Leap of Faith by Cassidy Shay (the giving tree read aloud .txt) 📕

“Now, I’m going to start taking callers. Request a song, ask a few questions. Anything.” 
    I take a few seconds to decide that I for sure want to call in. I’m the second person that he answers. “Hi. It’s Amia.”
    His voice sounds surprised. “Oh. How was the doctor?”
    I think about the strange man. “It was weird. The guy was just kind of creepy and he kept trailing off at the end of his sentences. It seemed like a waste of time. He didn't even pretend to offer any explanations. And he was kind of a jerk.”
    “I’m sorry about that." And he sounds like he is. I close my eyes for a second. To be able to hear someone's tone of voice, to hear the emotion. It's something I don't want to take for granted. It's something I want to hold on to, in case it goes away. "Did anything interesting happen today?” 
    I think about it, but can't find anything interesting. "No," I say. "I freaked my mom out a little today, but I don't know if you could call that interesting. She was talking to me and I just wanted to be able to hear her voice, so I focused only on that. I even closed my eyes and leaned in really close to her." After it all comes out, I shake my head. Normally, I wouldn’t tell someone like him something so personal, so embarrassing. But things are easy to say around him. He’s the only one that I can hear, so I can’t deny that there’s some force that wants us to get to know each other, whether it’s God or something else.
    He laughs, and again I close my eyes. Even before I lost my hearing, I don't remember ever hearing a laugh like his. I love it. Of course, when I was six, I didn't really care what people sounded like when they laughed. If I could go back, I'd relish every sound. I'd close my eyes, sit still, and just hear. 
   I feel myself blush, even though I don’t know why. It's not like he could hear my thoughts about his laugh. Out of the corner of my eye, I see my door push open. Lisa pokes her head in, and I turn to see what she wants. “Amia, you need to hang up and come downstairs. This is important.”
    I nod and turn back to the telephone. “Mikey, I have to go. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”
    He sounds disappointed when he answers. “Okay. I guess I’ll see you later.”
   I hang up and toss the phone on my pillow. Whatever this is, it better be good. I go down the stairs and into the kitchen, where I can hear water running. My mom is rinsing off a plate, and Lisa stands with her back against the fridge. When she sees me, my mom turns the water off and turns to face me. She dries her hands on the towel, and her face looks... conflicted. She motions with her head to the table, and I look behind her.
    There’s a man sitting at the table, but he’s looking out the window. Something about him is familiar. When he turns around and I see his face, I take an automatic step back. 
    “Amia?” His eyes look soft, like they've been crying. But I know it's fake. He's not capable of emotions. If he were, he wouldn't have done what he did. I don't know whether I should run or scream or punch something. All I know is that I want this man out.
    I shake my head and look at my mom. “No. I don’t want him here.” I turn around to leave, but my mom grabs my arm.
    “Amia." Her face is soft, and I imagine her voice is too. She puts a hand on each of my shoulders and turns me to face her head-on. "I know you don't want him here. I don’t like him either. But he came all this way to make amends. He came to tell you how sorry he is. He wants to make things right with you. He never wanted to hurt you. He never meant to hurt any of us.”
    I look at her, incredulous. “I can’t believe you." I narrow my eyes at her. My anger has transferred to her now. How is she okay with this? "He ruined our family. He tore us apart. And now you think he really wants to apologize? How could you even let him in the house after all that he did? Are you blind? I thought I was the disabled one in this house. And then he comes back when he sees me on the news or reads about me in the paper? Give me a break. He's just going to turn around and do it all over again."
    She leads me out of the kitchen so that he can’t hear our argument. “Amia, I know what he did. He hurt me too. Don’t you remember how hurt I was?”
    “Of course I remember! That’s why I don’t want him here. Mom, he bailed on us as soon as things got hard. And now things are getting a little bit better, so he's just gonna step in like he never left? I don't think so. How can you just look past what he did?" When he left, he tore a hole in us. Not just in our family, but in all of us individually. He said that he just couldn't stand it, that he just needed to sort things out. Apparently in all the sorting he didn't think we were worth keeping.
    She winces, remembering that year. That was the year I lost everything. “I know, I know. But he’s different now.”
    I shake my head. How would she know? He couldn't have been here longer than a few minutes. An hour at the most. You don't judge someone's character in that time. There's no way you can. Not honestly. “No, he’s not.” We argue for the next five minutes, and finally, she talks me into talking to him.
    “You don’t have to became his best friend. Just talk to him. You'll feel better. He really is sorry, Amia.” I take a few breaths. Just breathe. In, out. Breathe. It'll be okay.
    I walk back to the kitchen and he stands from his chair. He has a small smile on his face, like he's actually happy to see me. Yeah, right. “Hi, Amia.”
    I keep my face straight. “Dad.” Mikey

