Listen Before You Speak

Chapter 2

The cafeteria was much louder than I could remember. Truth be told, I haven’t been in the cafeteria for quite some time. I usually just sat outside under a tree eating my lunch with a book popped open or my iPod screaming sweet sounds in my ears. But this time I didn’t really have a choice. I already told Blake I would have lunch with him.

“So where’s your table?” I heard a voice behind me say.

I turned around, looked at Blake, and then darted my head from side to side, searching the room for any available table. It’s not like I just wanted Blake to know I usually hid away from the rest of the world. When I couldn’t see an empty table I just shrugged and motioned with my hand for him to follow me.

“Well, if we can’t eat inside, we could always eat outside,” I though. “Maybe Blake would even like it more that way.”

“So where are you taking me big guy?” Blake asked.

I could not help myself spinning around and giving him my very best what-is-wrong-with-you? look. If one thing was certain, it was that there was no way in hell that I was a big guy. I probably looked not much older than fourteen if I had to guess for myself. What this guy totally insane? Well, that at least would make sense. Why else would a cute guy talk to the stranger with the weird black cross over his mouth?

“Yes?” Blake asked with a smile, almost as if he was taunting me, which made it a bit more difficult for me to keep my cool. I mean, come-on, who could keep their cool when a guy like Blake was smiling at them?

I opened my mouth to give a snarky remark, but just as the words started to form around my lips, I remembered… I don’t talk. I promised I wouldn’t talk again. Never. Talking makes bad things happen. Talking ruins everything. Talking is what caused me the load of s**t I am still trying to sort out today. So I just closed my mouth, turned around and started walking in the general direction of the old orchard like everybody used to call it.

The school stood in the exact spot where an old apple orchard used to be. Some of the older trees was actually still around the school and I had my favorite one. It was at the far end of the yard, where nobody dared to go, being too scared to be too far away when the bell rang. That suited me just fine. Another reason why I really liked this specific tree was the fact that it wasn’t alive anymore. It wasn’t dead either. One half of the tree had no leaves. The other half still bared fruit each and every year. It was like the tree was me, only… Well, bigger?

“So where are we going?” Blake asked me once again. I could almost feel his breath on my neck, so instead of turning around I just pointed toward the tree.

“Seriously? You want to sit under the tree?” the confusion in Blake’s voice making me wonder if I had made the right decision. I mean, I could have gone over to Alice’s table. I am sure she would’ve let us sit with her. I just nodded and walked faster. Eager to reach the tree as fast as I possibly can.

I planted myself on the ground, and seconds later I could almost feel the energy in the earth shift as Blake sat down next to me.

“So you don’t talk?”

Well, that didn’t take long at all, I thought. I just shook my head.

“But you did talk to me this morning. You said your name. So that means you’re not mute?” Blake said, pulling the beanie from his head. Now I could see the curls hidden underneath. It was completely messy, and at the same time he looked like he just came from a hair salon. Just with that one move I was already jealous. I had to spend time on my hair! Especially if it was hidden under a beanie for half of the day. It was just not fair!

“So, going to answer me or just stare at me the entire lunch break?” Blake asked, a twinkle in his eye. It was like he was laughing at me, without laughing at all.

I just shrugged. I haven’t spoken in four years. I wasn’t about to start now, except off course for my laps earlier today.

“Will you write it down? Your answer, I mean…” Blake said as I gave him a puzzling look.

He grabbed his backpack and pulled out an old notebook, flipping it to a clean sheet as quickly as possible, almost as if he was afraid that I would see what he had written on all the others.

He handed the notebook to me and then scrambled in his bag to find a pen, which he also gave to me.

“I’m so not going to make this easy for you,” I thought, and gave him another puzzled look that probably revealed a hell of a lot of lines on my forehead, which thanks to my fringe he couldn’t possible see.

“You write your answer there,” Blake said pointing at the notebook. “So, you’re not really mute are you?”

I gave him my are-you-mad look, and ignored the notebook all together. What the hell does he want me to write in the notebook anyway? Give him evidence to show the teachers and the other kids that although I don’t talk to other people, I do sing loudly to My Chemical Romance when my mom isn’t home? That I sometimes have a lapse and say my name out loud when confronted by an excruciating sexy guy? Nope, that is not going to happen!

