by Kay Manis
I shook my head, thinking back.
“So how did you learn?”
“I don’t know, it came naturally, I guess.”
“Exactly.” She shoved a finger in the air as if she’d discovered a new planet. “That’s the way reading is for me. It comes naturally for me. For you, it doesn’t, so we have to use everything at our disposal to help you.”
“So skating doesn’t come natural to you?” I teased.
“Um, no. I’m a natural klutz.”
“Have you ever skated?”
“No,” she answered flatly. “And I don’t plan to.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m a major spaz, and it would take a much bigger commitment on your part to see me flat on my ass.”
“Are you forgetting how we met?” I cocked a brow.
She smirked and ducked her head. “This is different.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means you’d run for the hills if you saw how uncoordinated I was. A sexual relationship would not be strong enough to hold you after you saw me fall on my face.”
I laughed then realized what she was saying. “Commitment? What do you mean, like marriage?” I couldn’t help but tease her. “So, you’re saying I’d have to marry you before I could teach you how to skate?”
Her face flushed bright red.
Oh, God, had I really just said marry?
Shit, I had. And my body didn’t respond with its usual distaste for the word.
“Anyway,” she said, “this isn’t about me and skating. It’s about you.”
“What if I want it to be about you?” I asked, sliding my fingers toward her.
She slapped my hand.
I pulled away and laughed.
“So anyway,” she settled into the sofa, “back to tactile. You know sounds of the letters right, and some words?”
“Yes.”
“Do you know how to sound out words?”
“Yes.” I narrowed my gaze. Where was she headed?
She glanced up at me. “Well, that only works some of the time. Most words in the English language are what we call sight words. That means you basically have to memorize them because there’s no way you could sound them out using the rules. Say, for instance, the word aerial. Something you’re very good at.”
She smiled, seeming almost prouder of me than I was of myself.
My chest swelled with pride. “You like my aerials, Drunk Girl?”
“Rory, your skating is extraordinary.”
Extraordinary.
I let the word roll around in my head. Hindley was impressed with my skating. She thought I was extra-ordinary.
“Extraordinary isn’t a sight word. It’s actually two words combined into a bigger one, the word extra and the word ordinary. Once you learn each word, you can put them together into bigger words called compound words.”
I heard her talking, but I wasn’t concentrating. I was too absorbed in the idea that she thought I was extraordinary. I could give a fuck less about how to spell it.
“Are you really that surprised?” she asked.
“At what?”
“That I would be impressed by your skating?”
“Yeah, I guess so,” I said.
“Why?”
“I don’t know, I guess it’s just—” I thought about her question.
“You think I’m so educated and refined that there was nothing you could do to impress me?” she asked with a bit of bite in her voice.
I didn’t answer. I didn’t have to. She had pinpointed exactly why I was shocked.
“Whatever, Rory.” She shook her head. Ignoring me, she pulled out a blue spiral notebook and flipped through the pages. “In this book, I’ve labeled each page with a letter of the alphabet, starting with ‘A.’”
I stared at the folder, a cold sweat breaking out across my forehead. It looked a lot like school supplies.
Apparently not noticing my nervousness, Hindley continued.
“For each letter in this book, I want you to write down all the words you can read. Anytime you’re out and about and you recognize a word, write it down. Or add it to your phone then put it in this spiral once you get back home. This will become your bible, a way to help you put together words you already know in order to create and learn bigger words. Are you with me so far?”
I swallowed hard, unsure of how to explain my problem without looking like a total imbecile. “Look, Hindley, sometimes what you see and what I see, they’re different.”
“Doesn’t matter,” she said with no hesitancy or need for explanation. “As long as you know what the word is, that’s all that matters.”
I sat back on the couch, unsure of what to make of this vixen.
“I’ll help show you the correct way to write the letters,” she continued, “if that truly is part of your problem with dyslexia. But for now, I just need you to record all the words you do know as they pop into your head. Write them down exactly as you see them, misspellings and all. This spiral will help build your confidence. I’m pretty sure you know a lot more words than you think, and can read more than you know.”
“What about the journal?”
“That’s where the tactile learning comes in.” She ignored the journal and instead flipped to the middle of the blue spiral notebook and wrote something down.
“What’s that?” I asked, trying to peer over her shoulder.
“This will become your sight word list. As we go, we’ll find words along the way that I’ll put on this list. You’ll need to memorize them.”
“I have a bad memory.”
“Actually, you have a brilliant memory.”
Brilliant? No one had ever called me brilliant, not even for skating.
“It’s true.” She smiled. “Look at the way you work through your skateboard routines.”
“That’s easy.” I shrugged. “It comes naturally to me.”
“Not to most people though. The way you combine your moves and tricks into one amazing run is incredible to watch.”
I sat back, allowing her words to sink in. I didn’t feel amazing. I felt stupid and awkward. Especially now, revealing all my secrets.
“Rory, reading is just like skating. You take letters and create words. You take words and create sentences. You take sentences and create stories.”
