Losing It

Everyone's worst fear, happening.

Losing my hearing wasn't something that happened overnight.  It was slow, painful, and ugly.  I spoke too loud and turned up my music higher than was normal, though I quickly and calculatedly regimented those behaviors.  I relied more and more on lip-reading to converse, and on occasion asked people to look at me so I could read their lips.  My parents didn't catch on, and while my best friend noticed, he simply obliged me and thought nothing more of it.  Soon I was reading lips more than I was hearing, and listened to less and less music until I didn't play any at all.

I was sixteen years old.