Going here with Eric now would be unfair to him and also to Dillon. I can’t do it.
Shaking my head and pointing toward the ravine, I take a step back, fully prepared to turn back and head inside again.
Before I can turn, he reaches out to me and pulls me back toward him and the place that I really don’t want to go. Pulling another envelope from his pocket, he hands it over to me and just like before, I slip the small card out and read it, completely confused as to what’s going on. He can talk to me, so using note cards is throwing me off.
Trust me. I swear it’s not what you think.
There’s a happy face emoticon at the end of the sentence and for some reason, the same way it did when Isabelle sent them to me, it lightens the mood. I do trust Eric and I know he would never do something that would hurt me. He just doesn’t realize what the ravine means to me.
I can’t go there. I sign to him, hoping that he’ll get the hint so I can stop whatever is about to come next.
“Yes you can, Caddy. You need to.”
What does he mean I need to? I don’t need to do anything. Right now he’s reminding me of the way Dillon was in my kitchen. I don’t like being told what I need to do.
“Eric—”
“Just come, Caddy.” He says and not giving me a chance to reply, he drags me by the hand, and pulls me the rest of the way through the trees until we make it completely through to the other side. The water comes into view automatically, and seeing it this way, at night, it warms me.
It’s beautiful. The way it looks during the day, seeing the water all brown and murky, with discarded garbage lining the sides, is enough to turn anyone’s stomach, but right now, none of that is visible, and all I can see is the lights from the street reflected as the water slowly moves in waves.
Looking up at Eric and watching as he points down the bike path, I follow his hand and that’s when I see the real reason I’m here. It wasn’t Eric wanting to bring me here at all.
Standing about fifteen feet away from me, at the rock that we sat on the first day we came here is Dillon and surrounding the area, in the trees above him and resting all around the rock are lights, so many of them that he’s completely lit up and glowing.
I’ve never seen a more beautiful sight in my life.
Turning back to Eric, expecting to see a look of disappointment on his face, especially after what my mom told me, all I see is his familiar smile.
“What is this?”
He opens his jacket one more time, again passing along another envelope and as I take it, he bends in and with a small squeeze of my shoulder and a kiss on my cheek he points toward Dillon.
“It’s time to go, Caddy.”
Turning away and walking back the way he came, I turn my attention back to the note in my hand and slip it out of the envelope, my heart starting to pump faster in anticipation and fear at the same time. This time, the handwriting is familiar and as I read the words and slip it back into the envelope, I turn toward the writer and make my way forward.
Hi. My name is Dillon.
Dillon
I swear to god with the amount of work I put into this, it better go down the way I want it to.
When Kayden suggested bringing Eric into it, having done the same thing when he wanted to reach out to Isabelle, I was completely against it. I know the way the guy feels about Cadence, letting him be involved in what I wanted to do for her, it would only cause more shit than I was prepared to deal with.
Despite it, Isabelle brought him in and considering what she was doing for me after what I did to her, I wasn’t about to argue it. She didn’t have to help me at all and I knew it, which means that Eric being involved in this was the way things had to be.
Thankfully the only thing she tasked him with was making sure Cadence showed up when I texted Kayden to let him know I was ready. Standing here and waiting for him to show up with her though, I start wondering if he bailed out at the last minute and just took off somewhere so he could be alone with her.
I swore to myself when I put this in motion that I wouldn’t doubt myself or my worthiness anymore. For whatever reason, Cadence Taylor saw something in me that for the longest time I’d been denying and it’s for her that I would see this through. Armed with the information Kayden dropped on me at the hospital, it was the only thing left for me to do. Nothing else mattered.
Seeing her as she came through the trees behind Eric, the way she turned to him as he passed her what looked to be the last envelope, my heart stilled for the first time since I started putting this all together. He had come through and delivered her just the way he promised and watching him walk away and her even from this distance, reading my words, I’m more than ready for what’s about to come next.
My note to her, the one I left her the day before she left, it’s what has to happen now. What happened between us at school, it was preparing us for this moment right here. This is where we have our beginning with no end.
Right here, in this moment right now. This is our forever.
Coming to a stop in front of me, her eyes never breaking from mine, I slip an envelope out of my pocket and pass it across to her. This was a last minute decision, but one I’m feeling pretty damn confident about. I could have easily said all of this to her, but there’s a lot of it and writing was a lot easier than trying to remember everything I wanted to say.
Watching her eyes go wide as she pulls out the lined sheet of paper, I can’t help but smile. It’s obvious she was expecting another note card. It’s too bad for her that everything I want to say to her couldn’t fit on twelve of them, let alone one. When her eyes stop flicking over the lines on the page, she folds the note back up with her free hand and passes it out toward me.
