The Silent Waters

by Brittainy C. Cherry

  “You’re a fucking whore,” Jordan said, spitting at her, his words hitting me hard, his actions hitting me harder.

  He screamed at her, his voice cracking. “You fucking whore!” he shouted, slapping her hard across the face. She stumbled backward and whimpered, her hand flying to her cheek. “I gave you everything. We had a life together. What about our son? What about our family?” He slapped her again and again. “We had a life!” He shoved her to the ground and his eyes popped out of his head, as if he was crazy—disturbed.

  “You’ll come to your senses, trust me,” Jordan told my sister. “And I’ll be waiting when you come running back to me.”

  I raised my arms up high, seconds away from hitting him. I stomped my feet, my mind traveling from past to present day with each blink of my eyes. Over and over again I stomped my feet until Jordan turned to look my way. When our eyes met, I stepped back.

  Jordan’s dark side was showing. Everyone had a dark side, their own personal devil that they kept chained up most days. The devil whispered lies into individuals’ ears, filling them with fear and doubt, pushing them to do dark things. The main goal was to control the sounds of the devil, to only allow it to peek out of the closet where it was chained up. The devil could only truly take over one’s mind if the person freed him, and allowed him inside.

  Jordan’s devil broke free of his chains that night.

  His darkness scared me.

  Shh…

  I blinked slowly, and when I reopened my eyes, Jordan had a sly smile on his face. “What the hell are you gonna do, freak? Are you going to silently beat me to death with a book?” He came toward me and launched forward like he was going to hit me.

  A sharp yank to my dress sent me backward, the poppy in my hair flying across the forest floor. His fingers were wrapped around my dress and he tossed me to the ground. My breaths weaved in and out and I screamed as he tackled my body, placing all of his weight on top of me, his filthy hands covering my mouth, muting my shouts.

  I kicked and screamed, screamed and kicked. He was going to kill me.

  When I opened my eyes, I was on the floor, covering my face with the book in my grip, shaking from fear, shaking from memories. I hated that part of me—the one that sometimes slipped back into the past. I hated how it shook me, how it still had a hold on me at times, but mostly, I hated when others noticed. Most of my panic attacks I’d been able to keep hidden. Most of the panics were a secret of mine.

  He laughed at my reaction. “What a fucking nutjob. I’m out of here.”

  He hurried down the stairs and slammed the front door on his exit.

  With haste, I stood up and rushed to Cheryl’s side. I bent down, reaching my hand out to help her up. She swatted it away.

  “God, Maggie. Why don’t you just get a life of your own and butt out of mine?” she grumbled, standing up and rubbing her cheek. “You’re so embarrassing.”

  She hurried to her bedroom and slammed her door shut.

  I rushed over to my bedroom, grabbed my notebook and a marker, and ran back to Cheryl’s door, knocking.

  She opened it and rolled her eyes. “What do you want?”

  I scribbled on the paper. You didn’t sleep with Hank.

  She ran her fingers through her hair and shifted on her feet. “Go away, Maggie.”

  You were shopping with Mama yesterday. You didn’t sleep with Hank.

  “It’s none of your business.”

  Jordan hit you.

  “I provoked him.”

  He hurt you.

  “I pushed him, Maggie. I pushed him.”

  I gotta tell Mama and Dad that he hit you.

  “Will you just shut up, Maggie?” she whisper-shouted as she reached for the page in my notebook and crumpled it up, tossing it into her room. “You don’t understand anything about relationships or boys, even. That’s just how Jordan gets sometimes. I push him, and he pushes back. Stop making a big deal out of things. Not everyone is as traumatized and damaged as you, okay? And just because you’re a freak and don’t have a life of your own doesn’t mean you can meddle in mine.”

  I stepped back.

  Ouch.

  For a second, Cheryl’s upper lip twitched and her eyes glassed over; perhaps she was feeling regret for hurting my feelings? She shook her head back and forth, shaking off the feeling. “I’m not going to apologize, all right? You pushed me, Maggie, so I pushed back. Anyway, Jordan and I aren’t even together anymore, so it doesn’t matter. I’m on to bigger and better things now. So if you don’t mind…” She took her hand and waved me off. “Bye.”

