I blew out a breath of relief, but then Lexi stepped forward. My eyes darted to her. “Doctor Bell found something else, Levi.”

The relief I had felt was crushed. “What?” I questioned in trepidation.

“The girl is deaf in her left ear, with only a small fraction of her hearing functioning in the right,” the doctor explained.

My eyebrows furrowed. Suddenly images of her staring at my lips and her silence flooded my mind. “How did you find that out?” I inquired.

The doctor pointed to his right ear. “She had a small hearing aid in her right ear, but it’s not working. The device is not the best, it’s the most basic type, and the way she has been living seems to have degraded what assistance it might have afforded.”

Cold infused my body. “You mean she has been living on the streets with no hearing?” Lexi’s face showed the sympathy I was feeling. The doctor nodded his head.

“I’ve done a few simple tests, but I’ve organized for a friend, an audiologist, to stop by tomorrow. As I explained to Lexi, it’ll be costly to replace—”

“We’ll pay, whatever the cost,” I said, interrupting the doctor.

A smile spread on his lips. “Don’t worry, son. Lexi already arranged that side of things.”

“What now?” I asked.

The doctor picked up his bag. “It’ll take a few weeks for her to regain her strength. She’s mostly starving and severely dehydrated. Thankfully, it’s making her sleep most of the time. The moments she’s awake she may be incoherent. We’ll treat that too, then it’ll be about recovery to get her back on her feet.”

I looked to Lexi, who nodded her head at my silent question. “She can stay, Lev. After she’s feeling better, which could take a few weeks, and she has her hearing and strength back, she can decide what she wants to do. She appears to be over eighteen, around your age, I’d guess. Whether she wants our help or not will be down to her. You know the drill from the center.”

I blinked, then blinked again, knowing that I would do anything I could to make her stay, to get the help she desperately needed. “Can I go up and see her?”

The doctor nodded. “She’s sleeping. The medication I’ve given her will keep her sedated, just in case she wakes and becomes frightened at the strange surroundings. She won’t hear you either, son. But yes, you can see her.”

I nodded my head at the doctor in thanks, then pushed past them to climb the stairs. As I picked up speed, Lexi called out, “I cleaned her up some. As much as I could. I’ll get her into the shower when she’s stronger.”

I stopped as Lexi spoke. “Thank you,” I called, and quickly headed to the room. I quietly pushed through the door. The room was dark but for a dull side lamp. My eyes immediately focused on the bed in the center of the room. My heart swelled seeing the girl looking so tiny under the white sheets. Then it nearly burst through my chest when I stood beside the bed and truly saw her.

A breath lodged in my throat. Lexi had done a real good job of cleaning all the dirt from her face. Her hair had been combed and Lexi had taken her out of her wet clothes and dressed her in some cream pajamas.

And I couldn’t stop staring.

I’d thought she could have been pretty before, but witnessing her lying here in this bed, her face calm from sleep, cleaned up and warm, she looked like an angel.

The girl’s hands were lying on her stomach as she slept. Two wide silver cuff bracelets wrapped around both of her wrists, and a gold necklace lay around her throat. I could still hear her chest crackle with the fluid in her lungs, but she looked peaceful. After seeing how uncomfortable she was on the ride home, this was good.

The room was silent as she slept, and I dropped down to the sit on the side of the bed. The girl didn’t stir, but my heart thundered in my chest. I opened my mouth to speak, but immediately shut it when I remembered she couldn’t hear. My head dipped to the side as I watched her. Her eyes fluttered under closed lids. I wondered what she was dreaming about.

My eyebrows furrowed when I wondered what it was like for her to live in a world of silence. With the hearing aid she heard the world, but Christ knows how long she’d been living without that device. Wandering the streets, hungry and homeless, the noise of Seattle on mute.

She must have been terrified.

I didn’t know why, but as her finger twitched on her lap in sleep, I found myself reaching out and holding her cold frail hand in mine. I swallowed and blinked at the sight.

It was the first time in my life I had ever held hands with a girl.

The pretty girl who lived in silence.

The one I’d needed to save.

The one I’d wait beside to wake up.

Chapter Five

Elsie

I came home from school to see the door of our small apartment open. My heart raced in panic as I feared what I would find on the other side of the door. The lock had been snapped off and I closed my eyes. The landlord would come calling again, demanding for it to be fixed. My mom was on her last chance with him. It wouldn’t be long until we were back on the streets.

I turned my head to the right, desperately trying to hear if anyone was in our apartment. I couldn’t hear anything, so I pushed the door open and stepped inside. My stomach immediately plummeted. Our studio apartment was trashed, our one chair and side stool overturned, all smashed up.

My eyes tracked across the room to the bed that Mom and I shared. I sighed both in relief and pain as I saw my mom lying on the bed, alive and breathing but passed out, her empty syringes strewn beside her. My mom’s arm was stretched out, the track marks from where she’d shot up were still prominent against the paleness of her skin.

Running to the kitchen, I rushed to the far cabinet. I needed to check the tin was still there. It was rent money that I kept hidden. If I didn’t keep it hidden, my mom would use it to buy drugs.

I jumped up onto the counter top and stretched my hand up to the highest shelf. Panic rushed through me when I couldn’t feel a thing. My hand picked up speed, swiping along every inch of the old cabinet, but nothing was there.

I jumped off the counter and searched the floor, only to see the upturned tin hidden behind the bust door. I knew I’d find it empty. I knew that my mom’s supplier had come for the money she owed.

Feeling as though my feet weighed a thousand pounds, I walked to the tin, feeling no surprise when not even a dime spilled out to the floor.

A flash of anger came and went. I only ever managed to feel frustration towards my mom for a few seconds, before intense sympathy for her horrible life took root.

Sighing in defeat, I closed the door as tightly as I could and began picking the broken furniture off the floor. It didn’t take me long to clean up the mess. When all the debris was cleared, I packed the few clothes we owned into our small bag. It wouldn’t be long until the landlord came to evict us. The money that I’d managed to save from my mom’s welfare and disability checks was running with her bloodstream, and sitting in her supplier’s wallet.

Making the apartment as clean as I could, I walked to my mom who was lying on the bed. A lump clogged my throat as I saw her blue eyes open, watching me. Her pupils were dilated, but I knew she could see me. It was rare that my mom wasn’t high. These moments were constant.

Carefully moving the needle and foiled up heroin from the bed, I placed them on the floor. I sat on the mattress and stroked the damp strands of blond hair from my mom’s forehead. She smiled when I ran my finger down her face.