Skylar said, chuckling and getting slapped by Shay making Colleen giggle.

Tristan brought his foot up and pushed Skylar’s seat back. “Shut up, man. I’d rather have her talking than not at all—oh crap,” he said, looking at me apologetically. I just rolled my eyes. I’ll deal with them later. I looked around the café to find my little mate and I found her in the back. She was peeling at an orange, watching closely as she peeled to get a lot of the skin off.

I got up from my chair. “Wish me luck.” They all were smartasses and sarcastically wished me luck. I pursed my lips and scowled at them before I walked over to Abigail. She didn’t feel me coming, not taking her eyes off the orange. Actually, I don’t even think she was paying attention to the orange because her eyes looked kind of…blank.

Quickly forgetting already, I said, “Hey.” She didn’t look up from the orange at all. I took the seat next to her and patted her shoulder. She jumped in the seat, the orange dropping from her hands and it rolled over to me. I picked it up before it fell off the table. I smiled and set it down on the napkin where some of the orange and left over peel was. She was facing forward, but her eyes were looking my way out of the corner of her eyes.

And I saw she would move them away every few seconds like she was expecting me to leave. I chuckled. Then I used sign language to ask how she was. Her eyebrows furrowed together and I frowned, wondering if I got it wrong. I tried again and she just looked more confused.

“I did do that right, right?” I asked. She just shrugged. Now, my eyebrows furrowed together. Why’d she tell me she doesn’t know? I know I did that right because I've literally been doing it twenty times since I left class and paid for the app. I tried now asking her name and she now looked at me like I was crazy. I did it one more time and she just gave me the same look and shook her head, staring at me like I was crazy.

I sighed, slugging back in my seat. “Okay, I don’t know what I’m doing wrong. It’s either the app that’s wrong,” I said, showing her my phone, “or I’m just doing it wrong.” To my surprise, a tiny—and I mean tiny—smile spread across her face. She pointed at her ear before giving me a thumb’s up. My eyebrows furrowed together confused again. What is she trying to tell me? She clapped her hands together and pointed at her ear again and gave me a thumb’s up.

I pointed at her right hand, “You heard that?” I asked and she nodded.

“Wait,” I said, leaning up in my seat now and leaned on the table. “You're trying to tell me…you can hear?” I hesitated. She nodded.

“You’re not deaf?” Her smile grew into a bigger smile with no teeth and shook her head. Her usual dull looking forest green eyes seemed to light up, too. I stared at her in shock, the phone dropping from my hands. “Oh…” I said. “I’m such an ass.” Fuck, I pretty much just listened to Mina and believed her. Why did I do that? I actually believed she was deaf. Now she probably thinks I’m a jerk for thinking she was deaf.

“Wait,” I said again. “Then you must have heard Mina say you’re deaf.” She nodded.

“Why? Why would you let her say that when it isn’t true?” She just shrugged and rolled her eyes. It took a second to understand what she was trying to say. “You don’t care what she thinks?” I guessed and she nodded. I smiled and chuckled once. “Smart choice, Mina's a bitch." She nodded.

“Can you talk?” I asked. She hesitated, just looking at me. She looked depressed again and her once sparkling green eyes were blank again. She pushed the stray strands of her hair behind her ear, looked down at the table, and shook her head as she picked her orange back up. So, she can hear, but not talk.

“Well, that’s okay,” I said, scooting closer to her.

“So, how do you like Kings High?” I saw her right cheek move, letting me know she was chewing on the inside of her cheek. She pointed at my phone and I picked it up, pointing at it. She nodded and I handed it to her. She pressed some buttons on the screen and a moment later, she handed me the phone back.

Please go away.

I raised an eyebrow and looked up at her, “Why?”

She held her hand out and I put the phone in her hand. A minute later, she held it back up,

I want you to.

I snorted, but really, I wanted to growl. Why would she want me to leave? She doesn’t like me or something? That’s the big question: Why?

“Why do you want me to go away?” I asked.

She typed the reason in, because I said so. I don’t want to be friends with you. Sorry. The look told me she was serious.

“But—” She just shook her head and put down my phone, telling me she was done. She went back to her orange, ignoring me. Knowing I was probably going to get nowhere and I didn’t want her to hate me, I decided to give her space for now.

