The Silent Waters

by Brittainy Cherry

  The first time he brought the gardenias, he could tell I loved them most, maybe by the way my lips turned up, maybe by the number of times I nodded my head as I breathed in the scent, or maybe simply because he had learned how to read my silence.

  My father knew almost everything about me, based on my small gestures and tiny movements. What he didn’t know was that each day at the end of my bath, when the scalding hot water became chilled, I’d slip my head under the water and hold my breath for the last five minutes.

  Within those five minutes, I remembered what had happened to me. It was important for me to do it—to remember the devil, how he looked. How he felt. If I didn’t remember, some days I’d blame myself for what had happened, forgetting that I had been a victim that night. When I remembered, it wasn’t so hard to breathe. I did my best thinking when I was beneath the water. I forgave myself for any guilty feelings when I was submerged.

  She couldn’t breathe.

  My throat tightened as if the devil’s fingers were wrapped around my neck instead of the woman’s.

  The devil.

  He was the devil in my eyes, at least.

  Run! Run, Maggie! My mind kept screaming, but I stayed still, unable to look away from the horror before my eyes.

  “Maggie!”

  I emerged from the water at the sound of my name and released a deep breath before taking a deeper inhale.

  “Maggie, Mrs. Boone is here to see you,” Daddy hollered from downstairs. I stood up in the bathtub and unblocked the drain, allowing the water to swirl clockwise down the pipes. My long, stringy blond hair hung down to my buttocks, and my skin stayed ghostly pale.

  My eyes met the clock on the wall.

  6:01 p.m.

  Mrs. Boone was late. Really late.

  Years ago, when she had heard about my trauma, she’d asked if she could meet with me once a day so I could interact with someone. Secretly, I thought she met with me each day to hide her own loneliness, but I didn’t mind. When two lonely souls found one another, they held on tight, no matter what. I wasn’t certain if that was a good or bad thing yet. One would think when two lonely people came together, the two negatives would cancel out and make a positive, but that wasn’t the case. The two seemed to make an even deeper level of loneliness, one they loved to drown in.

  Mrs. Boone often brought her cat, Muffins, along with her to entertain me at lunchtime. She always came by at noon, and we’d sit down in the dining room for sandwiches and tea. I hated tea, and Mrs. Boone knew I hated tea, yet each day she found the need to bring it to me from the local bakery, Sweetest Addictions.

  “You’re young, which means you’re stupid, so you don’t truly understand how wonderful tea is for you. It will grow on you,” she promised—a promise that was always a lie. It never grew on me. If anything, I hated it more and more each time.

  She had lived in Britain when she was young and in her prime, and I had to assume that was where her love for the mucky drink came from. Since the death of her husband years ago, she had always dreamed of moving back to England. He was the reason she had come to America, but after he passed away, I guessed as time went by she’d lost her nerve to go back to England.

  “Stanley was home,” she’d always say about her late husband. “It didn’t matter where we lived, because as long as he was there, I was home.” After he passed, it was almost as if Mrs. Boone became homeless. When Stanley packed his bags and went off to the afterlife, he took Mrs. Boone’s safe haven with him—his heartbeats. I often wondered if she ever closed her eyes for a few minutes and remembered those heartbeats.

  I knew I would.

  “Maggie!” Daddy shouted, shaking me from my thought.

  I reached for the oversized white towel on the counter and wrapped it around my body. Stepping out of the tub, I moved in front of the mirror and grabbed my hairbrush. As I began to get the knots out of my hair, I stared at my blue eyes that matched Dad’s and the sculpted cheekbones I had also received from him. The small freckles across my nose came from my grandma, and the long eyelashes, my grandpa. So much of my ancestry could be seen each day simply by staring into a mirror. I knew it was impossible, but sometimes I swore I had Mama’s smile and her frown.

  “Maggie,” Daddy hollered again. “Did you hear me?”