Shake your head Elijah! Shake your head!

Slowly my head obeyed, and my lips stayed stuck to each other like they should.

“Okay… I think I get it. You don’t want to tell me?”

I shook my head again.

“Then tell me, why don’t you sit in the cafeteria at lunch?”

I pointed to the cross over my lips, making Blake frown and mutter; “Yeah, you don’t speak… I forgot…”

“You forgot? Seriously? Aren’t we sitting discussing my muteness at this very moment? I have a damn cross over my lips to remind you of that every second of every day!” I wanted to scream to him, but instead I just gave another frown that he couldn’t see. Gosh, maybe Blake wasn’t anywhere near as smart as what he wanted to make the world believe with his correct Scarlet Letter answers and his Lucy-sarcasm.

Before he could ask another stupid question or say something else meaningless I grabbed the notebook closer and began to write as his eyes followed the ink seeping into the paper.

Look, I don’t know what you want, but I really don’t talk. And not just that, why would you hang out with a weirdo? I’m sure you could make lots of nice friends. Alice seems to really like you.

“Not interested. Alice isn’t my type,” Blake said and watched as I started scribbling away again.

Lucy maybe?

“Bleach blonde, brainless Barbie just doesn’t go with cool hipster kid, don’t you think?”

This time he said it with more than just his eyes laughing. This time the sound came from him and for a moment I so longed to just laugh one more time. I used to love laughing. But you never truly appreciate something as simple as laughter until you’re not allowed to do it anymore.

There’s lots of other kids that can actually hold a conversation.

“I think we are doing pretty well with holding an actual conversation at the moment,” Blake said and put his hand on mine, preventing me from writing any further.

“Brainless Barbie and Action Alice isn’t my type, because I like boys,” Blake said with a smile plastered on his face, which tells me that he had practiced that smile and done it a hundred times before. And although I barely knew him I could see a type of worry in his eyes. A kind of fear maybe. And although I did not want to, I drew my hand out from under his, immediately missing the warmth of his hand as I wrote.

Look… I’m really not ready for a friendship, much less a relationship.

“Walk away Elijah!” my brain started screaming, and at least my body listened this time.

I placed the notebook on the ground next to him, stood up and walked away as fast as I possibly could. When I heard him calling after me, I started sprinting towards the school. Running as fast as my skinny emo legs could carry me. Far away from the one person that made me form a word. Far away from the boy who made me want to go to the nearest bathroom to wash the cross from my lips and forget that I was ever mute. Away from the guy who wanted me to grab a pair of scissors and cut my fringe so that I could look at the world, and the world could see me right back.

***

“How was school?” my mother asked before I was even properly inside if the car. Gawd. This woman was really annoying with all the questions, making me regret not turning on my Ipod before getting into a car with her.

I shrugged.

“Just the usual?” she asked again, looking at me in the rearview mirror as we pulled away.

Well, if you can call hiding in the library behind the oldest and mustiest books I could find the usual, then yes, just the usual I thought shrugging again.

“You have an appointment with your therapist tomorrow.” Could this woman not stop trying to make conversation when I made it so obvious I did not want to talk to her?

“She says you’re making progress?” my mother asks again, this time turning around in her seat as she stopped at a red traffic light.

Actually the therapist is a b***h who tells me that I have mommy-issues and calls that progress so she can keep on charging you for more sessions! Are you stupid! And at this moment I wish that my mind can reach out to yours to shake some sense into you, so that you can see that no matter how many therapists you send my way – I will NEVER speak again!

I hoped that my eyes would carry this message across, but then I remembered my fringe, and just nodded, showing that I was still alive somewhere under all the hair. My mom of course took this as me agreeing with what she said.

“See! I knew this therapist would be able to help you!” She probably would have screamed a bit more if the car behind us didn’t hoot and tell my mother that the traffic light was now green.

Then again, thanks to her shrieking I now knew why I couldn’t talk to her. Mother’s was supposed to know everything, weren’t they? In the words of J.K. Rowling: “Honestly woman! And you call yourself my mother?”