“Okay, Abigail Crow, but this isn’t the last you’ve seen of me,” I told her and she didn’t look up at me from the orange, but she did stop peeling and her lips pursed and inched to one side. I turned around and made my way back over to the table. I feel kind of…fooled. First, I’m a dumb ass for listening to Mina. And second, I just got rejected…by a girl. Weird.

I pulled my chair out and sat down. They all looked at me and gave me a look to tell them what happened. I just grumbled under my breath and looked down at my phone.

*

Abigail.

What a player, I thought. I know his type. He just wanted to ‘score’ with the muted girl so he could brag to his friends about it after. A boy that hot wouldn’t be interested in me for any other reason then that. It’s a guy’s dream to be with a girl that doesn’t whine or talk. I won't be hurt like that. Finally finishing peeling my orange, I popped it in my mouth. I was happy when the juice exploded in my month and I was finally eating. The player caught my attention way too much.

But he had the body of a model—no, a god. I shook my head and dismissed the thought. I won’t get in trouble. I have enough trouble at home. All day I have been worrying about Tyler and if my mom has been feeding him. I feel bad for leaving Tyler home with her there, but I have no other choice. My dad forces me to go to school.

I couldn’t stop thinking of when Scott was attempting to use sign language to talk to me, and thought it was kind of weird. No one has ever done that before. But I also kind of found it…sweet.

He learned sign language to try and talk to me. Sure, I’m not deaf, but I found it sweet he tried hard enough to talk to me. I know I shouldn’t have told him I was mute, but I never planned to talk to him or anyone else here, why not let them think I was? It gives them a reason not to talk to me. I saw figures going around my table and I looked up to see three girls sitting around me at my table—one of them being Colleen. My eyebrows furrowed together, but then I realized this must have been their table.

I gathered the stuff up in the napkin and started to get up, but Colleen grabbed my hand, stopping me. She smiled. “No, sit. We want to sit with you.”

My cheeks burned red. I hesitated, but sat down.

“Abigail, this is Haley,” she said, pointing at a dirty blond haired girl and she waved to me.

“And this is Victoria,” she said pointing to the girl with really cute short brown hair.

“They’re my boyfriend's brothers’ girlfriends.” Wow that's a mouthful.

“Hey,” they both said, giving me friendly smiles.

I just raised my hand in ‘hello’. Victoria leaned closer to me. “You are, like, so pretty,” she gushed. My cheeks burned and I shyly looked down at my orange.

“Is that all you’re going to eat?” the girl Haley asked and I just shrugged.

“Here, you can have my pizza,” she said, placing a slice of pizza in front of me. My mouth formed into an ‘oh’ and I shook my head and waved her off like it was nothing. She chuckled, “No, take it. I had a big breakfast this morning and am still kind of full from that. Surprisingly, the pizza here is good, so take it.”

Why are they being so nice to me? None of the girls at the schools I went to before were this nice. They were all stuck up and rude. These girls are really pretty, but weird enough, friendly and nice. It was kind of weird. I decided just to take it since I was hungry; I ate it by taking pieces off of it.

A weird habit of mine was to take pieces off some of my food, but I like to eat it slowly. Don’t know why, but I just do. It was really good too.

“So, what were you doing over here all alone?” Victoria asked.

“Yeah, you could have sat with me,” Colleen said. “We are friends anyways.” I stared at her with a piece of pizza hanging in midair. Crap, not what I was planning. Since when did we agree to be friends? I knew I shouldn’t have been a little friendly to her. Now I bet she’s going to ask to hang out or come over to my house. I put the piece of pizza in my mouth and shook my head, looking down at the pizza I ate.

“What?” Colleen asked and I just shrugged like it was nothing. “Come on, Abigail, you should have some friends here. We’d like to be your friends.” She pleaded at the last sentence. I just shook my head casually and ate the pizza. The more I ignore them, the more they’ll get mad and understand I don’t want to be their friend.

Haley put her hand on my shoulder, “Abigail, come on, Colleen’s right. You don’t want to go through high school without at least some friends.” I wanted to yell at them, saying ‘I don’t want you guys as friends! I’m not allowed to have friends! I haven’t had a single friend my whole life and nothing will change!’, but that would be really mean. I just shook my head and put the napkin with the half of the orange left on the plate and got up, throwing it away and walked away to an unknown place. I just let my feet move and next thing I knew, I found myself in the gym.

I went over to the bleachers and sat down, just wanting this day to go by much faster.

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