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Mondays Clint sips bitter coffee and watches people talk about their father’s hitting their mothers. Childhoods filled with the smell of scotch and the taste of salt and copper.
Clint never says anything.
He sits in the back. Watches.
So many different people but the stories are always the same.
Every Monday he sits in that Church basement as people tell their stories.
He never tells anyone his own.
His father’s breath smells like cheap scotch and nicotine.
The hand around his throat smells of stale sweat.
His mother is crying but the sound of her sobs are distant and muffled.
Another sharp blow to his head. He can feel hot liquid dripping down his neck.
He can’t hear his mother crying anymore.
The world goes black around the edges.
He is getting his coffee when a scruffy brunette with full pink lips and big brown eyes smiles at him. He doesn’t smile back. He reaches out a hand, offering it to Clint.
His arm is tanned, dusted in dark hair. Clint stares at the hand.
Clint looks at him and realizes he is speaking.
His eyes focus on full lips.
He is introducing himself.
Clint isn’t sure what name the lips form.
“Clint.” He offers before taking his coffee and walking away.
The world isn’t quiet.
It buzzes. Like static on a television.
White noise replacing the cries of his mother.
People already think he is stupid.
He gets put in a class where a nice man with kind eyes teaches him to sign.
He doesn’t speak much.
Not hearing his own voice. Feeling the words leave his mouth. It fills him with a dark sinking.
Clint stays home on Monday for two weeks.
He watches a Spanish film about about a woman who kills her husband to stop him from trying to rape her daughter.
Lucky looks at him with sad eyes. He sleeps softly next to Clint.
Clint doesn’t remember the last time he shared his bed with anyone other than his dog.
‘Hello.’ The dark haired man signs to him when he sees Clint getting coffee.
Clint contemplates abandoning his coffee and running out.
His face burns. The man’s pink lips turn into a frown when he realizes he has upset Clint.
Clint walks away.
The man finds him outside the church. He hands Clint a piece of paper.
I’m sorry Clint. I didn’t mean to upset you.
He gets home from archery practice late one night.
His mother is on the floor. Tears streaking her face. Her body is shaking. He looks around the room. His stomach sinks.
His father’s eyes are pale. The whites pale yellow. His skin pale. His mouth hangs open. His arm hanging off the edge of his chair.
His first reaction is relief.
The dark haired man’s name is Bruce. He is a professor at the University.
He takes Clint for coffee at a small bistro.
Clint smiles at the taste. Not bitter like the coffee at the church.
Bruce is sweet. He admits he started learning ASL after realizing Clint was deaf.
Clint feels his stomach drop and asks if it is because of his voice.
Bruce’s dark eyebrows cinch together. He tells Clint it is because he noticed Clint reading his lips when he tried to talk to him.
Clint feels light for the first time in a long time. They don’t talk about their parents.
Bruce never asks when Clint lost his hearing.
He asks if he can see Clint again and he looks so shy and handsome that Clint takes his chin and kisses him softly.
He tastes like earl grey and the beginnings of a beard scrape against Clint’s skin making him sigh.
Mr. Coulson looks like he has been crying when he comes to get Clint from his math class.
He tells Clint his mother killed herself.
He hesitates when Clint asks how she did it. Clint asks again.
Mr. Coulson has tears in his eyes. She jumped off the bridge in town.
He holds Clint as he cries. Awful wracking sobs.
When Mr. Coulson takes him home he finds a note from his mother.
She writes about how she had wanted to be strong for him.
Wanted to make him proud. But she couldn’t. She calls herself weak and ugly.
She thinks Clint is better off now. She blames herself for what his father did to him.
Bruce looks so beautiful laying in bed next to him. His lips flushed and swollen.
Clint loves running his fingers through the hair on Bruce’s chest.
Bruce tells him about his father. The broken bones.
He tells Clint how he thought about ending it. About killing his father or just himself.
Clint holds him after he gets too upset to continue signing.
Later Clint shares his story. About his father’s drinking. His mother’s suicide.
About going to live with his teacher.
“I love you.” Clint hopes the words come out clear.
Bruce signs back ‘I love you’.
Clint knows his mother is awake even if she pretends to sleep.
She hasn’t left the house since the funeral.
He presses a soft kiss to her hair and tells her he loves her.
When he is leaving he doesn’t hear the soft sound of her crying.
Clint doesn’t go to the church on Mondays.
He doesn’t read the lips of victims as they talk about their childhoods.
He and Lucky move in with Bruce. Clint quickly becomes fast friends with a woman with red hair down the hall. Her name is Natasha.
He starts inviting her over for dinner on Mondays.
She brings her boyfriend who knows more sign language then she has managed to pick up.
His eyes are bright blue and full of mischief as Natasha looks on trying to follow their conversation.
Bucky learned it after returning from overseas. Several of his fellow veterans lost their hearing in IED blasts.
Clint smiles all the time now. And he even speaks when he’s alone with Bruce.
When Bruce gets down on one knee he says “Yes!” before Bruce can even sign out the question.
Clint isn’t better off, but he thinks he is finally better.