  I debated not responding, because I was pretty irritated that Mrs. Boone thought it was okay to drop by so late in the afternoon as if I hadn’t other things to do. Twelve noon was when she was supposed to come. We had a routine, a planned schedule, and she had gone against it that afternoon. I didn’t even truly understand why she bothered to stop by each day, or why I allowed her to come over for lunch. She was ruder than rude most of the time, telling me how stupid I was and how ridiculous it was that I wouldn’t speak a word.

  Childish, she called it.

  Immature, even.

  I guessed I kept dealing with her each afternoon because she was one of my few friends. Sometimes her rude comments were so harsh they’d pull a reaction from me—a small grin, tiny, silent chuckles only I could hear. The seventy-year-old fart was one of the best friends I ever had. She was my favorite enemy, too. Our relationship was complicated, so the best word to described us was frenemies—friendly enemies. Plus, I still loved her cat as much as I had when I was a child, and she still followed me around the house, rubbing her soft fur against my legs.

  “Maggie May?” Daddy hollered again, this time knocking on the bathroom door. “Did you hear me?”

  I knocked on the door twice. One knock meant no, two knocks meant yes.

  “Well, let’s not keep Mrs. Boone waiting, okay? Hurry downstairs,” he said.

  I almost knocked once against the door to show my sassiness, but I refrained from the act. I braided my still soaked hair into one giant braid that hung over my left shoulder. I put on my underwear, then slipped my pale yellow dress over my head. I grabbed my novel from the side of the tub before opening the bathroom door, then hurried down the stairs toward the dining room to see my favorite frenemy.

  Mrs. Boone always dressed as if she were off to meet Queen Elizabeth. She wore jewels and gems around her neck and her fingers, and they always sparkled against the faux fur she wore around her shoulders. She always lied and said it was real fur, but I knew better. I’d read enough books based on the forties to know the difference between real fur and fake.

  She always wore dresses and tights with sweaters and short heels, and then she’d place a shimmering colorful collar around Muffins’ neck to match her outfit.

  “It’s rude to keep the elderly waiting, Maggie May,” Mrs. Boone said, tapping her fingers against the cherry oak table.

  It’s rude to keep the young waiting, too, Mrs. Boone.

  I gave her a tight smile, and she cocked an eyebrow at me, displeased. I sat down beside her, and she pushed my cup of tea toward me. “It’s Black Earl Grey tea. You’ll like it this time,” she said.

  I took a sip and gagged.

  Once again, she was wrong. She smiled, satisfied by my displeasure. “Your hair looks awful. You really shouldn’t let it air dry like that. You’ll catch a cold.”

  No, I won’t.

  “Yes,” she huffed. “You will.”

  She always knew the words I didn’t say. Lately I wondered if she were a witch or something. If perhaps when she was a child, an owl showed up to her windowsill and dropped her an invitation to attend a school for witches and wizards, but then somewhere along the way she fell in love with a Muggle and came back to Wisconsin to choose love over true adventure.

  If it were me, I’d never choose love over adventure.

  I’d always accept the owl’s invitation.

  That idea was ironic, seeing as how the only adventure I’d ever lived was through the pages of novels.

  “What have you been reading?” she asked, reaching into her oversized purse and pulling out two turkey sandwiches. I couldn’t see the sandwiches because they were still in the brown paper Sweetest Addictions wrapped
all their food with, but I knew they were turkey. Mrs. Boone always kept our sandwiches the same: turkey, tomato, lettuce, and mayo on rye bread. Nothing more, nothing less. Even on the days I wanted tuna, I had to just pretend my turkey was fish.

  She set one in front of me and the other she unwrapped, taking a large bite. For a tiny lady, she sure knew how to take big bites of food.

  I placed my novel in front of her, and she sighed. “Again?”

  Yes, again.

  For the past month, I’d been rereading the Harry Potter series, which might’ve had something to do with the fact that I believed Mrs. Boone to be a witch. To be fair, she did also have the classic witch mole next to her nose.

  “There are so many books in this world, and you find a way to read all the same ones over and over again. There’s no possible way the stories still surprise you after all this time.”

  Obviously she hadn’t ever read or reread Harry Potter.