Our hands touch as I take it from her and put it back in my pocket and the jolt I experience, it makes all of this perfect. After spending the last three weeks attempting to navigate through the sea of confusion I felt when I walked into Ms. Taylor’s class that first day, wanting nothing more than to do the right thing by this girl that just got to me in ways no one else had been able to, I’ve been dying for things to be this right.
“Do you mean it?” she asks, my heart jumping at the sound.
“Every word of it.”
“What is all of this?” she asks motioning up toward the trees and the ground around the rock that I still think of as ours. It’s only when her eyes seem to lock on what’s resting on top of the rock that they go wide. “More spray paint?”
Despite the seriousness of the moment, the way she questions me about the spray paint reminds me of the first time we came here and she eyed the can suspiciously. Unable to hold back, I laugh and her head swivels back toward me, her eyes lighting up, catching me in the act though I’m pretty she didn’t hear me.
“Yes, more spray paint, but we’ll get to that. First, I need to say something and I really need you to hear me.”
Her eyes lower, but before she can take my words the wrong way, I reach out, resting my fingers against her chin which makes her lift them back up to me. There is nothing wrong about what I said and I’m about to show her why.
“I love you Cadence.” I say, but at the same time even though I’m painstakingly slow at it, I make my hands repeat the words. It’s only when she catches on to what I’m doing, her eyes darting from my lips down to where my hands are signing the words to her that I know I’ve hit my mark.
As the tears begin to pool in the corner of her eyes, I silently thank Isabelle and whatever god I can for being able to have this moment right now. Her reaction to the small attempt I’ve made at understanding her, adapting to her needs, it’s everything.
“Why didn’t you just sign the words?”
When I decided that learning how to sign was going to be my first step in starting over with her, Isabelle asked me the same thing. I insisted on learning the individual letters and at the time, I never gave her an explanation for it because it wasn’t any of her business. The only one t
he explanation matters for is the girl standing here now.
“Coach told me once, when I was too busy screwing around to pay attention that the only way he could get through to me, make me hear him was to spell everything out. I wanted you to hear me.”
If I thought the growing pool of water in her eyes couldn’t get worse, I was in for a rude awakening. No sooner do I say the words then I notice the tears begin to fall from her eyes. Before I can reach out to her, make them stop she puts her hand up between us.
“Happy tears.”
Nodding, I step toward her, fully prepared to push her hand out of the way if I need to if it means I can have this girl in my arms. It feels like forever since I’ve touched her even though it’s only been a few minutes and if I don’t do something soon to end it, I’m going to go out of my mind.
“All this time I wanted you to hear me, but it was me that wasn’t listening. You’ve heard me this entire time because you heard me here.” She says as she reaches out and rests her hand over my heart. “Thank you for hearing me.”
This girl—she’s exactly the way Kayden says she is. She’s the one that helped me, the one that made me realize that I’m better than the way I’ve been for the last six years and she’s here now, thanking me when the reality is she has nothing to thank me for.
Moving my hands again and watching as her eyes lock on them, I spell the same words out again, for no other reason than I don’t want to spend another second of this moment together not letting her know how I feel. I ran from it, denied it, fought like hell against it for three weeks and I’m done.
I’m head over heels for Cadence Taylor and I’ll repeat it as many times as I have to so that she never spends another second doubting it. I’m the person I am now, the one standing here signing because of her believing in me. I might have thought I was the strong one, the fighter, but the truth is, it was never me at all.
It’s always been her. She’s the real fighter.
“It’s my turn.” She says slowly, focusing my attention back on her and whatever she’s about to say next. This is the moment of truth, this is where everything changes, this time for keeps.
Her hands move first and even though it’s short, I’m pretty sure I know what she said. It’s now that what she said earlier, about me hearing her in my heart becomes true. It’s the three words she signs to me before I grab her and pull her into my arms that make every single bit of what we’ve gone through worth it.
“What was that last word?” I ask, remembering the full sign for I love you from my research on the internet and knowing that it wasn’t a part of it.
“Your name means loyal so—”
“So that means…”
She smiles at me and I’m completely undone at the sight of it. The way she looks right now, her eyes shining under the lights above us, I wanna freeze time and keep her this way forever. Her hands lift and her lips part at the same time and just like before, she stops my heart as she signs her feelings to me, loud and clear.
“It means I love you, Dillon.”
Cadence
When Dillon signed to me, my heart, I’m pretty sure it stopped beating in my chest. It kicks in again and releasing the hitched breath I’d been holding, I steady myself from the impact that small gesture has on me and then it happens again.
Explaining to me why he signed out the letters, his memory of what his coach told him; the impact the words had in bringing him to the moment we’re in now, I’m completely altered by it. To some people, it might not have been the most romantic thing to say, but for him, knowing him the way I do, other than the way it felt seeing him sign I love you, there is nothing in the world that has ever sounded sweeter.
