negative_feedback | (no subject)

Entry tags:

(no subject)

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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

The paper is a surprise, but as she reads it, it becomes plain that it's a welcome one. Regan had recognized the girl, but she'd sort of pretended not to see her. After reading the message, though, and the deliberation that had clearly been behind it, she feels a little bad for that.

Regan grabs her pencil, then beneath Rosie's message, writes her own.

Hi Rosie. I'm Regan. This is a good way to say hello if you don't know how to sign. I'm sort of glad that I don't have to explain that I'm deaf and that I can't read lips. It's hard to say that, and makes me feel isolated.

Would you like to sit down?

It's a relief when Regan starts writing her own message back. Rosie smiles, glad she'd gotten that part right at least. When she reads the other girl's response, she tries to do so a little more actively, maybe, than she might have otherwise; nodding along as she might have if they were speaking, frowning a little in sympathy when she gets to the part about feeling isolated. It's not the same at all, but it reminds her of how difficult it had been to communicate in Anterwold, how she'd struggled to understand what was being said and make herself understood in turn. At least she'd been able to hear them, even if at first it had sounded like nothing more than bits of so many languages run through a mangle.

She nods again, more decisively, in answer to the question before she starts writing a longer response.

Yes, I would. I need to get my bookbag and things from where I was sitting, but I was just over by the window, so it's not as though I have to go very far. Rosie pauses, breathing out an embarrassed laugh. The cafe was only so big; it isn't as though either of them had been sitting in Siberia. Before turning the paper around, she adds another line.

I'm sorry I don't know how to sign--is it easy to learn?

Regan smiles as she reads the message, and gives Rosie time to gather her things while she writes her own.

You don't have to apologize for not knowing how to sign. Most Hearing people don't, I think, unless they have a family member, or job as an interpreter. It's pretty easy to learn, though. The trickiest part, I think, is remembering to use facial expressions, because expressions can change some signs from meaning one word to meaning another word. I'm going to have an interpreter when I go to school. It'll be my first time mainstreaming in a public school instead of a Deaf school. Maybe, if we both go to the same school, we can try to set up a language club for ASL?

She debates erasing that last sentence. It's a self-preservation thing, mainly. She doesn't want to get her hopes up that Rosie might be her friend, only for them to end up hating each other for some reason. Maybe Rosie will think her nose is stupid, or her hair is ugly.

But Regan takes a bracing breath and turns the page to face the other girl once she's seated across from her. No going back now. Besides, she could use a friend here.

Once she sees Regan start to write again, Rosie walks back to her old table, picking up her bag and scooping her notebooks and French textbook under one arm. She tries to ignore the feeling she's done something thoughtless, essentially walking away in the middle of their conversation. No matter that Regan had given her permission, of a sort, or that the circumstances of their communication meant that it was less strange to get up and do something while the other girl wrote, instead of sitting there just watching her put pencil to paper.

Still, Regan doesn't look unhappy, once Rosie's returned to their table, which is an encouraging sign. Hesitant, maybe; reading over whatever she'd written, letting out a sigh before turning the paper back, but not angry or upset by any accidental rudeness Rosie might have shown. She reads over the short paragraph, a bright, pleased smile crossing her face when she gets to the question at the end.

Yes! I go to Petros High, so if you enroll there we should definitely start a language club, she writes. And if Regan decides on Darrow High instead, she just might look to see if Petros already has a sign language group anyway. Wherever you go, it's good you'll have an interpreter. Were all the schools where you're from schools for the deaf? I never saw any in Oxford, where I'm from--it was all just

Rosie pauses just before she finishes that sentence with normal schools, realizing just in time how that might sound to the other girl. School, she writes instead--not much better, maybe, but an improvement on simply leaving the sentence unfinished.

There were Hearing schools, too. My brothers went to one. I was supposed to mainstream there but I didn't get the chance to before coming here. I do kind of wish there were a Deaf school here, but I think it'll be okay.

She doesn't tell Rosie about the creatures. Not yet, anyway. There's no need to scare her off, or make her think Regan is crazy. Maybe once they become better friends, she can ease her into it, but for now, no.

Oxford is in England, right? Do you miss it?

Though she doesn't know any more about Regan's relationship with her brothers than the other girl knows about Rosie's relationship with her own, Rosie still feels a stab of sympathy when she sees them mentioned. It's difficult to be separated from family, even family you might not miss overmuch on any given day.

Yes, in England, she writes, then stops, tapping the eraser end of her pencil against her lips and considering her answer to Regan's other question. To say no is no more honest than saying yes would be; the true answer lies somewhere in the uncertain middle.

There are some things I miss and some things I don't. I had a neighbour there who was sort of a friend and I miss him (and his cat, even though Jenkins was always a bit grouchy), and I miss having a proper cup of tea, and I miss the parks and how beautiful the university buildings are. Every so often, I even miss my old school, even though the teachers here are much nicer and my classmates aren't all girls, like it was back home. Rosie draws a little smily face next to that, a simple dash of lines, before turning the paper around again.

Regan smiles as she reads that. That makes sense, she replies. I miss home and don't at the same time, too. It's weird. That's a bit uncolorful, but it's still the truth. She's not sure how to articulate the complicated feelings she has about it all, especially with a perfect stranger, so 'weird' it is.

I'm from the midwest. United States. I'm very boring, haha. Nothing cool like England.

Rosie laughs at that, even though she knows Regan won't be able to hear it. I've never been to the midwest, or to America at all, so it sounds very cool to me. Much cooler than someplace that's just...home. When she'd thought about the adventures she might take, none of them had included the middle of America--a place she can really only picture as a lot of farms and very little glamour--but having never been there, who's to say there's not something grand about it?

I suppose it's a matter of perspective; we're interested in the places that aren't what we're used to. I suppose that means we ought to find Darrow very interesting indeed. She pauses in her writing and allows Regan to read it, punctuating her last sentence with a wry smile. Anyplace that yanked people out of their usual lives deserved a less kind descriptor than just interesting.

Once it seems as though Regan's read what she's written thus far, she picks up her pencil again, adding another few sentences. Is there a sign for wherever in the midwest you're from? The city name, or the state?

Regan likes Rosie, she decides. It's hard not to like someone who can make jokes and admit that anywhere can be cool if it's not where you're from.

There isn't really a sign for the state. Just the fingerspelling for it. I'm from Iowa, so it's... She waits until Rosie looks at her and signs it to her. But when my family and I talk about it, we use a name sign. It's... She shows that, too, so that Rosie can follow along a little better.

"Iowa," she echoes, spelling out the state name more slowly and with less grace than Regan. But she spells it, her first word in a new language, and that's a triumph all its own. She doesn't try to copy the other sign the girl shows her; something about it seems private, maybe just the fact that her now-absent family used it back wherever Regan's from. But just to have managed Iowa is enough to make her grin, bright and open, at the other girl.

Oh, that's brilliant, she writes. Thank you for showing me--wait, how do you say 'thank you'?

Regan smiles, and she signs it, rather than write it down. She also shows her 'You're welcome' to round out the little lesson.

It's so cool that you're interested in learning, she writes. I hope I don't end up overwhelming you!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only