  Each time was different.

  When I had first read the books, I’d seen the excitement in the story.

  As I reread them, I saw much more of the pain.

  A person never reads an outstanding book twice and walks away with the same beliefs. An outstanding book always surprises you and awakens you to new ideas, new ways of looking at the world, no matter how many times the words have been read.

  “I’m going to start believing you’re into Wicca,” she said, chowing down on her sandwich and sipping her tea. A peculiar thing for a witch to say to a Muggle, if you asked me.

  Muffins came from under the table and rubbed against my leg to say hello. I bent down to pet her. Hello, friend. Muffins meowed before turning on her side for me to pat her belly. When I didn’t pat her the way she wanted me to, I swore she muttered a curse word at me in cat language, then she wandered off, probably to find my mother, who was a professional at petting Muffins.

  “What’s wrong with your face?” she barked, narrowing her eyes at me.

  I raised an eyebrow, confused.

  She shook her head back and forth. “Your eyes look awful, like you haven’t slept in days. You should really have Katie bring you some makeup. You look horrid.”

  I touched below my eyes. It was always worrisome when someone said you looked tired but you didn’t feel that way.

  “Listen, Maggie. We must talk.” Mrs. Boone sat up straighter in her seat and cleared her throat. “What I mean is you must listen as I speak.”

  I sat up straighter, too. I knew it must be serious because whenever she was going to be stern, her nostrils flared, which they were doing at that moment.

  “You have to leave your house,” she said.

  I almost laughed.

  Leave home?

  What a ridiculous idea. She knew my situation—well, she didn’t know my situation, but she knew well enough. In the past ten years, I hadn’t left home. Mama and Daddy had enrolled me in homeschooling years ago, and whenever I needed a doctor or a dentist, my parents arranged for them to come to us. Mrs. Boone knew these facts; it was why we never had disgusting tea at her house.

  Her brows furrowed. “I’m not joking, Maggie May. You have to leave. What are you going to do? Stay here forever? You’re about to graduate high school. Are you not interested in college?”

  I didn’t have an answer to that.

  Mrs. Boone frowned. “How do you expect to ever live your life? How will you ever fall in love? Or hike a mountain? Or see the Eiffel Tower at night? Jessica, we can’t keep supporting you like this,” she said.

  I paused and raised an eyebrow. Jessica?

  “Your father and I are being pushed to the limit, and there’s not much more we can take. Don’t you want to be something? Do something?”

  The room filled with silence, and Mrs. Boone’s brows lowered, as if she was going deep into thought. A cloud of confusion washed over her as she pressed the palms of her hands against her eyes. She shook her head slightly before reaching for her tea and taking a sip.

  Her eyes were filled with a state of bewilderment when she looked up at me. “What were we saying?” Where had she just traveled? “Oh right. You must leave, Maggie May.

  “What about your parents? Are they just supposed to spend the rest of their days sitting in this house with you? Do they never get a chance to be married without kids in their home? They didn’t sign up for this.”

  I turned my back to her, angered and hurt, but mostly ashamed, because she was right. Out of the corner of my eye, I could still see her frowning. The more I saw her frown, the angrier I grew.

  Leave.

  “Oh. You’re grumpy now and throwing a tantrum,” she muttered.

  I knocked on the table once. No.

  She knocked on it twice. “Yes. A teenage girl who is emotional and throwing a tantrum, how original. Finish your sandwich, grumpy. I’ll be back tomorrow.”

  Whatever, old fart. Don’t be late again. I rolled my eyes and stomped my feet hard against the floor. God, I was throwing a tantrum. How original.

  “You’re mad at me, which is fine,” she said, rolling her brown paper into a ball. She stood up from her chair, placed her purse on her shoulder, and lifted up my novel. Her steps brought her closer to me and she lifted my chin with her finger. “But you’re only mad because you know I’m right.” She placed the book in my lap. “You can’t just read these books and think that means you’re living. It’s their story, not yours, and it’s heartbreaking to watch someone so young toss away their chance at writing their own story.”

