She doesn’t really like hip-hop music, but she concedes that it has a steady beat and is probably simple enough to dance to. She hates that her parents still treat her like a child even though she already has her driver’s license and can see herself around town. She supposes that it makes her elder brother feel better, that he can be her big, strong, brave chaperone to fend off all those boys who won’t talk to her because they can’t talk to her.
She knows why her parents are so afraid to let her go out alone, but she isn’t afraid like they are. So what if she can’t scream for help? She wouldn’t scream if she could - she’d fight.
So she steals a cup of punch and slips away from her brother’s side while he’s distracted by one of the cheerleaders he likes so much, and she heads for the other side of the dance floor. She spots a boy, a quiet boy who sits behind her in math, and she opens her mouth to shape her lips around a soundless greeting. How anyone can talk to each other over this cacophony is a mystery anyway.
But he cups a hand over his ear like he can’t hear her, and she knows. He’s deaf. It means he speaks the same way she does, with flicks of the wrist and graceful hands. So she sets down her cup of punch and says hello the proper way. He’s funny and charming - he likes poetry and math and wants to be a writer when he grows up. She wonders if he’d like to dance with her, because the music is certainly loud enough for him to feel the backbeat, but then her brother calls her name, and she turns.
He scolds her for running off, and her reply is a series of quick, cutting gestures. She was fine on her own. Plus, he was scoring with the cheerleader. That makes him blush, and when he finally backs off, she discovers that the handsome boy she was talking too has vanished.
(350 words)
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