  I sighed and walked off to my room, back to my quiet corner of the world, and picked up my book once more.

  Sometimes I wondered what it’d be like to leave the house, but if there were people like Jordan outside those doors, I was better off staying at home.

  I couldn’t concentrate.

  I’d been sitting on my bed with my book open to page two hundred and nine for several minutes, yet I hadn’t been able to read. My mind kept replaying Jordan hitting my sister. The shocked expression on Cheryl’s face as his hand made contact. The loud gasp that fell from her lips.

  I shut my eyes.

  Shh…

  “You okay this evening, Magnet?” Brooks said, standing in my bedroom doorway later that night with a backpack hanging on his shoulder. My eyes opened and I took a breath of relief. He never knew how perfect his timing was, but he always showed up when I needed him.

  I closed the book in my grip and sat cross-legged on my bed, looking up at him. His shaggy brown hair was getting long—his rock star style—and was touching the bottom of his eyebrows. Every now and then, he’d slightly flick his head back to move the hair from his eyes. Sometimes he’d pucker his lips together and puff hard to move the strands, but never—and I mean never—did he use his fingers to guide his hair. He always smiled so wide whenever he looked at me, which in turn brought smiles to my lips. I didn’t always feel like smiling, but Brooks? He made me feel as if smiling was all I ever wanted to do.

  “Can I come in?” he asked.

  The answer was yes. The answer was always yes.

  He sat down on my bed. I reached for the notebook and pen on my nightstand, opening it up to the first free page. Beside my bed was a trash can filled with balled up pieces of paper from the nights before when Brooks came to visit. It was the way we communicated the best. In the mornings, we just listened to music, but in the afternoons, he’d speak and I’d write. I’d tried the same form of communication with Mrs. Boone, but she had told me she wasn’t going to aid me in killing trees. Plus, she said I had a voice and should be able to use it.

  “I hear Mrs. Boone and you had a fight,” he said. I rolled my eyes and he snickered. “She means no harm, you know that, right? I went over to her place to drop Muffins back off, and she told me everything she said to you. I’m not saying her delivery was right, but her heart was in the right…” His words faded off as he saw my annoyed glare.

  “She was right.” He snickered. “You are grumpy.”

  I started writing on the paper. She called me Jessica.

  He frowned. “Yeah.” He shifted his body slightly and looked up.

  I cocked an eyebrow.

  He pretended not to notice by looking higher up. My fingers nudged his shoulder. “I’m not supposed to say anything, Maggie.”

  I nudged him again.

  He sighed. “Okay, but you have to promise not to tell anyone, all right?”

  I scrunched my nose. Who would I tell?

  He laughed and tapped my nose twice. “I forgot I’m talking to the one girl who’s perfect at keeping a secret. So, my mom said Mrs. Boone’s been struggling with her memory. She found her wandering around last weekend, and Mrs. Boone was confused about her whereabouts. Mom said she thought it was maybe the early stages of Alzheimer’s, and she wanted Mrs. Boone to get checked out, just in case.”

  Did she?

  He frowned. “You know Mrs. B,
a bit stubborn, to say the least. She said she was fine and didn’t need anyone meddling in her affairs.”

  A worrisome feeling grew in my gut as I imagined something seriously being wrong with Mrs. Boone. Even though I hated her, I loved her so much. The idea of anything happening to her made me nauseous.

  As I went to write a few more words to Brooks, he blocked my hand from the paper. “Wait, I got something for you. For us.” He took off his backpack, unzipped it, and pulled out a huge dry-erase board with a new pack of markers. “I figured this is an easier way to write and not waste all that paper. Plus, if we ever have to tell secrets, I don’t have to speak out loud, and then we can just erase the evidence.”

  I smiled.

  He smiled.

  I took a marker and began writing, but before I could write anything, he spoke.

  “I broke up with Lacey today.” My marker dragged across the board as my mouth dropped open. He laughed nervously and shrugged. “Yeah, I know.” Lacey and Brooks had been dating for about nine months—nine months, two weeks, and four days to be exact—not that I’d been counting.

  Why?

  “Well, she kind of broke up with me, I guess. She said she couldn’t handle being the third choice in my life.”

  Third?

  “Music…and, well…” He gave me a grin that was more of a grimace. “You.”

  My chest tightened and I sat up straighter. He continued speaking. “She thinks I spend too much time with you, seeing you every day. She’s a bit jealous and has this crazy idea that you and I have something going on.”

  Did we? Was there something going on between us?

  He rolled his eyes. “Which of course, we don’t. I told her you and I are just friends, because we are.”

  Right. Of course. We had nothing going on. I held the anchor necklace I wore around my neck each day in the palm of my hand and squeezed it lightly.

  Brooks and I were just friends; why did that feel like a punch to my gut?

  “Anyway, I thought I’d tell you before anyone else did. It kind of sucks because I spent all that money on my tuxedo for prom tomorrow. Whatever, no big deal.”

  I knew it was a big deal to him, though, because whenever Brooks was hurt, he chewed on his right thumb.

  I’m so sorry, Brooks. I’m sorry you’re hurting.

  “Yeah, me too. I liked her, you know? Lacey was great. But…” He frowned at the words on the dry-erase board, then took the palm of his hand and erased them. “See? With one swipe of the hand, the hurting is gone.”

  He stood up and started walking around my room, running his fingers across the spines of all of my novels. I knew the hurting wasn’t gone, because another thing Brooks did when he was sad was pace and thumb through my books.

  The tiny bookshelf I’d had since I was a small kid was now stacked high with novels, and those that didn’t fit on the shelves were standing up around the perimeter of my bedroom.

  Unlike most people, my books were not grouped together by genre or author name. My books were placed together based on the color of their binding. All reds sat beside one another, while all the purples stayed close together. So, when one walked into my bedroom, they saw a rainbow border wrapping around the space.

  “What’s this?” he asked, picking up a small notebook with leather binding.

  I shot up from the bed and hurried over to him.

  He smirked wickedly. “Oh my…could this be Magnet’s diary?”

  I leaped for it, and he held it over his head. I leaped again, and he moved it behind his back. My arms were wild, trying to rip it away from him.

  “What kind of stuff do you write in here, huh? Your dirty little secrets? I can’t help but wonder…” He smiled wider and his grin made me happy, and mad, and excited, and scared all at once. The more he leaped up to avoid me getting the journal from him, the more I leaped up to try to snatch it. Every time our skin brushed against one another, I wanted to move in closer. Every time he touched me, I wanted more. He kept laughing and laughing. “I’m sorry, Maggie. I know you’ll never forgive me, but I gotta. I just gotta read one page to see what kind of thoughts go through your—”

  He opened to the first page.

  He stopped moving.

  He stopped talking.

  He stopped laughing, too.

  “Maggie’s to-do list?” he asked.

  My cheeks felt warm, my stomach knotted. I walked back to my bed and sat down.

  He followed, sat, and handed me the journal.

  It was reading’s fault.

  Reading was both a gift and a curse for me. Those books made me able to escape into a world I’d never experienced, but at the same time, they reminded me of all the things I’d been missing.

  So, I made a list.

  A list so that if somehow, someway, I became able to step outside that front door of mine, I’d have things to do, to see, to explore. Wishful thinking, maybe, but if books had taught me anything, it was that dreaming was always a worthy cause to take part in.

  My list grew each day, too. Every time something exciting happened in one of my novels, I added it to my notebook, along with the name of the novel where I got the idea. Horseback riding, thanks to National Velvet. Going to a ball and dramatically running away, due to Cinderella. Standing in two places at once, because of A Walk to Remember.

  There were hundreds of items on my to-do list, and some days I wondered if I’d ever get to cross even one thing off.

  “It’s a list of things you want to do?” he asked knowingly.

  I nodded.

  “You can do them all, you know.”

  Maybe.

  Then, I erased the word.

  He wrote: Definitely.

  Then, he erased the word, but it stayed in my mind.

  We sat quietly for a moment, both staring at the blank board.

  “What do you want to be when you grow up, Maggie?”

  I’d thought about it a lot, that question. What did I want to be? What could I be? An author, maybe. I could publish books through the Internet, and I’d never have to leave my house. Or maybe an artist, and Daddy could take my artwork to fairs to sell it. Or maybe…

  I picked up my marker and wrote down exactly what I wanted to be.

  Happy.

  Brooks picked up a marker of his own and wrote what he wanted to be, too.

  Happy.

  His fingers wiped away our words, and he leaped from my bed, went over to my desk, and began to scramble through my pens and pencils. When he found the one he wanted, he headed back over to me and began writing on the board.

  Someday you’re going to wake up and leave your house, Magnet, and you’re going to discover the world. Someday you’re going to see the whole wide world, Maggie May, and on that day, when you step outside and breathe in your first breath, I want you to find me. No matter what, find me, because I’m going to be the one to show it to you. I’m going to help you cross things off your to-do list. I’m gonna show you the whole wide world.

  Just like that, I was his, and he’d never even know it.

  Promise? I wrote.

  Promise, he replied.

  I went to erase the words, and when my hand glided over them, only my promise disappeared. He smiled and showed me his Sharpie marker. “It’s not coming off. I want you to keep the board just like this. Keep it as my promise to you. I’ll get you a new board tomorrow for random conversations.”

  My lips parted as if I were going to speak, yet no words came out.

  He smiled knowingly. “You’re welcome. Music now?”

  I nodded, and we both lay down on my mattress as he pulled out his iPod.

  “Waterfall” by The Fresh & Onlys.

  “The way the electric guitar climbs in this song is fucking amazing. It feels like you’re in the middle of nothing and everything at the same time. If you listen, you can hear how perfect the bass player is, too. The way they scale up the fretboard is…” He sighed, slamming his hand against his chest. “Gold.�
��

  I hardly ever knew what he was talking about when he spoke about music, but I liked the way it brought him to life.

  “Brooks.” Calvin poked his head in my doorway and cocked an eyebrow at his best friend. “We’re practicing in five. Come on. We need to go over the letter we’re sending off with the demo tapes,” Calvin said.

  Brooks and Calvin were famous…well, kind of famous—the kind of famous only I knew existed. They were the lead singers in their band and were extremely well trained in performing in our garage. Even though they were undiscovered, I knew someday, they’d be something big.

  They were too good to not be noticed.

  “You’re coming to tape us, right, Magnet?” Brooks asked, standing up from my bed, seemingly chipper as ever.

  Of course I was coming. I reached for my camcorder, picked it up, and then stood to my feet. In my other hand, I grabbed my current read. I never missed band practice; it was the highlight of my day. I always sat and recorded them from the kitchen, too. Mama and Daddy had gotten me a camcorder a few years back because a therapist said he thought I might open up and speak to the camera or something. It turned out to be hours of me staring at myself, blinking, so instead of wasting the camcorder, I used it to record my brother’s band.

  Before heading downstairs, I moved over to my bedroom window, which faced the street and looked across the road to Mrs. Boone’s front porch, where she rocked back and forth in her wicker chair while Muffins slept beside her.

  Her lips moved as if she was holding a conversation with the invisible man sitting in the stationary wicker chair beside her. Her Stanley.

  My fingers touched the chilled glass and her lips curved up into a smile. She chuckled at something she said then touched the empty chair beside her and made it move in harmony with her rocking.

  Mrs. Boone’s life was slowing down, and for many days she lived in her memories. When she wasn’t living in her memories, she was telling me how I should’ve been making my own. It may have seemed sad to many the way she lived nowadays, but to me, Mrs. Boone seemed so lucky. She might’ve been lonely, but in her mind she was never truly alone.