Beneath The Skin (A College Obsession Romance) (85 page)

Make no mistake about it. My world may be silent, but it’s her song that fills every inch of space between her mouth and my patient, hungry ears. I love that woman with every damaged piece of me—both good and bad.

Now if she’d just get her sexy ass here, I could tell that to her face.

DESSIE

“We’re so fucking late,” I cry out.

“Blame it on the damn GPS. Ugh. This is such a mess,” whines Victoria.

“I
told
you to use Google Maps.”

“I know, I know. We’re basically on the right road, it’s just that it’s—”

“Bumper-to-bumper traffic.” I sulk in my seat, frustrated beyond measure. I really should have planned this whole thing better. “This is all my fault. By the time we get there, everyone will have gone home. I’m going to be singing to a table of two.”

“Dessie.” Victoria faces me importantly, taking her eyes off the road since we’re not moving at all anyway. I look at her, paying attention despite my sad eyes and pouty lip. “You can sing to a table of one for all I care. Clayton’s the only one who matters where this particular song is concerned, anyway. And he sure as hell will wait for you.”

I turn to my side, staring at Victoria. I feel my insides calming at her words. “You’re so right,” I mutter finally.

“Just you and him,” she goes on soothingly. “It doesn’t matter what time we get there. Screw everyone else.”

I smile. “You remember when we first met and had that falling out and, like, we hated each other for a month?”

“It was longer than a month, but yeah, I remember.” She smirks knowingly, looking away with a chuckle.

“I’m so glad we made up. We make much better friends than enemies.”

She nods slowly. “Agreed.”

“Even if you have terrible taste in music.” I grab the iPhone off the dash, thumbing through her Spotify for something better to jam to.

She totally lets me, maybe too tired from today’s “adventure” to care. The car moves a little, then brakes again. Moves, brakes. Moves, brakes. It becomes a steady, tortuous rhythm that genuinely makes me consider if we’ll even make it back to the
Throng
before midnight.

“So why him?”

I look up from the phone, thrown by the question. “What do you mean?”

“Why Clayton?” She shrugs, her hands hanging from the bottom of the steering wheel. “I mean, everyone and their dog warned you about him. He has anger issues. Or had. Or has. He’s got this big shady question mark of a past.”

“Not so much a question mark anymore,” I point out quietly.

“I’m certainly not trying to plant a big ol’ bag of doubt in your heart,” she adds with a sympathetic touch to my arm, “but there was just a zillion reasons to break it off and find someone else when you two first started dating and things got rocky. Why’d you stick around?” she asks, cocking her head at me. “Why him?”

I smile coyly, considering her question. Honestly, it’s something I’ve been juggling around in my mind all day. Why Clayton, indeed? Why is he the man for me? “I’ve always felt like there’s something dark and damaged about me,” I start off. “I don’t want to sound too self-deprecating, but after living a childhood in the shadow of my perfect sister Cece and the incomparable monolith of a shadow cast by my mother, I always felt like there was something wrong with me … or failed, or broken, or completely lacking. My life changed when I took the leap and came down here to Klangburg University. Clayton … He’s been misunderstood his whole life. He’s fought demons thanklessly. It’s not even about him being deaf, even if that’s a huge part of him. He doesn’t see it as a struggle, and neither do I. It’s just a quality about him, and a quality to be proud of, at that. He has brown eyes. He has brown hair. He has a laugh that lights me up, a smile that can kill, and he’s deaf. And he loves lighting up the world, and why shouldn’t he? There’s so much darkness in it. And whether I like to admit it or not, there’s darkness in me. He lights up my life.” I scoff at my own words suddenly, rolling my eyes to face Victoria. “Ugh, that was cheesy. Never let me say ‘He lights up my life’ again.”

But when my eyes meet Victoria’s, I don’t find her sharing in the cheesiness. Quite the opposite, I find her teary-eyed and touched, a hand drawn to her mouth. “Oh, Dessie,” she murmurs.

“What?” I blurt, concerned.

“You have to tell him that. All of that. That was so beautiful.” She sniffles, then wipes away a tear. “Shit, girl, you made me cry. Shit, fuck, damn. ‘Lights up my life’ … Lord, help me, if I ever found someone like that.” She wipes away another tear from the other eye, flicking it away.

