Madly Yours novel · Chapter 25 of 32

Chapter 25: Practice

Out loud.

I looked at the clock over the stove.

Twenty hours.

My voice that morning had barely been a whisper.

Leland put the phone down on the table, very carefully.

"I'll tell them you can't," he said. "The doctor's orders are on paper. A judge has to take that."

I shook my head.

I took the pad and wrote.

If I can't say it, he wins it. That's the whole petition. The deaf girl who can't speak.

"Then we ask for more time."

He asked for it Friday night because he knew I'd need time. I'm not giving it to him.

Leland read it twice.

Then he pushed his chair back.

"Then we practice."

We practiced in the music room.

It was his idea, and it was a good one.

I sat on the bench at his mother's Steinway with a mug of hot water and honey.

He sat on the floor with his back against the window seat and the judge's questions on a legal pad, in his lawyer's handwriting.

The bay was going dark behind him.

"Question one," he read. "State your name."

I opened my mouth.

Air.

A scrape.

Nothing.

I shut it again and pressed my lips together hard.

He didn't say it's fine.

He didn't say take your time.

He just waited, the way he'd waited in the steam with his forehead on my shoulder.

I turned to the keyboard.

I pressed the A above middle C and let it ring.

Four hundred and forty.

I'd set it on this piano myself.

I hummed against it.

It came out thin and cracked, a quarter tone flat.

I tightened something in my throat, and the wobble slowed.

I held it.

"Colette," I said, on the A.

It was rough.

It was mine.

← Chapter 24 · All chapters · Chapter 26 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend