Page 73 of The Sound of Him

I guess it doesn’t matter. It’s none of my business. The only thing about Matt that I should concern myself with is making sure this place feels safe enough for him. To create a perfect place to hide. Why - or even if - he can’t talk has no bearing on that. I’ll treat him the same either way.

“Sometimes I listen to music when I work.” I wave my hand toward my computer tower, entirely unnecessarily. I’m sure he can figure out that the music would come from the technology in the room. It doesn't take a genius to figure that one out. “Especially when I’m tired, or when all of this shit gets a little too heavy.”

He looks at me through his lashes.

“Music,” I say, making the sign for it as I do. He lifts his gaze to look at my hands, his eyebrows pulling together. I repeat it slowly, sweeping one flat hand back and forth above my other flat hand.

He echoes it.

I grin. “Yeah. Just like that.Music. Is it okay if I play some?”

His tongue darts out to wet his lips before he lifts his chin just enough for our eyes to meet.

I feel caught, like those brown eyes reach right out and grab me by the throat. It feels important, somehow, him looking so openly at me. So easily. It’s the first time I’ve gotten a glimpse at the person he might be beneath the weight of his silence.

He has three things he can speak with - his hands, his face, and his eyes. It’s a lot harder to control what your eyes say, from my experience. The eyes rarely lie. It’s something Keaton told me, once, when I asked how he knew when someone was lying to him.

Matt’s eyes don’t lie - and they’re saying so fucking much.

They’re saying,hi, hey, hello.They’re saying,this is really nice. They’re saying,thank you, thank you, thank you.

He repeats the sign,music,and nods.

And then hesmiles.

It’s small.

It’s the smallest damn thing, really.

But it’s so impossibly bright, like it isn’t just a lightbulb that’s inside him, it’s the entire goddamn sun. It’s the first burst of sunshine peeking out from behind a storm cloud. Hesitant, not quite sure the storm is over, but full of a brilliant, fragile hope.

It’s better than any pill I have in my arsenal.

It’s better than any song I’ve ever heard.

I can’t help the way my own smile blooms beneath that light, growing into something that hurts - not because my facial muscles aren’t used to grins, but because my heart isn’t used tomeaningthem like this. I turn toward the monitors to hide it, not wanting to scare him off. If too much attention makes him squirm, a too-big smile will probably send him running.

“Cool.” I clear my throat. “Cool. Cool. Music. Okay.”

There’s an encrypted message from Kellan, the notification flashing in the corner of my screen. It’s marked important, but not urgent. I don’t let myself think about how Keaton and Travis are less than an hour away from missing their check-in. Or about how I’m almost out of search parameters and databases for Elliot before I have to take a darker approach to finding him.

I don’t think about work. I ignore the message. I open my music app.

“Well, everyone claims I have shitty taste in music. They’re wrong, obviously, but if you side with those traitors then you can lodge your formal complaints to me.” Except he can’t, because he can’t talk.Right. “Feel free to throw something at me. You won’t even hurt my feelings. The softer the better, though. I should probably get some throw pillows, now that I think about it. Do you think that’s why they call them throw pillows? Surely not. That would be the weirdest thing. I mean, what, the name for those is probably at least a few hundred years old? Maybe?I don’t know. Did old-timey people have throw pillows? I’m trying to think of, like,Downton Abbeyor something and I can’t remember if they ever had them on their furniture.Bridgertoneither.

“Wait, no, aren’t they always, like, cross-stitching in that show? Maybe that’s how they make their pillows? Anyway, the point is that these decorative pillows have been around for quite a while, but there’s no way they got named this because people threw them at each other. I feel like decorum was too big of a deal back in those days. No one was walking around doing pillow fights or whatever. I mean, I don’t think they were. I guess I can’t say for sure. It doesn’t matter. The point is, throw pillows are conveniently soft things for someone to throw at me, so I’ll have to buy some. In the meantime, just make do with your surroundings. If you don’t brain me with something too hard, I might even consider letting you make a song request.”

I look to the side to flash him a playful wink. His smile is gone, but there’s an imprint of it left behind. It doesn’t fade beneath the weight of my attention. He doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t even look away.

I suddenly know a little of what he must feel like as every word in any language I know evaporates right out of my head.

Music.

Yes. Focus. Music.

I snap my attention back to the monitors.

“So, yeah, song requests if whatever you throw at me is soft enough. But only if your request isn’t awful. Because there’s bad taste, and then there’s 21st-century country music, you know? Except for the bluesy stuff. I’ll make a few select exceptions for some of that. Or, god,disco. No disco,ever- apart from ABBA, of course. If you support disco, then I might throw whatever you throw at me back at you. Just kidding. Obviously. I won’t throw anything at you. But Iwillrefuse to play it.Vehemently. Weall have to draw the line somewhere, you know? And my line is disco.”