They Said I Was Lying, They Forgot I Couldn’t Speak Chapter 02

They Said I Was Lying, They Forgot I Couldn’t Speak Chapter 02

Someone nearby snickered.

Heat flooded my face. Helplessly, I looked to my parents for support, but Dad immediately turned on me.

“Are you ever going to stop? It’s Derek’s birthday, and you’re standing here making those embarrassing noises and causing a scene.”

Mom looked at me with the same disappointment.

“I raised both you and Sienna to carry yourselves with confidence. Your sister has a disability and still manages just fine, so why do you, a perfectly healthy person, insist on playing the victim?”

“Tessa, you disappoint me.”

Their accusations beat me down until I lowered my head again.

Of course. When we were little, Sienna once got so angry about not being able to hear that she smashed things around the house.

When the adults came running at the noise, the only explanation they could hear was hers.

“Tessa did it! She was making fun of me because I can’t hear.”

“Mom, Dad, am I really never going to be able to hear?”

Her voice was soft, sweet, and plaintive.

When everyone turned to me, all I could produce was an ugly, hoarse rasp. To them, the fact that I couldn’t defend myself only made me look guilty.

So what exactly had I been hoping for? Hadn’t they always believed whichever version they could hear?

I shoved the gift into Derek’s hands and turned to leave.

He frowned and started after me, but my parents stopped him.

“This is what she always does when she knows she’s in the wrong. She runs away.”

“It’s your birthday. We’re supposed to be celebrating. Stop coddling her.”

“She did the same thing as a kid. We took Sienna to the hospital without her once, and Tessa threw a fit and ran away from home.”

“None of us even went looking for her. She came crawling back on her own eventually.”

I waited outside the private dining room for ten minutes.

Derek never came.

I suddenly felt ridiculous for expecting him to.

After a moment, I pulled out my phone and submitted an international assignment request.

My department director had once mentioned that a doctor friend of his in Germany specialized in speech and hearing disorders. If I took the assignment on the project there, I could keep working while getting treatment.

Derek had been convinced that going overseas was too dangerous and insisted I stay, so I’d let the idea go.

Not anymore.

I hit Send without hesitation.

Goodbye.

It was time to find my own voice.

On the cab ride home, my director approved the request almost immediately.

My director: [I figured you’d come to me about this any day now, so I got the paperwork ready ahead of time.]

My director: [You could be on a flight as early as tomorrow night. They need someone on that project right away, so get packed as soon as you can.]

I stared at the messages, confused. I’d only decided to apply an hour ago.

My director replied: [Derek didn’t tell you?]

My director: [He came to me out of nowhere last month asking about that doctor friend of mine. He even asked what treatment might cost.]

My director: [He seemed serious about it, so I gave him my friend’s contact information.]

My stomach dropped as I read the messages.

Last month was when I’d brought Derek home to meet my family for the first time.

An unsettling possibility surfaced in my mind.

I opened my chat with Derek, meaning to see if I could confirm it, but instead I noticed a video he’d posted in our department’s Slack channel.

Derek, the birthday boy, stood in the middle of a crowd making his wish. Beside him, Sienna was singing sweetly.

Coworkers filled the channel with birthday messages.

[Happy birthday, Derek!]

Then someone recognized the woman who looked exactly like me.