“I’d never actually talked to a deaf person before but I’d been swimming and gotten water stuck in my ears lots of times, felt that underwater silence as I shook my head and watched people’s mouths moving without hearing the words, so I knew what it was like for her. I could empathize.”

“My head was spinning. I felt like I’d been drifting, lost at sea all my life, and now that I’d found dry land, I couldn’t quite get my bearings.”

“I moaned like a whore in church.To be fair, I’d never actually heard a whore moan in church, but I had a feeling it sounded a lot like the unholy sounds pouring forth from my mouth.”

“So there I was, hovering above everything I knew. I had made it somewhere special, and I’d gotten there all on my own. Nobody had given it to me. Nobody had told me to do it. I’d climbed and climbed and climbed, and this was my reward. To watch over the world, and to be alone with myself. That, I found, was what I needed.”

“I felt sort of sad that I couldn’t remember the last time, before tonight, that I’d paid such close attention to the sky. It felt like that must be some kind of sign that I’d lost my innocence and grown up without even realizing it.”

“I knew that she couldn’t hear me if she was there. But the sound was enough to grab me, to hold me to hope, and with desperation that I’d never known before I knew that I must find my way back to her.”