It had exploded all over my face.

Malory insisted I ask April to have lunch with me.

She said otherwise she’d have to report to my parents that despite my amazing grades, I was not making any real progress in the ways that mattered.

She dangled that negative, lackluster report about my progress, threatening to send it to Sonya, my long-time therapist back home, too.

I took April to a taco joint and ordered two of everything on the menu. Then I flashed the fake ID Knight had hooked me up with as a joke on my eighteenth birthday and got us margaritas, too. I made an effort to speak to her in sign language, because texting from across the table seemed extra weird. I even smiled. I was desperate not to go back home with my tail between my legs. So I decided to fake it till I made it.

It worked.

April smacked my back when we left the restaurant. “You’re cool, Raymond. Who’d have thought? Not me, that’s for sure.”

I was mentally exhausted from talking. I needed to close my eyes and shut the world out for a month or two.

“Hey, so my friend is throwing a party next week…” she started, and I darted my eyes to her pleadingly.

I’d die if she asked me to join them. I shook my head slowly.

April burst into howls of laughter. “Um, no, my little grasshopper. Redirect that thought. I was wondering if I could give you money for some beer and other liquor.”

I nodded. That I could do.

She grinned, her eyes twinkling with mischief. “You’ll need to lighten up eventually. You know that, right?”

I didn’t, but people were starting to make it impossible for me not to.

November

Then there was a boy.

An actual boy.

With limbs and everything. A real boy. That noticed. Me.

Josh: Party 2nite?

“Ask him if the party’s in his pants, and if you can bring a plus one.” April peeked at my phone behind my shoulder, reading my incoming text message. “I’d climb Josh like a tree hugger saving a rainforest given the slightest opportunity.”

I tucked the phone back into the pocket of my jeans, chuckling.

“Come on.” She flung herself over my bed—we had bunk beds, and of course, I’d agreed to take the lower bunk on day one—kicking her socked feet in the air. “We’ve been here for months, and you haven’t gone to one party. That’s, legit, the saddest thing I’ve ever seen.”

“I’m happy you’ve never had to deal with truly sad things, then,” I signed to her.

I’d been doing a lot of signing lately. More than I had in years in Todos Santos. I finally got why Dad had been so desperate for me to come here.

It forced me out of my shell.

It broke said shell like a glass ball.

Truth was, I couldn’t not sign. I needed to buy groceries. Communicate with people around me. Talk to teachers. Survive.

“I have some homework to catch up on,” I lied, ducking my head to my MacBook. The typewriter next to it was getting dusty.

April threw a pillow at me, laughing. “Liar, liar, thong on fire. You’re acing all your courses and flying back home tomorrow morning. You don’t have anything going on. Come. Party. Chill. And give Josh a decent chance.”

Something in my gut twisted at the mention of Josh’s name. Not because I didn’t like him. The opposite, actually. He was mute—as a kid, he’d suffered trauma to his vocal cords in a car accident and could no longer produce any sound—and I felt oddly defensive about our tender friendship.

I’d seen Josh on campus for the first time three months ago, in the cafeteria. He had a smooth, young face, dark skin, and striking features. He’d been clad in white jockey silk and a hoodie. A flock of girls had cawed around him, so loud against his comfortable silence. His eyes had met mine across the room, as if I’d called his name. I’d clutched my books tighter to my chest and slipped out of the cafeteria.

I’d tried to convince myself he hadn’t really noticed me, that I was just so thirsty for the attention I was no longer getting from Knight, I’d started imagining things.

Then, overnight, I saw Josh everywhere—on the front lawn on campus, at the local Starbucks, at the library, in three different lectures, and at the stables where I volunteered as part of my ongoing therapy with animals. No matter where I went, he was there, until we had no choice but to smile hello at each other—not because we knew one another, but because it was pointless to pretend we weren’t familiar with each other’s faces.

April and her friends were gaga about him, so I found out his name and that he was teaching special needs kids horseback riding three times a week. The first time I noticed he spoke in sign language, my heart slowed, almost coming to a full stop.