Was it truly that simple? No one had ever explained it to me that way before.
She scooted closer. “If you can mold your skating skills into a beautiful and technical routine, then I know you can do that with anything, including letters and words and sentences. You are brilliant, Rory, in many things.” She smirked.
“Oh, yes. Yes, I am, Miss Hagen.” I grinned.
“Stop it or we’ll never get through this.” She giggled.
“Hindley, it’s late. We have to leave in like three hours to get you to San Diego in time for your meeting.”
“I can sleep on the way home,” she said. “This is important.”
“What is? Me reading?”
“You, feeling confident in yourself. In all things, Rory. It’s the only way…”
“Only way, what?”
She sat still, her eyes unmoving for several seconds. “So anyway, your journal is for your eyes only.”
She was a master at moving the topic away from herself.
“If you want to share it with me you can,” she said, “but know that I will never look inside it unless you want me to. You can be honest and real in this book, okay?”
I nodded, not sure I would be.
“You’ve made a lifetime out of memorizing photos, drawings, and pictures to help you comprehend and remember things, right?”
I didn’t understand her way of thinking, and the familiar pain of anxiety and fear burned in my chest as I knotted my fingers.
“Stop it, Rory.”
My eyes caught hers, the deep dark brown of her gaze penetrating something deep inside me. Breaking free the insecurities I’d held on to for a
lifetime. Hindley’s ability to bring me back from my disparaging thoughts was truly surprising.
“Your skateboarding tricks, for instance,” she said, continuing on as if I hadn’t just had an epiphany. “If I were to say, draw the word aerial, not write it, what would you draw?”
She opened the journal to the second page and handed it to me.
I stared down at the blank white page, my heart hammering in my chest.
“Draw it,” she instructed.
Fuck it. What did I have to lose, except this girl.
Taking the pen from her, I scribbled a circle with an arrow pointing up.
“See, you know the word aerial, but your picture graphic and the word graphic are different. Once you memorize what the word graphic looks like on paper, you’ll be able to read it and draw it like you did this symbol. The letters will become symbols for you, like your picture is now.” She scooted closer.
I had no idea what the fuck she was talking about, but she seemed excited…and she was closer to me. Her nearness calmed me.
“All right, next to your graphic,” she continued, “I want you to write the word aerial.”
“I don’t know how.” My resolve was fading, and my self-esteem falling even faster.
“That’s why I’m here. And Google Translator. Where’s your phone?”
“On the charger in my room.”
“Go get it.”
I loved her air of confidence and authority. I’d only seen it in the conference room during our negotiations. I couldn’t help but wonder if maybe it was me, maybe I gave her enough courage to be confident as she did me.
Letting the thought percolate as I ran back to my room to grab the phone, I returned to the sofa, nestling close to her.
“Here.” She shoved the journal and pen in my hands. “Write down the word aerial. Open Google Translator and speak the word like you’ve done in the past.”
I did as she instructed.
She pointed to the phone. “Look at the screen. What are the letters?”
“A-E-R-I-A-L.” I spelled out.
“Now, write out the word next to the picture you just drew.”
My heart raced and my head pounded. My writing had always been atrocious. I hadn’t written down much of anything, except my signature, in years.
“Don’t be nervous, Rory.” She placed a hand gently on my arm. “There are no mistakes during this process. There are only opportunities for us to learn during this journey,” she said, smiling. “Understand?”
Journey? She saw my illiteracy as a journey? And she’d included herself in my struggle.
I cut my eyes to hers and saw she was sincere. There was no judgment in her chocolate brown eyes.
She nestled in closer. “Okay, look at the word and study it. Is it possible for you to sound it out?”
I sat in silence, trying to sound out the word in my head.
“Out loud,” she said.
I hesitated.
“You can do this, Rory. No mistakes, no judgment. I promise.”
I studied the letters on the screen, trying to make out each one. The more I tried, the harder it became. The letters all ran together in a jumbled mess in my head. My mind raced and I couldn’t focus above the throbbing pain in my chest. I was going to pass out. “Hindley, I can’t do this.”
“Why?”
After a long pause, I whispered on a shaky breath. “I’m embarrassed.”
“Why are you embarrassed?”
“Because—” I scrubbed a hand through my hair, hoping to slow my thoughts. “My brain doesn’t work like yours. All the letters are running together. I don’t even know how to sound them out. And the harder I try the more confused I get.”
“Good,” she said with no apologies. “Now we have a starting point. That’s awesome, Rory.”
“How the fuck is this awesome, Hindley? The fact that I can’t even read one goddamn word? Do you have any idea how fuckin’ embarrassing this is?” I shouted.
“All this means is aerial is a sight word and we need to add it to your spiral.”
She’d completely ignored my outburst, unphased by my crude language. This girl wasn’t going to give into or feed my insecurities.
She cleared her throat and sat up straighter. “You spell aerial A-I-E—” She stopped and broke into a fit of giggles.
My jaw clenched. Was she laughing at me?
