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It's been three days since she arrived, and Regan has gotten a little bit used to the Home. She stays out of it as long as she can, all the same, so she doesn't have to worry about trying to interact with her Hearing roommates. It isn't that she thinks they're bad people. It's just . . . a lot. Another reminder that she's not like them. That she's Other.

So, she wakes up early and heads out, and she stays out all day, until just before curfew, and heads back in. She does that every day, now, and maybe it's a little cowardly, but she's also giving herself time to get used to the city proper, using the map Greta showed her and marking things of interest on it as she goes.

She's marked the cat cafe down, and that really cool tinker's shop.

She's set to start school next Monday. It would have been sooner, but she requested an extra week. Part of it is because she's nervous. She'll have an interpreter, but it's been so long since she's been in school. What if she's behind her peers?

She doesn't want to think about it. Instead, Regan heads towards the park, wearing her new winter boots that Greta helped her buy. She swings by an Ahab's and grabs herself a hot cocoa with espresso in it, and ends up adding extra sugar to sweeten it back up. The park is a nice place, and she gets to see all sorts of different things and people here.

Even if she's just killing time until curfew.

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Regan recognizes the boy from the Home, though she doesn't know his name. She doesn't know almost anyone's names, there, and part of her thinks maybe she should change that.

When he waves, she waves, too, with a small smile. He gets a bit closer, so Regan pulls her notebook out of her backpack, which she still carries pretty much everywhere, and writes something down.

I can't hear. My name is Regan.

She turns it towards him when he's close enough to actually see it, hoping to nip any awkward, one-sided conversations in the bud.

I peered at the notebook before I smiled and nodded, then turned around my own backpack so I could take out the notebook I often used for drawing or my own personal notes instead of just my schoolwork.

Flipping to a fresh page, I wrote, My name is Jamie. The worker at the Home told us you can't hear. Can you read lips?

I was still keeping myself from asking all the questions I wanted to ask, but I thought that was one pretty important. I wondered if she used sign language, then thought it was very likely. Then I wondered how difficult it would be to learn. It must be a little lonely, I thought, not really being able to talk to anyone except through writing.

She reads the message with a small smile. At least people are spreading the word about her deafness. She tries not to think about 'if she were Hearing', and lowers her pencil to her paper.

Reading lips is tricky. I can catch some words but everyone has different mouths and ways of speaking. American Sign Language is easier because if it has any dialectal changes they're pretty easy to figure out.

She looks up at him, then hesitates and adds, Can you sign? It doesn't seem likely if he hasn't yet, but it doesn't hurt to ask, she thinks.

I shook my head, but I was still smiling and I bent over my notebook to write, Is it very difficult to learn? I loved learning and even though I wasn't always happy to be sitting in a desk at school -- I got very restless some days and couldn't wait for gym class -- I was happy to be there.

Learning another language seemed daunting, but it would be nice for Regan if she could communicate with people somehow other than writing. And there were no Many-Eyed to kill here, no pirates to fight. A different sort of challenge would be just the thing.

Are there books to teach me? I added.

The fact that he's asked is enough to light up Regan's face. She has to force herself to calm down so she doesn't overwhelm him with enthusiasm. As it is, she writes furiously for several minutes before showing him the page.

The hardest part for a Hearing person is the facial expressions and body language, she's written. Basics signs are easy to remember, but if you just use basic signs, it's like talking in baby talk? Facial expressions and your body can change a phrase. Like 'Can we go to the mall?' is just 'We go mall' until you put a question in your eyebrows or something. Does that make sense?

Also, there's an alphabet you can sign with, too, and it's slower, but it's good for things you don't know the sign for, or especially for names. My name is Regan. When you get to that part, point at the page, and I'll sign my name for you. Names also get shortened to a single sign, or a combo sign. I'll show you that, too.

I read everything she had written, going all the way to end the so I understood everything before I pointed at her name and looked up eagerly. I was excited to see how she signed her name, what it looked like.

The rest of it made sense to me, what she was saying about things having different meanings due to facial cues. It made all the difference for us, too, people who could hear, so it made sense to me that it would make a difference for her.

Regan waits for him to finish reading and for him to look up, and she signs her name. She takes it slow, and signs it more than once, so he can see how the letters on the page relate to the shapes her fingers make. It feels special, and important, that someone wants to learn, to make her life easier. She's spent so long with just her family, she'd forgotten how good the world could be.

I watched carefully as she signed, paid close attention to the shapes her fingers made and tried to identify each one. Two of the letters in our names were the same, so I paid particularly close attention to the E and the A.

Then I picked up my pen again and wrote, Can you show me how to sign my name?

It was a small thing to start with, we would hardly be able to have a conversation that way, but it was still a start. I would get a book as soon as I was able, I had already decided.

She smiles. "Yes," she replies, and adjusts how she's sitting so she's facing him more. "Jamie. J-A-M-I-E." She runs through it a couple of times, especially since the J isn't a hand shape, but a hand motion. "My name is Regan," she adds. "Your name is Jamie."

I watched carefully, paying attention to the shapes her hands made as she signed my name. Then I watched as she spelled her name again, adding something to it that I thought was maybe part of a full introduction.

It was probably too much for me right off, but I made the effort anyway, fumbling a little with the introduction. The letters of my name, though, I was pretty sure I got them right. I grinned at Regan, hoping for the best.

"Very good!" she praises. That he's trying at all is huge, honestly, but he'd done pretty alright, too, for a beginner. But she returns to the page and pencil so she can make sure they're more understood.

