The crickets and frogs and trilling insects created a symphony of sound that drowned out the pounding of my heart in the night air.

A cool breeze wound by me and stirred underneath the hem of my shirt, bringing chills to the surface of my flushed skin.

The rough wood from the planks on the bench bit into my palms.

Camille was standing in front of me with a shared look of horror and confusion on her face.

Of course she was horrified.

I'd just told her how I'd tried to off myself.

She had no idea when or why, just the how...and after her story of her family's fucked up history, I could understand the distress at how gruesome my attempt had been.

I immediately followed up by signing everything everyone always asked after they found out.

"No, I didn't think about my family and how it would've felt to find me. I didn't really think about anything except the escape. It was a few years ago, so I don't feel that way anymore. Therapy and all that, right? Parker found me. It messed him up. I've had a few surgeries, but I destroyed my vocal cords basically. They want to do a surgery where they do a structural implant and see if that will work since the repositioning and replacing the damaged nerves haven't worked. We'll see, but I'm not planning on being able to speak again."

"Wow. So we're about equally matched in our fucked up-ness, huh?"

I laughed. I couldn't help it, but the ugliest sounding half grunt squealing gasp sound came out of my throat, and at first it was dead silent, like even the frogs and crickets had stopped their singing to cover their tiny ears in protest of the sound.

And then Cami opened her mouth and let out the dorkiest sounding snort laugh I'd ever heard, and somehow, it made everything so much better.

I could read the short story in my head in that very moment.

'The Laugh That Changed the World'.

Parker and his friends would be the animals and insects watching this moment between us in jealousy that they couldn't ever match up to the beauty and intrigue that was Camille Astor.

She was like a filament of translucent gold, impossible to catch and hold like a tangible thing between your fingers, but free and wild somehow, even with all this pain and fear blanketing her glow.

She seemed to shine through even the darkest of clouds.

She came to sit down beside me, close enough for our thighs to touch.

So, she was brave, too.

I guessed she had to be feeling pretty good around me. I hadn't shown her the bad side yet.

She'd need all the help she could get when that side of me came out.

"Hey, so now that I'm living in your house, you need to show me all the best hiding spots. Maria is great, but sometimes I definitely need my own space."

"She can be overwhelming at first, but she means well. I think she likes to fix. Things, people, animals, situations in her client's court cases. She thought she could fix me, too. Still trying to with all these surgeries and speech therapy and regular therapy and...yeah. She can be a bit much. But that's just who she is. She loves too hard."

"I know someone who's like that. He loved too hard, and then he snapped. Now he's in prison. Maybe it's the 'loving' part that's the problem."

"What do you mean?"

"Maybe if people didn't become so wrapped up in someone else and actually focused on themselves, there wouldn't be crimes of passion like what my dad did to my mom. I don't think love is the root of all evil, but if people just stopped caring so much...I don't know. Maybe I just have warped views on love because of everything that's happened to me."

"Have you ever been in love, Cami?"

Her cheeks turned pink in the glowing yellow lamplight above us.

The world seemed to stop spinning as it waited for her answer.

"No. I don't think it'll ever happen for me. I just feel so...disconnected to people, everyone I meet I keep them at a distance. I don't want to let anyone in."

"Because you're scared they'll hurt you?"

"No. Because I'm scared I'll hurt them."

"Like your father hurt your mother?"

Her body jerked in a flinch that made me wince.

I waved my hand in front of her face to get her to look at me once more before I signed again to her.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean--"

"What about you? You ever been in love?"

I had no idea what to do with my hands.

Lately, my mind had been so connected with my hands that signing was becoming second nature.

I had only taken it up to keep up with school and classes because I was failing everything, and because I refused to communicate in any way, I was bound to fail out completely of high school.

What a cliche. Another cliche.

So I'd spent hours and hours and hours on the internet learning ASL and testing it out at a local club at school filled with deaf students I'd never met.

I'd practiced and signed until my arms were sore, until the words I wanted to communicate started coming from my hands until trying to come from my mouth, like my body knew it was out of commission, for good.

But now? Now, my hands faltered for the first time.

Because...

"No. No, I've never been in love."

I'd had plenty of girls who'd wanted to try that route with me.

Sweet, nice girls who'd come over for studying and end up with their hand on my thigh preaching to me about how they could save me from my trauma, about how they could fix me just like my damn mother thought she could.

Talk about a turn-off.

"Why not? Scared you're gonna leave and they'll be left heartbroken?"

I didn't miss the slight venom in her tone, nor the glare she threw my way at what she'd said.

"No, because like I said before, I don't feel that way anymore, so I'm not going to have another attempt and leave someone like that in the first place."

I didn't add that if I tried again, it wouldn't be considered an attempt. It would be successful.

Isn't that fucked up, though? When you try it, you're just another attempt if you fail. But if you really go through with it, if your soul crosses over the threshold of the dead and the alive, it's considered successful.

Like you're some damn thing to look up to, like it's something to be proud of.