  “You’re really starting to piss me off, Cheryl.”

  Cheryl was fighting with her boyfriend, Jordan, across the hall from my bedroom as I sat on my bed reading a novel.

  Correction: Cheryl was fighting with her ex-boyfriend Jordan across the hall from my bedroom as I sat on my bed reading a novel.

  “I’m just saying,” Cheryl groaned, tapping the heel of her shoe against the wall. Her arms were crossed and she kept smacking her bubble gum. “It’s not me, it’s you. I’m just not into you like that anymore.”

  “You gotta be shitting me,” Jordan huffed, his feet storming back and forth in the hallway. “I broke up with my ex for you! I paid more than a hundred bucks for our prom tickets—a fucking dance I didn’t even want to go to—for you. I’ve bent over backward to treat you right. I’ve ditched parties to watch chick flicks with you.”

  Cheryl twirled her hair on her finger and shrugged. “Nobody told you to do all those things.”

  Jordan chuckled, flabbergasted. “Yes! You did! You even smoked my weed every night.”

  “That was me being nice to you,” she explained. “You smoking pot alone would’ve just made you a pothead. You smoking with me made you a social butterfly.”

  “This is bullshit,” he snapped, raking his hands through his hair. “Prom is tomorrow. What the hell am I supposed to do?”

  “Go by yourself.”

  Cheryl was beautiful, that was a given fact. Over the years, she had grown into her body—big chest, thick hips, slim waist—a lot faster than I had grown into mine. In my mind, she had the perfect body, and from years of braces, a perfect smile to go with it. After years of feeling like an outsider, she’d created this persona where she was determined to fit in—even if that meant extreme measures to lose weight for an ounce of attention.

  Another given fact about my sister was that she knew her beauty existed, and she used it in almost every situation to get whatever she wanted in the world—no matter who it hurt. Then, she’d come to my bedroom and tell me about how many guys she used and abused, just to get things from them. Dates, money, presents, sex—anything and everything.

  Sometimes I thought she told me so much because she resented me for making her miss out on so many things as a kid. Other times, I thought she felt guilty about what she did, and my silence gave her a bit of confidence that what she did was okay.

  She was a professional fake lover of love. She made guys believe in the love, too, which wasn’t easy for boys
our age—especially for a bad boy turned good like Jordan. He literally went from the biggest jerk ever to a puppy dog whenever he was around Cheryl. He always seemed as if he was begging her to love him—except for when she pissed him off. When she pissed him off, his true colors showed. People could hide their true selves for a while, but over time, the masks always fell off.

  “No. Screw that. You said you loved me,” Jordan choked out, almost close to tears.

  “Yeah, loved—past tense.”

  I peeked over the top of my book and stared at them. Jordan’s face was red, and Cheryl seemed more than amused by the fact that he was upset.

  “No,” Jordan hissed, grabbing her tightly by the arm.

  I put my book down.

  “No. You don’t get to do this. Not without a real reason.”

  “You want a real reason? Fine.” Cheryl yanked her arm from his grip, and she stood up tall, staring him square in the eyes. “I slept with Hank.”

  Jordan’s eyes grew wide. “What? No, you didn’t.”

  “I did.” Her eyes widened too, and a wicked grin found her lips.

  Oh no. She was about to crush his spirit, the same way she’d crushed many other guys in our hallway.

  “I screwed him at Tim’s party when you were sick, and at his house when I told you I was getting my hair done, and in my room yesterday when—”

  Jordan closed his eyes and his hands wrapped into fists. “Hank is my best friend.”

  She snickered and lightly shoved him in his chest, forcing him to step away from her. “You should choose your friends more carefully.”

  Her laughter faltered as her head flew sideways when Jordan’s hand slapped her hard. Her back slammed against the wall and her body slid down to the floor.

  I hadn’t a clue how it happened, but the next thing I knew, I was standing in the hallway, holding my novel in my hand, ready to knock Jordan out if he stepped an inch closer to my sister. Cheryl’s face reddened from his hit, and her hand gripped her skin.