AN: Thank you Aralinn, Madame La Dauphine and especially party4siempre for the reviews! They really mean a lot to me.

Physically of course I was perfectly fine. I tend to have little falls and bumps like that now and again from running into people or walls. I get distracted by thoughts occasionally or, like in this case, conversations with Kelly.

Mentally though, I wasn’t so OK. I was very much in awe at Wes who was still staring down at me with concerned hazel eyes. My head was swimming with his voice, how velvet and nice it felt in my ears and in my mind. I wondered if everyone’s voice felt this deliciously wonderful. Before I was so shocked by it I didn’t even realize how it could make me turn to rubber.

I started mouthing words trying to fine the right ones. I’m all right, or yes I’m fine, but I found I couldn't find my voice. Not a huge surprise, I don’t use it much because though I can sort of hear it in my head I don’t exactly know what it sounds like. It causes me to be a little self conscious, I could sound like an idiot for all I knew.

Wes laughed a little nervously at my staring opened mouthed expression. He turned to Kelly for a little support, and her mind was crashed with thousands of excuses of why I was acting so odd. She ended up explaining to him that I was deaf. I pushed myself off the ground finally ignoring Wes’ still stretched out hand. He stood straight, shoving his hands in his pockets.

“Oh god, I didn’t know. Could you tell her I’m sorry for running into her like that?” Wes asked a little sheepishly. I was still amazed by the fact that I couldn’t get enough of him talking. He could be going on and on about economics in South America and I’d be tremendously enthralled in every word he said.

Kelly was in the process of telling me what he said while he waited, when I managed to get something out of my voice. My first word spoken in almost two years, last time I yelled out a very bad word after touching an awfully hot stove. This time I said an even odder thing.

“Incredible.” I almost whispered while watching Wes. Kelly wasn’t even finished telling me what Wes had said when I muttered this. Wes looked back almost worried. He thought he had offended me.

The bell rang, he cursed.

“I’ve got to get to class, hey,” he turned to Kelly “thanks for your help.” Then turning to me practically yelled “Sorry!” before running in the doors. He used a common misconception that yelling will help those who are deaf hear you.

My ears were still happily ringing from Wes’ close encounter shout as we walked into the school after him. Kelly bombarded me with all sorts of questions of if I heard his voice again or why I acted so weird. I answered best I could while I was in my comfortable state of bliss.

I found that I couldn’t go a day without hearing Wes’ voice. Sad to say I almost turned stalker like. Crazy I know, crazier then the fact I can hear thoughts, or the fact that the only thing to ever reach my ears in my seventeen years of life was this boy’s voice.

At lunch I made Kelly and Jeff sit with me at table very close to his own. Wes always sat with the same boys; all of them were some sorts of sports player. Lacrosse, hockey, soccer, and baseball players all together at one table. It was always packed, and usually had girls flapping their lips about nothing surrounding them.

It was odd to hear his voice in a crowd of thoughts like the lunchroom. It was usual to be always hearing a dull roar, but now with Wes there’d be an occasional lucid voice speaking in soft deep tones about various subjects.

“I don’t believe you! No way can that be true!”

“Sure.”

“Think I’d be any good?”

It turned insane how I would hang onto every word. I could tell Kelly was a little weirded out by my behavior toward Wes, but she tried to understand my need for it. Jeff on the other hand, he was beyond creeped out. He was annoyed that I paid little attention to either of them during lunch because of the great opportunity to be near him.

In the halls between classes I would sneak around, straining my ears for Wes’ refreshingly deep voice. Occasionally I would hear a peep or two here and there, mostly it was just a blur of thoughts before next class.

I couldn’t figure out how to quit this ridiculous addiction.

After about a week of stalking Wes, Kelly came over to my house and we played Monopoly. I just passed go when I looked up and Kelly asked me if I liked Wes. I found that to be an odd question, I hardly knew the guy.

I told her this but she retorted back that I knew more then I thought.

‘Think about it,’ she thought while rolling the dice, ‘you’ve been ease dropping into his conversations for more then a week, you must know quite a bit about him.’

I did think about it for a moment and found that in my giant file cabinet of a brain, file labeled Wesley Barker, was filled quite a bit. For one thing I knew his full name. That, for one, was a giant leap from barely knowing his face.

I also knew he moved from Michigan. He enjoyed watching hockey more then playing it (can’t ice skate very well). Favorite food, like mine, was French fries, and unlike what others thought, Wes has never been to jail.

I reluctantly agreed to Kelly that, OK I did know a lot about Wes, more then what he knew about me. He seemed to be a very nice guy to me, and sure, I’d say I liked him.

Kelly gave me a look. That’s not what she meant she told me. I asked her what she did mean while picking a chance card.

‘I was wondering if you had a crush on him.’

I almost started laughing.

Kelly knows I don’t really have crushes on boys like she did. I think my mind trained me to not even have a desire to have a crush after getting hurt by many boys subconsciously.

Instead of laughing at Kelly I just told her of course not. She raised her bleach blonde eyebrow at me skeptically before turning back to monopoly.

I could feel someone slam the front door closed and soon saw my mother walk in with her brief case in hand.

My mom owned her own little salon down the street from the school. She carried around the brief case mainly because she thought she looked more professional with it.

She kissed my head and asked how my day was.

I gave her the generic great and flashed a smile. She smiled back and turned to the kitchen to start dinner. My mother isn’t the best cook, but she tries really hard. She buys all sorts of cooking books trying to figure out the secret to being a good cook, and she’s picked up a few tips from it, but still is no where near a master chief.

Kelly and I continued our game. She told me her worries of Jeff not asking her to the dance that was coming in a few weeks. I let her I was almost positive he was and that he was falling head over heals for her.

And he was, Jeff had all sorts of adorably sweet thoughts about Kelly, almost identical to the ones Kelly had about Jeff. Only, Jeff’s thoughts were a little more, well, graphic if you know what I mean. Distrusting for me at some points, I mean I can hardly stand some of Kelly’s chick flicks! I really have to tune him out when Kelly is wearing something especially adorable.

By the end of the night, Kelly won Monopoly again.

The next day at school I was actually a little zoned out while walking to class. I couldn’t sleep that night, I had a lot of weird dreams involving skulls and Wes continuously asking for a pencil, even though dream me didn’t have one.

I was mentally chewing on the possible meaning of this dream (Kelly and I would analyze dreams on occasion) when I bummed shoulders with someone. I staggered back and almost fell back from the force. Luckily the person who I bumped into grabbed my arm to steady me. That’s when I realized I wasn’t so lucky to be caught.

When Wes reached out and touched the bare skin of my arm, I got caught in a wave of voices that surrounded me.

Then I fell.