A gentle prod on my shoulder roused me from my sleep. I sat up and leaned my weight on my elbow, rubbing my eyes. Mum was standing beside my bed looking down at me, lips moving fast as she spoke on the phone. I couldn't guess who'd be calling at seven in the morning, and why she had to wake me for. It irritated me, but before long, she cradled the phone between her cheek and shoulder as she relayed the message to me.

Mum brought her fingers together, signing individual letters of a name.

The letters were: C.H.A.R.L.I.E R.A.S.C.A.L. That damned name.

"Uncle wants him to tutor you if he agrees," she signed. "Is this fine?"

I sighed, feeling my head cave in around me until I slumped forward, massaging my scalp. What a loaded question for this early. I let out a big yawn, feeling the vibration in my throat, stretching my arms up, and feeling my back click. Some of the tension went away, making me feel better.

"Aubrey," Mum signed, bringing my attention back to her. I barely remembered what she said. All I wanted was to go back to sleep.

"Fine," I answered, groggily waving her off. The fact that I could pretty much hear my own voice made me wince, making me look up at her apologetically. I was too loud. I signed back, "I don't care. I'm going back to sleep."

"You won't go to school?" she asked.

I didn't even know where she might've gotten that ridiculous notion from. In four whole years, when had I missed a day of school? She was dressed in a white blouse and black pencil skirt, dressed to the nines for her work at a local jeweler. Her hair was pinned back neatly, while I was sure mine looked like a crow's straw nest. Sometimes it amazed me that I was her son.

Pointing at my clock, I signed, "Too early. Let me sleep."

I gave a dismissive wave and rolled back over into my bed, burying myself under the covers. A movement on the bed caused it to dip slightly, making my heart jump with surprise. The cover above my head moved just a little bit, but I felt Mum's hand stroke the top of my head. Then I think I felt her kiss that same spot. I didn't move or respond, slipping into a peaceful sleep.

The vibration of my bed alarm jolted me awake, signaling that it was time to wake and get ready for school. It was a pleasant forty-minute sleep in that I would have preferred to have gone uninterrupted. I reached for my alarm clock, missing it. I closed my right eye, focusing my vision on the button. My hand hovered over either side of it a few times.

Four years had already passed since my accident with Grandad, and yet I still couldn't get a proper grasp on what Dr. Preshi called depth perception. Things like turning off an alarm or picking up a pencil were embarrassing, never getting any easier. It was too embarrassing. Mum and Dad also refused to let me walk to school because of it, saying one miscalculated step was all it would take.

But what had Mum said about... Charlie Rascal? The boy whose voice was so overbearingly loud and obnoxious that ninety percent of the time I had to remove my hearing aids just to drown him out. And sometimes I could hear him even without them. It was a quiet, tunneled, watery sound. Like we were trapped in a cave, or inside of an ocean. Just him and I.

Considering I couldn't hear my own voice without hearing aids or by submerging my ears in bathwater, that was saying something.

He exhausted me, but I appreciated the sound.

My lack of concentration did little to propel me on with my morning task, being lured back by the ongoing vibrations. Snapping out of my thoughts, I stood up, paid more attention to the button, and hit the off button in one go. I smiled to myself. Success.

After showering and getting dressed, I wiped the fog away from my mirror to reveal somebody standing behind me. I jumped and spun around, finding my dad standing there with his hands in front of him, repeatedly signing an apology. He was holding my hearing aid in his hand, so his gestures were clumsy. Exhaling sharply, I tried to swallow down my heart that almost leaped through my throat.

I made sure my ears were dried before putting in my hearing aid. I turned to the mirror, fixing it in place, then styled my hair so that it was hidden. During my time in hospital, I'd been visited by an audiologist who stuck what felt like massive clumps of clay in my ears. They were uncomfortable, ugly, and had no possible chance of being hidden. So, after some tears and pleading, Mum and Dad paid the extra costs for a smaller and discreet design.

It was a shameless plug, but now between my longer length hair, a clear hook, and a miniature BTE design, nobody seemed to have figured it out. Nobody but Trey and Ikeisha knew, and after four years of feeling secure like this, I intended it to stay this way.

