by Leanne Davis
“Until you,” her mom finished and her voice was soft and contemplative.
“Until me. Until just about now. Mom, try to imagine his experience. He’s been alone and lost and isolated in ways I’ve never known anyone to be…”
“Pretty powerful stuff, Brianna.”
“Why do you sound like you’re patronizing me?”
Her mom’s head shook. “No. Not at all. I was being completely serious. He’s had to endure some deep, tough, hard stuff. I can’t imagine it. Or either of my kids suffering that way. I’m sorry. Truly, Brianna, I had no idea what a sad story his was.”
“In many ways, the deafness is the easiest part of it. There are ways to deal with it and live with it. But losing his whole family at such a young age?” Her throat closed with a knot. “So in answer to your inquiry, or the one I think you’re feeling out… no, I’m not with him because I intend to save him from being deaf. I’m not trying to make myself feel better either with some kind of crap like, ‘I’m the only one who can be with him.’ It’s not like that. It’s him, Mom. His personality calls to me. The Finn I’ve come to know appeals to me and like any attraction, including the one you had toward Joey, I can’t explain it or try to describe it, but it’s undeniably there. You want to know if I’m aware how great our difference is? I haven’t yet managed to totally categorize it. It’s a barrier for him, but he’s used to it and he says it’s not as tragic to him as it probably sounds like to me. Yes, Mom, I’m aware. Am I willing to deal with it? Yes.”
“I realize you’re aware. I appreciate that you’ve thought so much about this. And I just don’t want you to think you can save him. Try to forgive me, but I just wanted an easier life for you.”
“You insisted on sustaining and nurturing a love that wasn’t easy for you. Why should I do any less? In many ways, I assumed you’d understand.”
“In many ways, I do. But if you stop it now, you’re not in love. You can only stop before it gets way too hard.”
“Yet, you didn’t do that with Joey, did you? Why would I? It’s not normal. Why would I turn away from my main attraction and interest? And I’m not going to just because you want it to be easier for me.”
“I know. I just didn’t want to see you struggle so hard if you don’t have to.”
Her eyebrows shot up. “Isn’t something or someone that adds value to your life worth ‘struggling’ for?” She used air quotes to emphasize her argument. “I don’t think it’s a struggle for me. I can hear me and he can’t.” Something big and uncomfortable seemed to be lodged in her throat. “It’s Finn who is all alone, literally. He’s completely without a single soul to talk to or care about him. Do you think you could convince me to turn my back on him now because it might be hard sometimes for me? Everyone else underestimates me, but really? You too, Mom? Don’t you know better?”
Hailey suddenly sprang to her feet and embraced Brianna, holding her daughter’s face against her chest. “I know better. I did a damn fine job with you. Your brother temporarily made me lose faith in myself. I’m sorry I questioned you. If you truly care about Finn, then of course, I’ll always support you.”
“Good.” Her mom released her and started for her door.
Later, Brianna saved her work and quickly crossed the ranch until she came to the barn. Finn stood there working away. When he finally noticed her, he looked startled and rolled his eyes. “Hey,” she said softly, wishing he could hear the loving tone she used. The inflection of saying “Hey” from a month ago compared to now wasn’t even like the same word. But—sigh—she knew it was all the same for him.
He blushed. His cheeks went pink and his gaze darted away at her appearance. But he replied to her, “Hey.”
She stepped forward and took his hand. He glanced down at their connection. She leaned in and hooked her hand under his chin to turn his face to hers. “It didn’t disappear. Didn’t change. Still here. As am I.” She smiled with far more confidence than her voice expressed. But Finn didn’t know that.
“Still deaf.” He replied with a totally neutral and flat tone. She had to raise her eyes up to his to see the flash of humor and life and feelings he displayed. Yes, she missed that from his tone sometimes, but there were other sure tells with Finn. And the longer she was with him, the more she felt she could read him, know him, and interpret his language beyond the words.
“So what should we do for dinner?”
“Should I assume we’re having it together?”
She stopped dead. “I think you should assume that for quite a while.” Then she shrugged and grinned as she tugged on his hand.
“Does anyone ever say no to you?” She had to stop walking to respond.
“Yes. I don’t like it. So don’t do it and we’ll get along just fine.”
He let her bring him towards his apartment where she found a decent supply of groceries and enough ingredients to make a tasty dish of pasta and veggies with olive oil and cheese for added flavor.
For now, she had a tentative win. Finn allowed her stay.
Chapter Eleven
FINN DID NOT EASILY take to being in a relationship. He was awkward and unsure, both with her presence and what to say or do with her. Brianna suspected half of it was caused by having someone, anyone, in his space so often. He had been alone for so long, he had no idea how to deal with someone constantly getting in his space, let alone, to the level she was. She stayed overnight at his house a lot. She brushed her teeth in his bathroom and changed her clothes in front of him. She was an outgoing, gregarious, and never modest firecracker and he was never unaware of her presence.
And she wasn’t about to change now.
