For those who don’t know me, you’re probably at the wrong wedding, because if you know Lexie, you know me. And Jake, congratulations… you’ve married an incredible woman. Just remember she was my best friend first. The ring doesn’t change that, bud.
Lexie began to laugh, leaning over to kiss Jake gently on his lips.
When I was a little girl, all I ever wanted was to be accepted. To enter a room and feel, in some small and certain way, that I belonged there. I searched for that place with the desperation of a child who kept hoping that the world will soften and give me more chances, but everything I found seemed to be carved for someone else.
So, I became a doll in my own hands, stitching on new expressions, patching on different attitudes, hoping that if I changed enough – sewed on some new buttons and braided my hair, that someone might finally see me and gather me into their ‘us’. Packaged up nice enough with pink ribbon hoping to be the first pick in a store. Sure, it worked, but even then, I sensed they were loving the self I had sewn together, not the one quietly patched beneath.
University was bittersweet, new beginnings, but the same old whispers.
That was until Lexie opened her university door.
Her eyes were clear, vivid blue, attentive to everything; strands of blonde hair fell around her face like pale sunlight. I will never forget when I glanced over to the left side of her head was her cochlea implant, a quiet and intimate detail of her story that I had not yet read, and one that she wore without apology.
It was in that moment; I felt a shift – I knew that this wasn’t just an invitation into her room but one that would open my eyes to a new way of seeing life entirely.
I stopped, trying to contain my emotion as I caught sight of a tear falling down Lexie’s cheek.
Lexie was a soul of pure kindness that emulated through everything she did, moving through the world with a fluency that required not volume, but attention and focus to the other sense that many dismissed but she relied on. It was her expressions, hands, pauses – they were their own syntax, forming a language of their own, quiet but alive.
I learnt to sign not from a classroom or a book, but from the soft necessity of wanting to understand her more.
I remember struggling to train my fingers to slowly trace the shapes or trying to recall the vowels and constants of the alphabet. It was satisfying watching my hands dance together forming words or phrases, each rising and falling like tides, carrying meaning I had never known before. This language that belonged to so many others, and now, somehow, to me.
However, I felt a sting of shame at my own naivety – this was not a language I had invented, but one belonging to countless others, and somehow, I had forgotten it existed. It felt wrong with guilt that I had never taken time to reflect on how I lived my life with such ease and yet to others, human communication could be a struggle.
I will ever forget the night Lexie had gave me my own sign name. It was a piece of her world that she had gifted me, bringing us closer together. She clasped her fingers into a single point beneath the corner of her mouth, then opened them like a flower blooming: Beautiful.
She had shown me hers a few days earlier: both fists stacked, then released in a single, radiant motion, bursting like fireworks. Golden.
It’s hard to think of a time when we weren’t together. Whether it was in the library, covering our mouths, unable to contain ourselves with laughter as one of us fumbled a sign or misread a subtle movement, or sitting on the floor of my room talking for hours. Or the countless times we tried using our own keys on each other’s doors because it had become so familiar walking in and out of one another’s spaces.
Laughter filled the room. My tears slipped free, and I looked up to meet Lexie’s smile.
Our worlds had folded into each other so completely that the idea of distance seemed absurd. It was in these small moments that our friendship deepened and held so much more than silent actions but loud gestures that would stay with me forever.
Thank you for being the only person who saw me not as a ragdoll, but as something special worth choosing.
