Silenced

by Leddy Harper

  When I’m around you, I feel good. It took him a little longer to write the last word.

  “Okay…why is that a bad thing? I feel good around you, too.”

  He closed his eyes, frustration lining his lips and forehead. After a deep breath, he held his hand over his chest and shook his head, then paused before glancing down his body. I still didn’t know what he meant, and was more confused than ever.

  “Killian?” I took his hand in mine and forced him to look at me. “You can tell me anything. You know that, right? I won’t judge you or make fun. But I need you to write it out, because I don’t understand what you’re trying to say.”

  He pulled the notepad in front of his face, preventing me from reading it before he finished. His brows knitted together while he bounced nervously back and forth on his feet. He’d write, pause, scribble something out, and then write again. Wondering what he possibly had to say, and how it could’ve been a bad thing, caused my heart rate to accelerate. As far as I knew, liking someone and feeling good weren’t bad things.

  But then he showed me his words, scribbled so atrociously it took a second to read them.

  I don’t know how to explain it, but something is going on down there. It tingles and feels good. I’ve never thought anything of it before until it started happening when I’d be around you or think of you. It’s messy but I don’t know how to stop it from happening. I don’t know what’s going on. I think something’s wrong.

  My heart sank to my feet as I read his confession. Sometimes, it was so hard to see him as a sheltered boy when he looked so much older than his age. Then, after fully accepting everything he told me, an indescribable excitement filled me. It was mixed with some fear, a little worry, and with undertones of sheer panic, but overall, the thought of him thinking of me and no one else, made me almost giddy.

  “Killian…what you’re describing sounds like puberty.”

  His gaze narrowed even more, confusion deepening his features.

  I shook my head and tried to come up with another way to explain it. I thought about how it’d been taught to me through my mom and at school, what some of the kids in class said, and the things I’d read in books.

  “Our bodies go through changes at this age. It’s hormones or something, and things happen. Boys get erections. Your…” I pointed to the spot between his legs, unsure of what word to use. “…gets hard. That’s normal. And when you say it’s messy, I think you’re saying you’re ejaculating. That’s how people have sex—that’s how babies are made. The man ejaculates and the sperm fertilizes the egg in the woman. And then they have a baby.”

  By the time I finished, his cheeks were bright red and he couldn’t even look at me. He sat down in the dirt with his hands twisted in his lap, his gaze set firmly on the ground. I hadn’t meant to make him uncomfortable, but I didn’t know how else to explain it so it’d make sense. I felt sad for him. I’m sure this wasn’t the way he wanted to learn about the birds and the bees. So I sat down, my feet tucked beneath me, and faced him.

  “It’s normal, Killian. There’s nothing to be embarrassed about. I’m sure this would’ve been something your parents would’ve taught you, or maybe you’d learn it at school. I don’t know everything about it, only what my mom’s told me and what I’ve heard in health class. But I can tell you about it if you want.”

  He shook his head, but kept his focus in front of him.

  “There are videos online I’m sure you can watch.”

  Slowly, he took the notebook away from me and began to write again. It pained me to see how hard this was for him. Does this mean I want to have babies with you?

  I giggled softly, catching his attention. It was clear he didn’t appreciate it, although I wasn’t making fun of him. “No. I think it’s just a normal part of life. I think boys feel that way about a lot of girls. My teacher said sometimes boys can’t help it.”

  Do you know about sex?

  “Not much…just what my mom told me when I asked about it. She said I’m supposed to wait until I’m married. That once I give away my virginity, I can’t get it back. My teacher said girls have something inside them that makes them a virgin, but boys don’t. So I don’t think boys can give theirs up, because they can’t be virgins like we are.”

  Have you ever kissed anyone before?

  “No. Some of my friends have. But I haven’t. Have you?”

  No. But sometimes I want to kiss you.

  “Sometimes I want to kiss you, too.”

  Is it bad if we kiss?

  “I don’t think so.” My words were nothing more than a hoarse whisper. My heart thrashed against my ribs and made my chest ache like I’d been hit with something hard. I never thought something could be so scary. I’d seen my parents kiss all the time. It couldn’t have been that bad, so I didn’t understand why I was so afraid of it.

  He nodded and a hint of a smile shadowed the corner of his mouth. Then maybe someday I’ll kiss you. As long as you’re not grossed out by what I told you.

  “I’ll never be grossed out by anything you do or say, Killian. We’re friends, right? We support each other. No matter what. I’ll do my best to teach you things, as long as you stop ignoring me.”

  When he looked at me, his attention steadied on my lips, and it made a tingle spread within me. I’d never wanted someone’s mouth on mine so badly before. He didn’t say he’d kiss me now, but I couldn’t help the desire rolling through me that he would.

  I held my arm out to him and pulled back the sleeve of my hoodie. “Can you draw your name on me?”

  His eyes lit up, the color turning into what I imagined the ocean would look like. He held my fingers and began to scrawl his name on my wrist in fancy script. Killian. I never wanted to wash it off, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to let my dad see it. I planned on wearing long sleeves until it vanished, needing some part of him with me.

  It’d have to hold me over until my lips met his.

  Six

  Killian

  I’d tried to stay away from her, but I couldn’t. She was like a magnet I couldn’t pull away from. I was drawn to her, always had been. At first, I enjoyed her comfort and company. I liked how she talked to me, even though I’d never spoken a word to her—other than my words on paper. She didn’t seem to mind. And not once did she ever judge me.