“What’s so goddamn funny?” I growled. “The fact that I can’t read, or the fact I don’t know how the fuck to sound out letters?”
“I spelled it wrong.” She laughed again, ignoring my outburst. “I forgot how to spell aerial. Actually, I’m not even sure I know how.” She turned and glanced up at me. “See, Rory, it takes practice. I never use the word aerial so I would have to look it up. Not so smart, am I?”
She wrapped a hand around my forearm and immediately my pulse slowed.
“Look, Rory, we’re both going to mess up here. It’s inevitable. What’s important is that we recognize it for what it is, correct it, learn from it, and move on. No judgment, no self-condemnation, only determination and perseverance.”
Was she talking about reading or a relationship? It didn’t matter, both scared the fuck out of me.
“Here.” She reached over and flipped to the middle of the notebook. “Add aerial to your sight word list. You better check your phone though because apparently I have no idea how to spell it.” She snorted.
I remained silent, sitting in my own pile of Rory-Gregor-Is-An-Ignorant-Asshole.
She held out my notebook. “Will you please spell aerial?”
I laughed at how ironic—and hysterical—and so fucked up this scenario was. She wasn’t mocking or disrespectful. She really didn’t know how to spell the word and was asking me for help.
“Please.” She batted her long lashes and gave me her most coy, innocent look.
We both burst into hysterics and spent the next hour writing down words even she didn’t know how to spell. And it was that much sweeter knowing she wasn’t as perfect as I had once thought.
She talked about truly experiencing my words, not just reading and writing them. She wanted me to put things in my journal—photos, scraps of things, blades of grass—anything that expressed how I felt at that particular moment.
She called it word association, or some shit like that. All I knew was it was overwhelming and confusing as fuck. But her energy and excitement were contagious. And her belief that I could actually do this was motivating. For the first time in my life, I felt like I could conquer this huge monster that had chased me all of my life.
She stretched and yawned beside me. I closed both books and stood, scooping her in my arms.
“What are you doing?” she squeaked.
“We have to be up in an hour. I’m driving you down to San Diego for your meeting with Dipshit, remember?”
“Rory.”
“Maybe I need to write that in my journal. ‘Dipshit’. Do you think Google Translator could spell that?”
She laughed.
My heart ached with an emotion I was unfamiliar with.
L-O-V-E.
I walked her up the stairs and laid her in the bed. “You really believe in me, Hindley, that I can do this?”
“I know you can, Rory. You’re one of the smartest people I’ve ever met.”
“Yeah, right,” I snorted and slid in beside her.
“We’re two peas in a pod, aren’t we?”
“What do you mean?”
“We both have so much faith and confidence in each other, but so little in ourselves.”
I pulled her close to my chest, nuzzling her neck, inhaling her scent.
“Peas.” I laughed.
“Peas,” she sighed.
“Good night, Hindley.”
She raised my hand up to her mouth and pressed a kiss against my fingers. “Good night, Skater Boy,” she whispered.
Chapter 6
-RORY-
I’d dropped Hindley off in
San Diego at Dipshit’s office four hours earlier but still hadn’t heard from her. I had no reasonable explanation for my feelings about Matt Davis. The guy just rubbed me the wrong way. It didn’t help that Hindley was hopelessly oblivious to the magical charms she wielded over the opposite sex.
I sat outside on my deck, listening to the waves crash below as I recorded all the words I already knew into my spiral. Hindley was right, I was surprised to discover I knew a lot more words than I realized.
When I’d first returned from San Diego, I’d walked up and down the beach, trying to rid my mind of images of her and Dipshit alone in a conference room, talking and laughing and…reading my contract together. It had done little to ease my jealous tendencies. But now, as I sat here rubbing on the shells I’d picked up off the beach earlier, I thought of Hindley and her word.
Tactile.
That’s the type of learner she said I was. She believed in me, and that one thought resonated within me and brought me hope.
I picked up my phone and pulled up my app. “Tactile,” I said into the microphone. The word appeared on my screen and I recorded it in my journal.
T-A-C-T-I-L-E.
I stared at the word, trying to sound it out. It was easier to focus without Hindley’s half-naked body sitting next to me.
“Tah-ah-cuh-tah-ih-le-eh.” I remembered the sounds of the letters, but it didn’t sound like it did when I just said the word, tactile. It must be a sight word.
I pulled out my blue notebook and turned to the back. I surprised myself that I wrote it down almost from memory. Maybe I could do this. I was so jazzed, I wrote it three more times.
“Tactile. Tactile,” I repeated out loud. A memory came to the forefront of my thoughts. Something about long vowels and short vowels and shit like that. I needed to remember to ask Hindley about that rule. Maybe it would help me.
I turned back to my journal, thinking about my walk and the emotions that had flooded my mind. I grabbed my phone and spoke into Google Translator.
“I am free in the air.” I copied the words in my journal then drew a skateboard beside it with clouds. That symbolized freedom to me. The graphic would remind me of the words associated with the symbol.