"You just about done?" Dad asked. "Gotta leave in a minute."

"Yeah," I said, turning back around. "Think I'm good, let me just grab my bag."

"Alright," he said as he was leaving. "I'll wait in the car."

After my accident with Grandad, my parents gave me their master bedroom with the en suite. The decision to move me came with my need for accessibility during early rehabilitation. They never asked for it back though, which was probably because I would never fully recover. I opened the bathroom window before walking out, closing the door behind me. Something I was taught to do so the room didn't get moldy.

I started humming, vaguely enjoying the sound of my own voice. It wasn't the sound I was particularly keen on, but the fact that I still had the chance to hear at all. As Grandad once said to me, "It's the little things that make life so stunningly beautiful, Aubrey, the things we take for granted every single day."

Dad beeped the horn, so I picked up my bag and raced down the stairs before I mused for too long. I stumbled down a few steps, missing the mark a bit, but I didn't break my ankle or neck and remained positive for it. That's what Grandad liked to do; see the positives in all the little things. Maybe that's why I didn't hate Charlie Rascal's annoying voice. It was something of a positive.

Scrambling into the car, I shut the door and took in the sound of Dad's jazz music as it filled the space. We chatted as he drove me to school. It was mostly just about mundane things like what his workday or my school day might look like today. We compared stresses, things we did and didn't look forward to, and cracked a few jokes in between. The kinds of jokes he made might be funny between us but might look very different from the perspective of his employer.

When he pulled in front of the school, I was careful getting out of the car and stepping over the gutter. Once I was in the all-clear, I waved him off. The school was a large split complex, mostly made of brick, although some separate buildings appeared to be made of weatherboard, some even stucco. Its inconsistencies gave it some character, my Grandad had said in the past. This was where he'd attended high school. His roots were here, which was why I was so insistent, even when my parents thought I'd benefit from a private school.

This was where he learned and fell in love with poetry. Of course, even though I couldn't bring myself to sit through those classes, just being here was enough.

Grandad was my hero, after all.

People were walking both in and out of the building, coming up or down the concrete steps. Trey leaned on the brick wall that went all the way up the stairs, while Ikeisha sat at its lowest part. She swung her legs, idly chatting while she spun a pen at an increasing speed between her fingers. Two of our other friends stood with them, chatting animatedly amongst themselves. Rangi and Manu hung out with us whenever they weren't on the field playing rugby, and sometimes Trey would play with them.

They were great guys, but I always felt that niggling sense of jealousy that I couldn't participate with them. If not for the fact that I was now heavily disabled, maybe I would have been a sporty guy, too. I tried to block out those thoughts.

Upon seeing me approach, Ikeisha shot her hand up and waved, dropping the pen so that it cluttered to the very last step. Right in front of my feet. I glanced up at her, seeing the nervous expression on her face while Trey looked at me with mild concern. "Hey, man. I've got it," Trey said, hurrying down the steps.

"Nah, it's fine," I said, leaning down to pick it up quickly before he did. It was directly in my line of vision, and yet my hand came down beside it. I felt my blood run cold. I stood upright and looked around to see if anybody noticed while Trey scooped it from the ground and patted my back.

He said, "S'all good, man," to show me encouragement, but I barely paid him any attention. My eyes were locked on Charlie Rascal, who stood there gawking at me after witnessing me blatantly miss the pen.

Damn... damn... damn, damn, damn. I'd been discovered, found out. Loud-mouth Charlie Rascal would probably run his gob to every person in the school who would listen. I felt the blood leave my face, running down my body in a cold chill. Trey seemed to catch on because his head snapped in Charlie's direction, and I watched his face contort into blatant anger.

Clenching his fist, he yelled and waved the guy off. "Something funny to see here, huh? Move on, asshole."

I winced at his loud tone, feeling my ears physically pulsate. Low tones were painful for me to register, especially when loud. His was incredibly low, sounding more like an adult man than another sixteen-year-old kid. I watched Charlie scuffle away, bright red in the face. Ikeisha came down from the stairs and put her arm over my shoulder.

"All good?" she asked, then smiled when I nodded. "That's our boy."