Not bad for a first try. That longer sign I showed you was 'My name is/Your name is' and our names. 'Name' is when you tap two fingers against two fingers, twice, like I did.

I read her words, then tapped two fingers against my other two fingers twice, following her example. It was only one word and a simple one at that, but it was still one more word than I had known ten minutes ago.

I couldn't expect Regan to teach me everything and I knew that, but it was still nice, knowing that if I got a book at the library, she would be able to tell me if I was doing things properly.

I bet it takes as long to learn as any other language, I wrote. It'll be like you're talking to a baby for awhile, I think. But I was smiling as I wrote it. I was excited by the possibility of learning.

She smiles. Don't worry. Once you start getting the facial cues, you'll be a master. If it helps you, a lot of Hearing people will say what they sign as they sign it. I think it kind of helps them to remember the sign they want to use. She shrugs as she turns the page back to face him. She can't really know if that's why, for sure. Her parents and her brothers didn't mouth the words — usually.

That made sense, too, and it was something I would try to remember. Saying the words as I signed them. Regan had all kinds of ideas for me to learn and I appreciated them all and I hoped I could actually come through with something that would make it a little easier for her to speak with me. Writing was fine, we were able to communicate, but it took a lot longer than it would if I were able to sign like she could.

They'll have to hire someone at the Home who knows sign language, won't they? I wrote. It wouldn't be safe if she couldn't communicate with any of the workers. Do any of them know it already?

I think one of them does. I can't remember which one, though. She looks a bit bashful once she's written that down. One would think one would remember someone who shares her language, right? It's mostly because she'd ignored as much of the conversations as she could once she'd gone inside. She'd just wanted to hide away.

It's different, now. It isn't terrible, here.

I'll try to ask when I get home. Maybe they can help you learn, too.

I hoped one of them already knew, because it meant there would be one more person around for me to practice with and also they could correct me out loud if they had to. The more I thought about it, the more excited I was by the possibility of learning. I loved to learn and Darrow offered me so much more in that regard than the Island ever had. Peter wanted me to be a very specific thing, he wanted me to be his Jamie and his alone, but here I was able to be so much more.e

He would hate it if I knew how to communicate with Regan and he didn't, which made it more appealing still.

I hope so, I wrote. Are you having an ok time settling in? I know it can be difficult.

She smiles as she reads what he's written. He's sweet, she's realizing. They could probably be good friends.

I think so. It's all really weird. Scary sometimes. But good, too. She'd missed the freedom of a world not shrouded in terror, more than she'd realized before coming here.

I nodded in understanding, because I had felt that way, too, and often still did feel that way about Darrow. It was so odd, the way things worked here, but I preferred it to being on the Island with Peter.

I found it scary at first, too, I wrote. But the kids in the Home are mostly terribly nice and if anyone is rude to you at school, just punch them once really hard. They tend to leave you alone after that. I smiled as I showed her what I had written, as if I was telling a joke, but I really did mean it. Punching bullies once, showing them you were strong, that tended to get them off your back for the most part.

Regan breathes a little laugh when she reads that. I don't think I'll be punching anyone. I'll probably just ignore them. That'd always worked on bullies at her old school, but then again, ignoring a Deaf kid was as easy as closing your eyes. It probably wouldn't be as easy in a Hearing school. She'd have an interpreter, so maybe traveling in constant pairs, and with an adult, no less, would be helpful.

I wasn't very good at ignoring them. When it came to myself, it wasn't as hard, because none of the bullies were creative enough to come up with anything worse than what Peter had done to me. I had already lived with the worst possible bully in the world and I had survived. Maybe with a few scars, but still, I was here and I was happy and Peter wasn't.

But when it came to the other kids, I had a much harder time ignoring their bad behaviour. Still, I knew it was a strange thing, offering to hit someone for a person I'd only just met.

So I only wrote, That's smart. Less trouble that way. The workers at the Home don't like when I fight.

Most adults don't, she writes in agreement. She can remember when she and Marcus used to get into squabbles. They never really fought, not the out-and-out brawls like some siblings got into, but they had their share of bickering, and her parents had hated it.

She doesn't know why she doesn't share that with Jamie, but she doesn't. Instead, she writes, Do you like it at the Home okay? She'd like to know what she's getting into, in the long run. Maybe she can squat in Greta's garage, or something.

I nodded, smiling, then wrote quickly in my notebook. It's not perfect, but I like it a lot. I get to be close to my friends and I get to be in the same room as my boyfriend, Eddie. (Don't tell the workers he's my boyfriend, they might make me move rooms.)

I had called him my boyfriend before, but there was something about seeing it in writing that made my smile grow even further.

I didn't have anyone back home. No family. It's nice to be around the people who love me here.

Regan can't help a little smile at that. I won't tell anyone, promise. That's really awesome, though. It doesn't bother her, even for a moment, that Jamie has a boyfriend. He seems to be a sweetheart, and he deserves to be happy, and if his boyfriend Eddie makes him happy, then good. Might want to erase that, though, so nobody finds this and then finds out.

She was right about that and I laughed, scratching out the bit I'd written about Eddie, even though I still liked seeing his name beside the word boyfriend. I could write it again if I wanted to. Whenever I wanted to.

It really isn't so bad, I wrote. But I also don't have anyone to miss. It might be a little harder, if you're missing your family.

I understood that, even if I didn't have a family who might miss me in return.

I'm sorry to hear that, Regan writes down. I guess it's hard. You really don't have anyone where you're from? It's a hard question to even ask, let alone answer, but Regan doesn't take it back.

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