The rest of the drive home passed with a more comfortable silence where I was allowed to just stare out the window, while my mother tried to reach Celine Dion’s notes, making the dogs we passed howl to an invisible moon in broad daylight.

At home I didn’t bother to get lunch. I just marched myself up to my room, and before I could even push play on my iPod allowing the voice of Gerard Way to tell me he was not okay, I could hear my mother backing out of the driveway and heading off to her second job for the day. Yes, she probably wasn’t a bad mother considering she did everything she could to give me everything I could ever need. Not everything I want, because apparently that would bring me up without any moral values and no respect for the value of the dollar.

Like always I plumped down on my bed and reached into my pillowcase, bringing an old looking book into the light. The truth was it wasn’t really old. It was just made to look that way. My fingers traced the word “Emotional Amnesia” which I carved into it with a blade, and then started searching for the poem I wrote before I went to sleep last night.

As a razor,

Takes the flesh from me,

In my heart,

I know I will very soon feel free.

As blood pours down,

My waiting wrists,

My pain and feeling,

Disappears in mists.

Hungry for another high,

As the tension builds inside,

I take the razor one more time,

Knowing there’s no way to hide.

The ripping sound of flesh,

A tear with a laughing smile,

I know I’ll feel it soon,

Freedom for another while.

Time stood still,

As the dripping sound unfold,

The corpse of my soul bare,

A never-ending cold.

Absentmindedly I pull up the sleeve of my hoodie, exposing the inspiration behind the poem. Slowly caressing it, allowing it to consume me and to inspire me once more, making me feel as in control of my body as I would never be in control of my mind or the situations playing off around me. But this time, and the first time ever, it just wasn’t enough to inspire me. Something, or someone else kept popping into my head. A boy who laughed while his eyes sparkled. A boy who would place his warm hand on my and make me feel that I wasn’t the freak I knew I was. A boy who may or may not like me. A boy who would probably never in his life talk to me again, in fear of catching the mental unstableness of my mind like a disease that spreads rapidly from one human to the other.

As I wrote I saw him, and the light faded away. My bedroom and its ungodliness disappeared from view, and the burning sensation in the pit of my stomach lulled me away to a beautiful place I did not even know existed up to this very moment. And I knew at that moment that I loved sleep. It was really like I thought death would be, but without the commitment of never leaving it again.

***

I woke up to a car pulling into the driveway. Mom was home, and the moon was splashing all over my face. I slept the day away, leaving me a child of the night once more. Damn, that sounded epic!

“Honey! I’m home!” I heard the call.

“Yes Homer, I’m coming!” I wanted to scream back, but stopped myself just in time, rather getting up and pushing stop on my iPod as an answer.

Slowly I made it to the bathroom, climbing in the shower and allowing the dreams I now I could never live in real life wash away from my body. Feeling the burn on my arms where I tried to make a physical image of what I was feeling last night. Forcing myself not to think anymore.

After that I climbed out of the shower and followed the smell of food down to the kitchen.

“Work was wonderful tonight! Not like last night. There was this very cute old couple that left me a nice tip, and Markus even gave me off early tonight. So I thought I would treat us to some pizza and maybe we could watch a movie afterwards?” My mom rambled as if I was asking her how her evening went.

“And look! I can see your eyes!” she yelled loudly and almost fell as she ran around the kitchen table to pull me against her in a tight hug.

For once I didn’t let my arms just hang to the side. I hugged her back. As tightly as I possibly could. For a moment I thought she was laughing, but her shaking wasn’t laughing when she slowly slid down to the floor, holding me tightly in her grip, tears falling from her eyes.

“I can’t take it anymore,” she whispered through the tears, stroking my back.

I wanted to talk to her. I wanted to tell her that it would be okay. That she could stop worrying about me. That I could stop going to therapy, so that she could stop working late nights at the restaurant to pay for it. I wanted her to know that even though I hated her for not knowing what happened, I still loved her because she was my mom. MY mom! The only one in the world that still tried to talk to me, even when I ignored her.

“It’s okay.”

It just slipped out. I couldn’t help it. It was out before I even thought the words.