The bell rang less than a minute before we reached our class and settled into our seats. Uncle Tom was sat at his desk, cross-legged while his eyes flickered between me and Charlie. While I didn't know what was going through his mind, I was one hundred percent sure I wouldn't like it.

Always plotting, always scheming... always trying to drag me back into the colorful world of poetry. In the past, he shared an affinity with both me and Grandad. So much so, that even when he split with my aunty, his bond with us remained intangible. He was as much a part of our family as a blood relative.

And after the accident, he held onto that affinity.

He did, but I didn't.

"Alright," Uncle said, standing up and assuming his place in front of the class. "We've been doing poetry handouts for four weeks now, so I think we should just about be confident enough to start standing in front of the class to read. Am I right?"

The class broke out in groans of annoyance. Their voices filled my ears like particulate matter; a series of low frequencies sputtered around in the form of miserable words. My head pounded; my ears ached. I hated it. Uncle Tom must have noticed my discomfort because he was quick to silence them. They settled back into their seats while I relished that momentary quiet.

"You respond like it's a bad thing, guys, come on," he said, looking around the room while laughing. The humor reached his eyes, which I could see from the crows' feet forming from them. "What is this?"

His voice and tone were tolerable for me. I didn't know much about anything except that I had low-frequency hearing loss, which I knew he catered to me. It was a voice that he put on; something I appreciated a lot. Still, it wasn't enough to make me want to sit here and enjoy this.

"So, let's start with a question," he continued, eyes searching the class. "Here, a simple one for you: Why is learning poetry important for us? Why is such an archaic form of art still as applicable today as it was thousands of years ago?"

The class was silent, save for Charlie Rascal whose hand shot into the air, wriggling his hand with unrivaled determination. "Me, Mr. Hardy. Me, I know. Pick me!"

Uncle made a show of looking around the class first before pointing at Charlie to proceed. I stared at the back of his head as he spoke, but I heard all the excitement in his voice without needing to see his face.

"It's a form of expression," Charlie said, "and can help each person to process their surging emotions."

His answer came so naturally to him, expressing his love for poetry so clearly that I might have even heard it without my aids. Uncle raised his brows in feigned surprise, grinning his approval. He initiated a round of applause, bringing his hands together so that the class autonomously followed lead. Rather than joining the ovation, I kept staring as Charlie looked around the class with a smug look. I didn't think this very often, but he was pretty annoying.

"Very detailed and well thought out answer," Uncle Tom said, clearly impressed. "I'm not sure I could have answered better, myself."

Remembering our years of discussions, starting right from when I was a kid, I knew that what he said was horseshit. He could write that answer into various beautifully, intricately woven poems that spun a hundred stories; all stating the same thing. He didn't even try to humble that poetry-crazed idiot.

The thought made me scoff, and not just Charlie's, but the entire class turned back to look at me.

I cleared my throat and leaned back in my seat, sticking by my guns. Before I could stop myself, my eyes went straight to Charlie. I caught him glaring at me before turning back to the front. I didn't mean to do that. Even Uncle Tom looked less than impressed. I turned away, irritated.

It's not like I meant to do it.

My mood turned sour. Just being in this class during English did little for my moods, but now I was even less enthusiastic to stick around. I picked up my bag and stood up, readying to leave.

"Oh, just on this note," Uncle Tom said, forcing me to look forward at him again. "Charlie, Aubrey, I'd like to see you both after class."

Great, there'd be some talk now. I could hear muffled whispers, but I might have been seeing their lips move more than I could actually hear. Sometimes my mind tricked me, and I was never totally sure how to differentiate them anymore. Trey and Ikeisha both turned to look at me with curiosity. I pursed my lips and shrugged; curious, too. It probably had to do with whatever message Mum relayed to me this morning, though I couldn't quite remember.

Charlie turned back to the front, muttering the grizzliest "Yes, sir," I'd ever heard. Shoulders slumping, he leaned over his desk. Uncle hushed the gossiping students while I scratched my head, wondering why my thoughts were beginning to race. Had I upset him? My heart jumped, feeling nervousness rise up like bile.

For whatever reason, I didn't like the idea of that.