I don’t need to hear the sound of his voice, his tone or even the words that he says because no matter what he says, I can feel them. The way his heart seems to have been hearing me all this time, it seems like mine has been doing the same and it’s something that I never want to lose.
The way I felt on the dance floor when he had his arms around me, I feel as he wraps them around me again, his head resting on the side of mine, the feel of his even breaths on my ear. Being with Dillon Murphy, I’m starting to learn, is a full body experience. He’s given me the ability to hear him because of all the ways I can feel him, the most important being the effect he has on my heart.
Pulling back just enough to be able to bring my face up in perfect unison to his, he leans in and his lips brush against mine and in that moment, the world around us, the lights in the trees, the blowing of the breeze, the dance taking place only a few minutes away, it all fades away and the only thing left is us and the all-consuming feeling that comes along with being so completely owned by another person.
It’s only when we break away from the kiss that I remember the only other thing left that he needs to explain.
“Spray paint?”
He smiles and points to the bike trail that spans out for a distance both behind and in front of us.
“We might end up getting in trouble for this one because it’s a bit bigger than the rock, but do you remember what I said to you the day I asked you out?” When I nod, he continues. “Well, we’re gonna leave our mark on the trail. A variation of those words for the world to see.”
“You want the world to know?”
“Yes, Caddy. I want the world to know how I feel about you, but I’m not doing this for everyone else. I’m doing it for the only person that I want to be a part of my world.”
“Me?”
“Yes, you.”
An hour later, my dress filled with as much of the paint as the ground in front of me, Dillon’s jacket having been ditched for the same reason, that’s exactly what happens. Before us now, are the only words left to say. Words that we want the entire world to hear.
This is the beginning of something that has no end <3
(Read on for Dillon’s letter to Cadence)
Dillon’s Letter
Cadence,
I never got the chance during our time together to really start from the beginning, so I’m going to write all of this to you now so that when you show up tonight, we can really start again.
I wasn’t always such a mess. I didn’t always pick on people I thought were weaker than me and I definitely wasn’t always so angry and full of hate.
Until you came into my life three weeks ago, I can only remember loving one person and she passed away a long time ago. I used to think that my dad and the fighting turned me into the person you’ve heard about and seen, but it wasn’t. The day my grandma died, the way I used to be, I turned it off. I was eight years old and the one person in the entire world that I gave a damn about was taken from me.
She died naturally in her sleep, but all I could see back then was that when you love someone, they’re destined to be ripped away from you. I shut my feelings off then, thinking that as long as I didn’t feel nothing could get to me and when my family imploded a couple years later, taking me down with it, I just rode the wave and became the person you met when you showed up at Wexfield.
I’m the one that made the decision to change after she died and then, when my dad started hounding me about the weak versus strong stuff, I accepted it as fact because it made the most sense. Only the weak feel things; cry, care and love. It became my mission from that point on to make sure that every single one of them I came across, I put the fear of god into. I wanted them to know that the way they were, timid and weak was wrong and that the way I am, it was the way to be.
Cadence, I was so wrong. I hurt so many people and no matter what I do now, where I go, I’m never going to completely make up for any of it, but I swear to you, I’m not going to stop trying to. Hurting people, no matter if they have disabilities or not is wrong. The way I’ve been living for the last ten years, it needs to stop and this is my last ditch attempt at doing something about it. Changing it and fixing it.
You didn’t change me. I put too much pressure on you when I said that I wanted to be
better for you, but you did play a big part in me wanting to change. You showed me just in being you that the way I’ve been doing things is wrong and that the way my life was going, isn’t right for me. You didn’t make me change, I did that all on my own, but you did shine a light on something I’ve spent way too much time running from.
Your mom told me the other day that when you care about someone, you don’t give up. You don’t stop trying and even though I said this is my last ditch attempt at changing it, I lied. No matter where we go, ours is a beginning that will never have an end because I won’t give up no matter how many times you turn me away. I will keep trying because that’s what love is.
Love, it’s about more than just the times when things are picture perfect. It’s about continuing to do it when they aren’t. It’s continuing to fight when there doesn’t seem to be anything left to fight for.
For all the time I’ve spent fighting, I’ve never done it for the right reasons. I want to do that now. I want to fight and this time, fight for the one thing that matters the most to me. I want to fight for the light when things get dark; for the smile when all I want to do is cry. I want to stand my ground and for the first time since my grandma died, fight for what’s right.
I want to fight for you, for us and most of all, for love.
You’re not the only one that’s spent their life living in a world with no sound. The difference is, the reason it happened to me is because nothing until now has been worth hearing. That all changed the day I walked into your mom’s class. Now my world is filled with sound and it’s the best sound. It’s a sound I never want to lose now that I’ve found it.
If you look up at me now, you’ll see it.
You’re the only sound I hear and you always will be.
Dillon
The End
Hear Me Now Playlist
Hear Me Now Page 25