Page 43 of Give Me a Sign
I hold out my hearing aids. “Do you have your Dry & Store?”
He does. Ethan takes the devices so they can dry in his cabin for the night and be back to working condition by morning.
I rush back to the bathhouse, take the fastest shower of my entire life, drop my things off in my cabin, and finally, more than fifteen minutes late, make my way to the campfire for my shift.
Isaac has pulled the bench close to the flames and is poking the logs with a long stick. He doesn’t look up when I take a seat across from him. I shouldn’t have panicked so much over my hearing aids earlier. They’ve gotten wet before and turned out fine. I’d give anything to go back and respond differently when Isaac told me he wanted to chat. Maybe I was just trying to avoid him again in case I didn’t like what he had to share. But it could have been something good. Or something completely meaningless about our shift.
We sit ten feet apart across the firepit, ignoring each other’s presence, until he finally looks up. “Okay?”
I nod.
“Your hearing aids?”
“They’ll be fine now.”
He looks away. What did he want to talk to me about? There’s no way I’m asking him, so I guess I’ll never know.
It dawns on me how much effort Isaac’s been putting into communicating with me this summer, from day one. It must nothave been easy for him. But now my ASL skills are better, and somehow, Isaac and I are here, not communicating.
This is awkward as hell, but maybe I’ll find some way to break the ice.
I wave toward him again. “Nice fire. Did you—”He signs again to cut me off before I can ask if he built it himself.
“Sorry. I’m tired.” He leans back against the picnic table, then pulls a Nintendo Switch out of his backpack and a Fruit Roll-Up from his stash.
“Oh, okay,” I say to myself, burying my face in my phone.
But when Jaden shows up a few minutes later, Isaac suddenly decides he’s in a chatty mood after all—just not with me. I marvel as his hands fly at true speed.
I stand to leave, wanting to spend the rest of my shift somewhere else, but Jaden waves for my attention. “Hey, you can stay with us. You and I haven’t chatted much.”
I can’t tell from the embarrassment on Isaac’s face whether he’s told his friends about last night yet or if this interruption is a coincidence.
“If she wants to go————,” Isaac signs.
“That’s okay,” I sign to Jaden. “Thanks, but maybe later.”
Most everyone else is chilling in the staff cabin for the evening, except Mackenzie, who probably went to bed early. Ethan and Gary are at a square folding table in the corner going over some paperwork. On the two extra chairs next to them are stacks of pizza.
“Ooh, nice. Much better in here,” I say, helping myself to a spare slice and sitting on the floor beside Simone.
She asks something, but I motion that I don’t have my hearing aids in, so she repeats louder, “Awkward?”
“Yeah,” I say. She knows exactly who I’m hiding from.
Bobby’s lying in one of the spare bunks. “All right, let’s get a game going or something.”
“Sure, what do we got?” I take a bite of my pizza.
But Natasha, sitting against the opposite wall, waves toward me. “Is Isaac out there?”
I nod.
“Why are you in here?” She narrows her eyebrows in question.
Okay, Isaac... just how much did you tell your friends? And I thought this couldn’t get any worse. I guess news spreads quickly among a small summer camp staff.
“He doesn’t want me there.” I turn back to Simone, not wanting to answer any more pestering questions, but the next thing I know, Natasha is standing in front of me, offering her hand to help me up.