"Well, since you were comparing what happened to me with how I'll act in the future, I figured it was only fitting."

"Damn. You're right, I'm sorry, I wasn't thinking."

"You clearly have to think before you sign, right?"

"Not always, not anymore. Now it's second nature to just sign what I'm thinking."

"So what are you thinking right now?"

"I'm thinking you're one of the most difficult people I've ever met."

"Oh, great. So now I'm difficult?"

"And passionate. And wild, maybe a little--or maybe a lot--damaged. Good thing that's exactly how I'd describe myself."

"Well, now I'm definitely flattered."

"You're lucky I don't know how to use sarcasm through sign language yet."

"That's easy. Just really exaggerate every movement and roll your eyes like you're thirteen and your mom just grounded you."

"Like this?"

I followed her tips and was positive I looked like an absolute moron, but it got her laughing again instead of staring at me with that blank glare she'd had on.

"Definitely. You should just sign like that every time from now on. Maybe it'll get you more sympathy points if people think you have a head injury too."

God, was that an actual easy, wide smile on my face?

When had I laughed and smiled like this after my attempt?

"You'll need to sit with me at lunch everyday to keep the assholes that want a front row to the freak show away."

"What makes you think I don't want a front row to the freak show? You've heard my sad life story. Maybe I want to size up the 'freak show' competition."

"Are you kidding? With my clothes and attitude, there is no competition. Just look at you--you're not freak show material."

"And what's that supposed to mean?"

She rose up high to make herself seem bigger than she was, dark brown hair glinting with streaks of auburn in the lamp glow.

Her face grew considerably suspicious, but in an adorable way that had me questioning why in the hell I just thought the word 'adorable'.

"It means that you're too...normal looking to be part of my freak show entourage."

"What was that last word you signed?"

"E-N-T-O-U-R-A-G-E"

I spelled out the word individually and watched as her eyes lit up when she recognized the word.

"Oh, so now I'm not cool enough to be part of your...entourage?"

She signed the word as she spoke but fumbled the sign for the word, but I didn't feel like correcting her on it when she looked so accomplished after trying to use it the right way.

"No, you're too cool for my entourage."

"Okay I definitely signed that wrong, show me how to do it."

I placed my hands on her own and had her hold one hand out like in a high five and then positioned her other hand where her pointer finger was pointing straight up with the rest of her fingers in a fist.

Then, I took the open hand and nudged it into the other and moved them both twice until they traveled forward.

Her hands were warm, silky smooth on my own, and a chill ran unbidden down my arms as I forgot completely about teaching her the new word, and instead focused on the feel of her skin on mine and the small space that we shared breath.

She exhaled minty fresh breath near my mouth, and my lips started tingling as I imagined how it would feel to have hers on mine.

Some old intrinsic part of me that hadn't been stoked in years started to come to life, flooding my mind with images of our bodies tangled together as hands and lips became one; as her light fused into my own.

She moved just the tiniest bit closer, and this space between the here and now--the waiting from one moment to the next--became unbearable.

I wanted the next second to pass quicker and then to slow immediately to a snail's pace.

I wanted to stay here until the sun came up and crested atop the reddish brown of her long hair until it glowed in the air gilded with the light that took up the space where the moon used to be.

A breathy exhale, an inch closer, and suddenly we were nose to nose, sharing space, breathing in each breath, an unrequited magnetic field pulling the two of us together, closer, closer, closer still until hopeless we should decide to close that minuscule space between us.

But we never did, because it suddenly was criminal to look anywhere besides those caramel eyes, imploring me with an emotion I'd only seen staring back at me in the mirror.

And as my fingers rose to brush back a stray strand of shining tawny hair from her face, the spell was broken.

She flinched.

It was like a light had gone off behind her eyes and everything that we'd shared in the moments before was inconsequential; like I was a stranger once more, and she the same to me.

I supposed that was how it ought to be. Someone like that with someone like me was surely a recipe for disaster.

The loss of her warmth and light so immediately was a shock to the system; like I'd been punished for wanting someone I shouldn't have allowed myself to want.

Parker clearly had eyes for her. It wasn't my place to want her to, to feel her presence to fiercely it was as if I'd known her ten lifetimes over.

It wasn't fair.

It never was.

But that didn't mean that it was right or wrong, either.

I'd hurt my family enough that starting a war over a girl...a beautifully wild and fierce and passionate girl...I wished I could've said that it wasn't worth it but--

but as she shook her head and looked off to the side as she attempted to gather her bearings and convince herself the connection she felt between us was wrong or misplaced with the night mist seeping into her skin and coloring her in a fog of shimmering light, I realized with a sinking disparity that yes, she was definitely worth it.

I didn't know if that comforted or terrified me, but it was the truth of the matter.

I knew my brother didn't deserve someone so effortlessly delicate and yet so fiery at the same time; someone who could match him word for word and was just as--if not more--intelligent than him.