Finn was the polar opposite to that. He didn’t know what to do with Brianna. Her over-reaching personality confused him. The first time she stripped her clothes down and slipped one of his t-shirts on, he stared at her open-mouthed before shaking his head. He disappeared into his locked bathroom to change and never did anything personal while she was near. She didn’t comment on it; she figured he hadn’t lived with a family so he most likely didn’t know what to do as an adult. Brianna was neither meek nor retiring in her behavior. She only showed some reservation around Joey because he wasn’t her dad. When she visited her dad, however, Brianna wasn’t half as careful. She couldn’t have cared less if Trinity caught sight of her running about in her underwear.
But Finn flinched and stared and seemed utterly confused by her level comfort without clothing.
Finn was suffering from a kind of overall confusion as if he weren’t sure why she hung out at his place so often. Maybe she was trying to get him used to being around people. Anyone, really. But especially someone like her, who constantly interacted. It took some coaxing to get Finn to smile. Or chatter away like Brianna. She watched TV with him and got a little frustrated at times because she liked to talk about what was happening while she watched her shows or movies. But she solved that by using the pause button. That way, she could share her observations and other general comments.
Brianna went to the barn every single day to see Finn as he got off work. It took him weeks to get used to it. Brianna wondered why it took so long since she began going down there right after their third encounter.
Using kindness and encouragement, she all but dragged Finn to her mom’s house. He preferred the quiet and solitude of his own apartment to any visits to her family’s house. She wished it was simply because they could have sex at his place. Each time. Every time. Multiple times. She loved having sex with him; it was the only time his hearing didn’t matter between them. They could experience sex on the same playing field. Seeing, feeling, exploring and satisfying one another made it a stronger communion than she ever felt before. Plus, it was the only time that Finn was truly connected to her, in tune to her body, and not all alone inside his head and heart. Sometimes sex felt like the only language they could fully and completely share. Other than that, Finn was mostly alone. Even in a room full of her whole family.
It often drove her nuts but she knew Finn needed more than she could provide. And if they were to survive, she needed more than he could provide for her. So he had to get used to seeing her family. The family she had there at the ranch and someday, her family on the other side of the state. She never broached that topic because she feared it was too overwhelming for Finn at this point.
More often than not, Finn left the dinners or the evenings they spent with her family without a full understanding of what they discussed. Brianna saw how much it frustrated him, and her mom too. Her mom often asked Brianna if Finn ever spoke to her. Hailey found him excruciatingly quiet around her family and even towards her.
One evening, they were discussing Jacob when Brianna just called out, “Stop.”
Everyone, even Finn glanced over at her. “Finn is having trouble trying to keep up with who is saying what. He can never join in. You either need to slow down or else put your hand or finger up to let him know who’s speaking. It’s not fair to Finn otherwise. He sits here with us, but he’s never part of us. So decide how you want to deal with it but do something right now to let him know who is speaking and try not to interrupt each other. Let him keep up.”
Finn glared hard at Brianna and she shifted around in her dinner chair. But they had to do something to include Finn.
Her mom, distinctly uncomfortable, held up two fingers, and nodded towards Finn as she started to speak. Joey held up his index finger next, turning his mouth towards Finn and letting him see his lips when he spoke. That was how it went. Joey was more comfortable doing it than her mom, who struggled with it. Hailey and Finn had a cool, almost contentious relationship that was more rooted in what they didn’t say. They rarely looked at or interacted with each other either. Brianna wasn’t sure if her mother’s discomfort was about Finn’s deafness and having to speak unlike the way her mom usually did, or if it were something about Finn that her mom objected to.
Granted, outside of a few between-them moments, Finn wasn’t exactly warm or fuzzy to anyone else. Not at all. He wasn’t readily accessible and seemed absorbed by subjects that had nothing to with whoever he was currently around.
Granted, his limitations of hearing and interacting failed to encourage him to be outgoing, and he was usually happier to be contained entirely within himself. Maybe Brianna was getting used to it. Maybe she found it easy to work around. That and he didn’t scare her or intimidate her. Brianna worried her mom was daunted by him though for some reason.
“Brianna, you can’t order people to point at themselves and face me during conversations. It’s not natural. It’s weird. It’s more than a little odd. And it’ll only result in making people less willing to deal with me than they already are now.”
Alone in her room, Brianna straddled Finn’s lap. She was already facing him, and she lifted his chin. “I don’t care. You should have just as much awareness of any ongoing conversation in a room you occupy with the rest of us as we do. Especially with my family. They aren’t strangers or new acquaintances. They know you’re deaf and they’re more than willing to make a few accommodations if it gives you the chance to participate in any and all conversations for which you are present.”
“But I’m not fully present. That’s what you can’t ignore, Brianna. Even if you pretend to. I never really will be,” he said, turning away from her. He did that whenever he didn’t want to talk any longer. He got his point across but of course, Brianna couldn’t let it stand.
She ducked around to the front of him. “You are and you can be. You’re just scared to change. I understand. It’s got to be hard after losing your family and the ones who loved you most. But knowing what those around you are discussing seems the least we owe you.”
