Notes

Your signing improves, to the point where you’re almost as fluent as Luke but all throughout your, now almost year long, relationship you have been avoiding one question, so when the day eventually arrives where, while out grocery shopping, Luke signs ‘what about your parents?’ you freeze.

"What shall we have for dinner tonight?" you ask, coughing, trying to look past the question.

He taps your shoulder and signs ‘answer the question’.

You’ve already met Luke’s parents, Liz and Andrew, they were great, they came over to visit Luke, see how he was getting on, and so did his brothers, Jack and Ben. The whole Hemmings family were wonderful, Luke introduced you and from the beginning they treated you like one of their own but you’d never talked about your own person.

He widens his eyes and signs again ‘answer’. You reply with the sign ‘I don’t want to’ and walk off. He chases after you and stands in front of you before signing ‘You love me right?’. You nod. ‘And I love you, so anything you tell me I won’t judge or question. Please?’

You sigh, “Wait until we get home”

A smile spreads across his face, not because you’re going to answer his question but because recently you’ve moved in with Luke, into his apartment, a studio, fairly cheap with metal stairs leading up to the front door and rustic brick walls. What’s making him smile is the fact that over the past week or so you’ve started calling it home.

Once you’ve unpacked all of the food shopping you find Luke sitting on the bed waiting for you and he pats the bed next to him. You smile a bit and sit down next to him before the two of you lie back, half off half on the bed like every other deep conversation you’ve had with him. You look to the side and see him sign ‘okay explain’.

"Right, to put it short, I don’t like to talk about my parents," you say looking at the ceiling.

Now that you’re not looking at him he does something that the two of you have done a million times before when you’re having these ‘lying on the bed’ conversations and writes in the air ‘W-H-Y’

"Because… they made my childhood hell," you say.

He doesn’t respond but when you look to the side his gleaming blue eyes are staring back at you so you know you need to continue.

"They work as psychiatrists so they dissected anything and everything someone does, any friend I brought home suddenly became a prisoner being interrogated. I confronted them about it a couple of times but they never changed so as soon as I could I left and practically cut them off," you explain, your face falling blank and a wave of sadness running over you.

He sits up and you look at him as he communicates ‘I want to meet them’.

You prop yourself up on your elbows and ask, “Why?”

'Maybe I could help' he responds. You smile and nod.

A week or so later after your last lecture of the week Luke shows up outside the door ready to drive with you to visit your parents for the first time in at least 3 years.

You sit in the drivers seat letting your fingers tap against the steering wheel.

Luke taps on your shoulder and asks ‘Nervous?’ And you nod as he responds ‘Don’t be’.

The drive is long, you moved quite a way from your parents house but the whole way there you blast music, of course letting Luke be the DJ as you’re afraid he may judge your sometimes abstract music taste but to every song you sing your heart out while he watches you with a beaming smile.

"Have you ever wanted to sing along?" you ask.

He nods sadly.

"Sorry," you reply. "I can tell you’d have a wonderful voice"

He smiles.

When you arrive at your old family country house and you’re visibly shaking.

Luke signs ‘Shall I go first?’ You shake your head and get out of the car.

The first thing your mum says when she opens the door is, “Ah, she’s chewing her lip, she’s nervous”

You sigh loudly, “Mum, I’ve not even been here 5 minutes”

Luke grips your hand as your dad appears at the door.

"Oh, this must be the one you told us about," he smiles shaking his hand.

Luke nods as a hello.

"Firm handshake, he’s a keeper, bit quiet though, come in come in," he says.

As you walk inside, Luke signs ‘maybe you should tell them’ with a small silent laugh.

Your family were always quite odd but you just accept it.

"Dad’s made some sandwiches," your mum says, "Let’s go through to the lounge"

When your dad arrives in the room he asks Luke, “So what do you do in school?”

Luke nudges you and you say, “Actually, Luke is mute…”

"Oh, okay," your mum says before signing the question.

You watch Luke then communicate ‘you sign?’ and your mum replies ‘comes hand in hand with my job’.

The communication is silent and it’s so much better than any other conversation you’ve had with your parents which is a weird thought but it’s probably something to do with how they can’t analyse your every move through sign language.

When you leave you’re happy, not just because you’ve established an new connection with your parents but because they seemed to approve of Luke.

On the car ride home ‘I Miss You’ by Blink comes on and you watch out of the corner of your eye as Luke closes his eyes and sign along with the lyrics, trying to be discreet about it. You slowly begin to sing along and afterwards you feel Luke’s hand on yours.

Getting home you immediately collapse on the bed and murmur, “I’m emotionally drained”

Luke then stretches his arms out and flops down on top of you making you groan which makes him laugh.

"Love you," you kiss his nose and he hugs you.

When you sit up so does he and you lean against the wall at the top of your bed and reach for the pile of 3 or 4 notepads on your bedside table. The books are filled with all of your old notes, they went out of use when you became better at signing but they’re still nice to look back on which is why you keep them next to your bed.

Luke often has nightmares so when that happens it’s good to flick through the books to comfort him.

You flick to a page and find the page that he was writing on during a lecture apparently. Covering the page in tonnes of different writing and different colours are the words ‘I love you’ which he then showed to you immediately after the lecture. You turn it to him and he nods. You smile at him and he buries his face in your neck kissing the a line down your collar bone and in that position you drift off to sleep.

—————————————