It didn't assuage my guilt over what happened in the past.

Sure, he'd had eyes for her first, but she was her own person.

She probably didn't even like Parker, especially after the show he put on tonight in front of her and my mom.

She did like Maria, that much I could tell from the small interactions they'd had together at home.

Speaking of my mother...

"Are you...gonna get that?"

I contemplated it, I really did. My mom usually only called when she was absolutely at her wit's end and completely terrified that I'd crashed my motorcycle on the side of the road.

I'd answer, give a little grunt and hang up and then she'd text me until her fingers went numb telling me to get my ass home or else.

She didn't know the extent of things that I did, although her imagination probably conjured things a million times worse than what they actually were.

Street racing might've been illegal and dangerous, but it wasn't going to kill me. Probably.

She probably thought I had taken Cami.

Shit. Of course she thought that.

I pulled my phone from my pocket, arm brushing against Cami as I did so and she quickly looked away, no doubt trying to hide the bright pink blush growing on her cheeks that hadn't gone away since I'd first grabbed her hands to help her sign that word.

"Grey. If you took Cami with you to what you do almost every night then you're going to receive the same punishment I just slapped Parker with. All his friends are gone; you can come home now. Grunt once if you understand me."

I grunted, and she sighed into the phone.

"Good. Your father will be back late tonight, and I want everything in the house to be somewhat normal so that he can adjust to the idea of a new houseguest. We'll talk tonight. Get home now."

I hung up before she could lecture me some more.

"You just got the third degree. What punishment was she talking about?"

"Just the usual. Fire, brimstone, all out prison if we treated you badly tonight."

"Fire and...what was that sign? And you definitely didn't treat me badly. If I'm being honest, this is the nicest first night I've had with a new placement in a long time."

"B-R-I-M-S-T-O-N-E"

"Also, I'm sorry you were treated so badly at all your other homes. If I have anything to say about it, it's not going to be like that at our house."

"I hope not. Haven't met your dad yet. Usually it's half and half with the different homes; it'll either be the mom or dad who treat me like absolute shit while the other is just neutral and doesn't care. Here's to hoping he's as good a person as your mom."

"Don't hold your breath."

"Great. Can we stay out here forever, live in the trees? We can be tree-people. No freak-show entourage to watch us and no parents to threaten us with fire and brimstone."

I laughed as she included both words I'd taught her tonight in her sentence and signed them at the same time as she spoke, correctly.

"You're a fast learner, I see."

I stood from the bench of the picnic table and held out my hand for her while also holding my breath.

She only hesitated a moment before placing her own in mine.

"Have to be if I want to beat Parker out for top of the class. I honestly should've just gone up to my new bedroom tonight and studied until my brain bled but...this was a nice break from all that and everything. Thanks for bringing me here."

"You're his competition for number one? I like you already."

I pulled her up to stand in front of me and suddenly we were inches apart, her body flush with mine, and I couldn't find it in me to let go of her hand.

"So. Where do I buy my ticket for the front row to the freak show lunch table?"

I pulled my hand from hers so I could sign back to her, and god it was the first time in a while I wished I could speak with my voice instead of my hands, just so that I could keep holding her hand.

"You're looking at the ticket master right now. How do you plan to pay for your entry?"

"Hmm...that depends. How much am I looking at? Do I get a housemate discount?"

"For a lifetime membership, you can have a front row seat for the low price of never using all the hot water in the shower every morning before school."

"That's pretty steep, however, I will agree since I take all my showers at night anyway."

"Perfect. Then make sure you use it all, and every night, too. That's when Parker showers."

"Thank god I'm not sharing a bathroom with him, then."

"Nope."

"That would've been a nightmare."

"You're sharing a bathroom with me."

"And you shower..."

"Every morning."

"Oh, okay. Good."

She was definitely blushing again, and she was definitely thinking about something going on in the shower.

She couldn't even meet my eyes.

"Come on. My mom said she'll massacre me unless I get you home now."

"Okay."

"What, you know the sign for massacre but not brimstone or entourage?"

"My foster sister watched a lot of true crime. Massacre was definitely in her daily vocabulary."

"Noted."

And then the crickets began chirping once more, the locusts began singing their malignant screech, and the world was turning on its axis once more.

She stepped out of my magnetic field and I felt the pull as intrinsically as I felt the need to scratch an itch or feed myself.

She was a need now, not an intrigue.

And as she swung herself on the bike behind me and wrapped her delicate hands around my waist, I couldn't wait to get back home and be able to breathe again, but--

I also cursed the moment her hands would leave mine and she'd go up to her room and I'd go to mine and I'd spend the night dreaming about getting those hands back on me again.

I kicked the engine on and then we were off on the road again.

Time laughed in my face and circumstance was the bane of my existence because once we were out of each other's orbit, I'd go back to the damaged boy and she'd be my housemate.

Maybe she'd actually cash in her ticket at school the next day.

Maybe she'd be something different than this pessimistic and damaged person had ever met.