“You will,” I assure her, taking her hand into mine and giving it a squeeze. “You will.”

“We’re getting you to the
Throng
in time. We’re getting you up on that stage.” She faces me importantly, her eyes shimmering with emotion. “And you’re singing him your song.”

CLAYTON

It’s two hours later that the lights suddenly dim, as if preparing for the show. I flinch because I wasn’t expecting it to start.
Where’s Dessie?
I look at my tablemates, concerned, but none of them seem to share my worries as they all focus up on the stage, which now bears the full brunt of the lights boldly shining.

And then Dessie appears. I melt at the sight of her.
I love that woman so fucking much.
She wears the red top I got her for her birthday, which flows and caresses her body in all the right places. Her hair cascades in tangles and waves around her shoulders, a coil or two resting on her beautiful breasts. Her face is angelic and smooth and beautiful. I want to toss the table over, rush up to her, and make love with her right there where she stands.

She eyes me importantly, then mouths the words, “
I love you
,” at me.

I hold up the sign right back at her—a fist with just the thumb, index finger, and pinky sticking out:
I love you
.

She takes a deep breath, her chest rising and falling, and then she starts to speak, and she signs at the same time so I know exactly what it is that she says: “
Thank you so much for coming here tonight. I know I’m late. A particular errand I had to run put quite a wrinkle in my schedule today. Thank you for your patience. I have a song that I’ve written and prepared with the help of the band, as well as my good friend Sam, that I would like to share with you. It’s a deeply personal song. And …
”

She stops, her eyes meeting mine again. She smiles, overcome with some sort of emotion that seems to boil up from within her, spilling over.

“
And
,” she resumes, both with her mouth and her hands, “
I want to dedicate this to my boyfriend, my love, my one and only. It’s called,
His Song Of Silence.”

Vibrations thrum through the room. I feel the work of a bass guitar, or perhaps the deep, bass notes on the piano. I feel the surge of music through the room and the effect it has on those at the table with me. Dessie rocks slowly to the music, dancing with the notes that swarm and flutter and push past her like a breeze.

Then she opens her eyes, presses her lips to the microphone, and she sings. Her hands join the dance, feeding me her beautiful lyrics in sign form.

And I listen.

A tree sings a song of leaves

Knows what it ought to do

Knows what it ought to be

A bird sings a song of homes

Where it ought to fly

Where its family roams

But there is another, another sound no one hears

It’s a song of silence

It’s a song of fears

And when I press my head to my lover’s chest

It’s the only song I hear

Yes, there’s another, another music no one knows

That song of silence

A song that grows

I wish I was lucky enough to hear that music

That only my lover knows

Maybe if I’m lucky enough to wake every day

Next to my lover

Then I’ll discover

The song of silence he’s come to embrace

I see my love for him

All over his face

Another light fades in, slowly mixing with the rest, until its color burns bright and sets it apart from the others. A spotlight now shines on a dark wall in the back of the room, a light that comes from that strange instrument I was observing earlier, the instrument with the peculiarly-shaped gobo installed within it.

The shape of the light against the back wall is a ring.

My eyes flash open at the realization.
A ring …

Dessie continues her song:

And if I’m not just another, another woman in your life

Take this ring from me, baby

Let me be your lucky wife

And if you’ll have me forever, let me know

So you can light up my life

Every day. Every morning.

Every show.

Suddenly, there’s a slap on my back. Brant’s there and he’s guiding me out of my chair.
He was in on this. They were all in on this.
I can’t even seem to make my legs work on their own.
Is this really happening?
The chair falls back when I rise, but I pay it no mind. I see hands moving everywhere—
Are they applauding?
—and Brant guides me to the stage.

I draw closer and closer to Dessie, my love, my everything. I’m breathing so deeply. The world is going blurry. Fuck, am I crying?

“
Baby
…” she says and signs. “
My love … Clayton.
”

She pulls a silver ring out of her pocket that’s textured to look like a coil of rope. I’m paralyzed by the rugged beauty of it as it glimmers in the stage light between her fingers.