Brianna mentioned Finn’s family on several occasions. All she got from him were one-word responses before he turned his face, closed his eyes, and ordered her to stop. That subject was strictly off limits.
It irritated her and she needed to know more. Curiosity gnawed at her. She wanted to know Finn, all of him, his most mysterious parts and his history and his dreams and his ambitions and his fears and all the things that made Finn the man he was. Brianna naturally expected he’d want to know her as well. But Finn wasn’t half as curious about Brianna as she was him. She often felt like Finn was just existing on an imaginary time line before he’d somehow disappear from her life altogether.
All it did was demonstrate that Brianna had to teach him how to share, converse and be intimate with other people. Not just for romantic endeavors, but to know others in a friendly or familial way. Sometimes as she lay beside him, or on top of him, she vowed that even if she could not break through the silence in his head, Finn Alexander would never know the isolation and emptiness of living all alone again, unnoticed, uncared for, and without friends or love.
Never again.
Neither Finn nor anyone else had an inkling of the depths of Brianna’s feelings for the solemn, sweet, scared, grouchy, unsure, insecure, tragically alone man. She knew it, however. She clung to every thought, deed, desire, accomplishment or feeling she had with Finn. Even if for now all the feelings she had were held tight in the silence of her heart.
So what if she shared trivial and easy things? The real stuff that meant something important? Not so much. No one knew she earned enough money to be well on her way to a middle class life in which she fully sustained herself. Realizing that she was falling in love, the kind of love that lasts a lifetime, remained strictly her knowledge alone.
She managed to prove she had some skills, however.
Cami called with exclamations of praise, joy and gratitude when she saw the pamphlets Brianna made. She had them professionally printed and they encapsulated the story of the camp and ranch, as well as the new websites and social media accounts for the camp, resort, ranch, arena and horse rescue. She neatly correlated everything, but made them distinct and different. Kate all but twirled Brianna around in a circle when she saw them, exclaiming, “Finally. A progressive leader with some marketing knowledge. I’ve tried, until I’m blue in the face, to show them how much business they’re missing through their lame online marketing efforts. The bare minimal. Now would you look at that. All four of the social media platforms are not only present, but current. Daily posts, too. How do you find the time?”
Brianna didn’t reply that most of her business was in social media. Instead, she smiled and allowed Kate to hug her tightly. It was easy. Like second nature to her.
“You put me on it?” Finn was stunned when he spotted himself at the River's Rescue Horse rehabilitation website. Finn was featured in many shots, often working with the numerous horses, which was something he did daily but Brianna managed to make it look heroic. She turned them into a black-and-white documentary following each horse’s journey. The effect was stark, instantaneous and tragic at times but by tugging on people’s heart strings, she hoped it would make some people donate to the cause.
“You’re hot,” she smiled simply. He scowled until she touched his hand. “No one knows you’re deaf in the photos, right? Still pictures. But they can see how handsome you are, and your intense expression here and over here, revealing a clear reverence for the work you do with these injured, traumatized animals. Truth in advertising, isn’t it? Really, Finn, these animals reveal the truth and truth is power. And the horse rescue needs more donors. The camp certainly needs as many as it can get too. In order to grow it all, have more impact and do more good, it takes money. This advertising will bring it to you. Even Kate, their consulting guru, was over the moon when she saw all these shots.
He nodded, clenching his jaw. “Next time, how about telling me up front what you’re doing?”
She nodded and kissed his mouth until his lips curled up into a smile.
In her advertising, Brianna managed to snag a few more new donors. One was a large supplier called, West Coast Farm Supply that advertised, ‘whether you’re a farmer, a rancher or just pretending to be, we got all the supplies you need.’
She researched the company and learned they stocked everything from wannabe cowboy and cowgirl apparel to feed for every type of farm animal and just about everything else in between. Basically, they were the modern rendition of a general store. Their CEO sought to expand “their partnership in the community” and came across her websites for the horse rescue and camp. He contacted her and asked if he could visit and tour the facilities. He revealed an interest in joining up with the rescue and possibly even contributing five percent of their profits to it. In exchange, they’d merge Brianna’s advertisement about the camp and rescue with their own to make their name more outstanding in public relations. She could have cared less what they wanted to do for their public relations. Brianna only cared that they wanted to donate money to River’s Rescue.
The CEO, named Darren Santis, was a tall, handsome man who was dressed in designer jeans, and a sports coat when he showed up. Brianna imagined a neon sign that read, trying way too hard flashing over his head. His look might have been labeled the casual cowboy at ease. It almost made Brianna laugh when she compared him to the real cowboys she knew. They were the people who worked the ranch: Jack, AJ, Caleb, Jordan, Ian and of course, Finn, her boyfriend.
As the lead contact, Brianna quickly went out to greet Darren when his expensive sedan pulled into the main road of the ranch. “Hello, Mr. Santis, I’m Brianna Starr.”