 

I get to school late, about twenty minutes into class. Even for me, that’s pretty bad. I slept through my alarm this morning because I didn’t get to sleep until really late. I just kept thinking about Amia, and I wondered why she had to leave.
    When I walk into the classroom, everyone just stares at me. I walk to my table and stare at the stack of papers. After a couple seconds, I pull out the answer keys and start grading papers and the class goes back to their work. 
    At the end of class, Amia comes to my table. “You look terrible,” she says. I just laugh.
    “You don’t look like you got too much beauty sleep either.” She shakes her head, but doesn’t say anything. Her eyes are groggy, like she's having a hard time keeping them open. “So, why did you have to leave yesterday?” I pick up my backpack and walk backwards out the door. 
    She hesitates, like she doesn't know whether or not she should tell me. After a couple seconds, she sighs and says, “My dad came to my house. We haven't heard from him since I was six. When my aunt – his sister – died, he just kind of freaked. And he left.”
    “Oh. I’m sorry.”  But I know those two words do no good. Once again, I just want to comfort her. I don’t know what would make her feel better, but I feel like I have to try something.
    “Yeah. My mom made me talk to him. I just can’t figure out why he chose to come now. Why couldn’t he just stay away? We’re getting along fine without him. We have been for ten years. We don’t need him to come back again. He’s… he’s just going to hurt all of us, all over again.” We're at the Spanish classroom now. She stops walking and looks at the door. 
    Her voice shakes when she talks. “I don’t know what to do. I can’t let him back in. I can’t get hurt again. But how can I protect my mom and sister?” She lifts her head up and a tear rolls down her face. The look in her eyes shows that she hates this. Not just the situation, but that she's crying about it. That she's complaining about it to a boy she's known for less than a week. That she's showing her weaknesses out in public, for everyone to see.
    I step closer to her and wrap my arms around her shoulders, half expecting her to push me away and take off down the hall. Instead, she hugs me back, wrapping her arms around my waist. I close my eyes for a moment as her arms tighten. “He left that year. I lost my dad, my aunt, and my hearing. All in a couple months. He had a choice. And he chose to leave me when I needed him the most." Her shoulders are shaking now, and people are staring at us. I’m not really sure what I’m supposed to do. What's the protocol for when a girl you've known for a few days breaks down on you?
   And then I remember how my mom used to cheer me up. I pull away from her for a second and wipe a tear off her cheek. “Come on. Let’s get out of here.” I grab her hand and pull her down the hallway. 
   She’s confused, but she follows me. It's probably more out of shock than an actual willingness to go, but I'll take it. I leave the building and head to the parking lot. She follows behind me, grasping my arm. “Where are we going?” she asks once I open the passenger door of my car. I just motion for her to get in. I’m a little embarrassed about the mess – I have water bottles, other trash, CD cases, sweatshirts, and basically anything else you can think of scattered across the seats of my car. She doesn’t say anything about it, so I don’t point it out with an apology .
   “You’ll see.” I give her a smile, to show that it's all okay and she has nothing to worry about. I drive out of the parking lot, down the road. I hand her my cell phone. “Call your mom. The school’s gonna call her during third hour, since that’ll be your second class that you’re absent. You might still get in trouble, but it’ll be better if your