“I’m trying. I’ve been practicing. But I’m not very good.” Awkward didn’t even begin to describe how he felt trying to retrieve the signs he’d looked up in order to have this conversation.
“True.” Evan verbalized the word. That helped a bit, but could he get through this with the man understanding what he needed?
“I want to talk about Carli.”
“Yeah, she told me you broke up.” Evan sure didn’t look sad about it. Not an ally. Got it. Hopefully, he’d still have some information that would help.
“Did she tell you why?”
Evan shook his head, his mouth hooked up on one side. “No, she doesn’t like me sticking my nose in her romantic life.”
It took Blake a second to figure out what he’d said, but he got the gist of it.
“She asked me about kids, deaf kids. I p a u s e d…” He had to fingerspell the word. Why hadn’t he looked that one up? “I didn’t mean to, but it’s a serious question. She thought that meant I didn’t want them.”
The look Evan gave him was annoyance mixed with pity. “If you can’t accept deaf kids, then you need to forget about her.”
“I can’t forget her.” His voice sounded pitiful. Thank God, Evan couldn’t hear it.
Shifting his weight, Evan stared, more pity in his expression now.
“Something happened before that. At the…f u n d r a i s e r.” His fingerspelling skills were less than poor. “To make her question our relationship. I don’t know what.” Well, his mother, but she couldn’t have been the only thing. Something else had triggered it. She hadn’t asked him about kids then.
“Big things for deaf people that make them crazy,” Evan said. “Not being included in conversation. Being ignored. When they ask you to repeat something and you say, ‘never mind’ or ‘it’s not important’. Makes them feel like they are not important. Did you do any of that?”
Luckily, Evan was speaking and signing slowly, so he caught most of what was said. As for that information, had he done any of that? Thinking back to the benefit, he’d been involved in lots of conversations. Carli had stood by him, seeming to follow along. She’d had her processors on, though that didn’t mean she’d gotten everything that was said. Most of it was hospital talk and trying to get donations. His previous dates wouldn’t care about the topic. But Carli worked at the hospital and had a vested interest. Is that what upset her?
“Did you sign to her at all that night? Introduce her to your friends?”
Nodding, Blake said, “I introduced her, but my signing is so slow I didn’t use it.”
“Very slow.” Evan looked at him askance, though his grin wasn’t malicious. “But if you made her feel like she wasn’t important enough to use sign or to interpret, you screwed up.”
Had that been what happened? She’d never seemed to mind before when he didn’t sign. He’d been attempting it more lately, then at the benefit, he’d simply abandoned it because he wasn’t fluent. But she didn’t know that. Did it matter? He hadn’t seen to her needs.
“How do I fix it?”
“You need to show her she’s important to you. Use her language and tell her she’s important.”
“I’m still learning. I haven’t gotten good enough yet.”
“You’re doing okay now. ASL is a language, not something you can pick up in a few months. Like any other language, it takes time and effort and practice. You need to use it or you lose it.”
Sighing, Blake mussed his hair and nodded.
Evan took a step closer and flexed the muscles under his long sleeve shirt. “But if you hurt her more, I’ll hurt you.”
“You don’t like that I’m hearing, do you?”
“No, but Carli cares for you, and I think you care for her.”
“I do.I love her.I can’t stand the thought of not being together.”
“Can you handle her being deaf? CIs aren’t a fix.”
“No, they aren’t, but you tease her about being hearing all the time. You know that really hurts her. She feels like she doesn’t belong anywhere anymore. Not even with her family who’s supposed to love her.”
“I’m her brother. It’s my job to tease her.”