  She accepted me.

  All of me.

  Rylee truly was my friend. The one person I could go to about anything. I should’ve known she wouldn’t have looked at me differently when I told her about my problem. She’d never seen me any other way than she always did. But I’d been scared. I couldn’t tell anyone. I felt ashamed, like something was wrong. Everything I found on the computer made it seem like I had some kind of disease caused by sex. I’d always assumed sex was being in bed with a girl, and I’d been in Rylee’s bed. So I thought it was a bad thing.

  After she told me what was happening to me, I went home and looked it up—I learned we hadn’t had sex. It took more than being in bed with someone for that to happen. I learned a lot about sex that day. I found videos I never knew existed, and even though it seemed wrong to watch them, I couldn’t help but play one right after the other.

  For a week, anytime I was alone in the house, I searched for more videos. I’d watch until things settled down in my pants, and when I felt the urge again, I’d watch more. Each time, I thought of Rylee. I’d think of her in the shower, before bed, in the middle of the night when I’d wake up hard. Every time I slipped my hands into my boxers and wrapped my fingers around my penis, her face flashed behind my closed eyelids.

  One morning, I came out of the shower and found my sheets missing off my bed. Elise was in my room picking up clothes off the floor, and when I stepped through the doorway, her wide eyes rose to mine.

  “I was doing laundry and decided to wash some of your clothes. Your sheets looked like they needed to be cleaned.” Her voice was unsteady, nervous almost. It made me nervous, panicked. I wanted to hide.
And then I noticed my computer on my dresser, open and on. Then I not only wanted to hide…I wanted to run away and never be found again.

  I turned around to leave, but I didn’t have my shoes and it was too cold to go outside barefoot. I couldn’t go back into my room to get them from my closet. My heart squeezed tight and the backs of my eyes burned.

  “Killian, I think we need to have a talk.”

  I shook my head and continued down the hall, away from Elise.

  She chased after me, calling my name until she cornered me near the kitchen table. “If you don’t want to talk to me about it, I’m sure I can find someone you might feel more comfortable with. A guy maybe? Steven could talk to you. But either way, I think there are things you’re finding out that should probably be explained in a better way than how you’re learning it.”

  Feeling defeated, I slumped into one of the chairs and dropped my head into my hands. I didn’t want to talk to her about it, but it was better than discussing it with her boyfriend, Steven. He was a nice guy; however, I had no desire to hear about sex from the man sleeping in my aunt’s bedroom.

  Elise took the seat next to me and lowered her voice to a calm, reassuring tone. “I never thought I’d have to have this talk with anyone, let alone a boy. But here it goes…when a man and a woman love each other.”

  I raised my head and held out my hand to stop her.

  “Okay…you’re right. That’s just lame. And I don’t think anyone actually listens to that crap. Let’s try it this way. Sometimes we get urges. When we act on them, whether it’s by ourselves or with someone else, they feel good.”

  I stood up and searched around the room, not finding what I was looking for. I headed down the hall, ignoring Elise’s pleas for me to stop and come back. Once I found my notebook and pen next to my bed, I returned to the table and reclaimed my seat.

  I already know about this.

  “From the videos you’ve been watching?”

  I shook my head, pushing down the humiliation over having this conversation with her. This was worse than hearing about it from Rylee. I looked it up online. I know about puberty and sex.

  “Do you know about protection and diseases? About the consequences of sex?”

  My aunt then went on to explain condoms, birth control, and babies. She went into great detail about how difficult life would be if I acted on my urges and got a girl pregnant. She never said Rylee’s name, but I wasn’t stupid. Rylee was the only girl I knew. It was rather transparent when she went on to explain how young “we” were, and how that added a whole new level of danger. It wasn’t the most comfortable thing to listen to while she explained how it’s hard to think about protection in the heat of the moment, and that’s how accidents happen. I didn’t want to hear this from my aunt. However, these weren’t things I’d been able to find on the Internet.

  In the end, Elise left me in fear of something that had, at first, made me feel so good following Rylee’s explanation.

  That night, after my aunt had gone to bed, I snuck out the back door. This time, I wasn’t on my way to the woods. I needed to see Rylee. Other than two notes left on her window, I hadn’t seen her since the day behind the house. I was torn and confused about how I felt, and she was the only one who made everything better.

  “You must be freezing. Get in here,” she whispered after pulling open the window for me.

  When I left the house, I hadn’t thought about putting on real clothes, so I only wore my flannel pants, a short-sleeved T-shirt, and my tennis shoes. The chill cut through me before I made it to the fence, but I was on a mission. I couldn’t turn around and get dressed knowing Rylee was so close.

  She knelt on the floor in front of me to untie my shoes, just like she always did when I snuck in at night, and then helped me into bed like I was a child. She’d gotten a TV in her room for Christmas. It sat on her dresser across from her bed, the volume on low, but the light brightening the room. After she locked the door, she crawled beneath the covers and faced me.

  It was our ritual.

  I took her hand and stared at her. This was the time she’d usually start talking about her day, but for some reason, she didn’t say anything. Instead, she studied me in the glow of whatever she was watching before I’d knocked on her window. Her throat worked hard with her swallow, and she licked her lips.

  Those lips.

  That mouth.

  Her tongue.

  For a week straight they were all I could think about, and now here she was. In front of me. And I couldn’t think about anything other than what they’d taste like. What sound she’d make if I kissed her. I gripped her hand tighter and held my breath.

  The space between our faces disappeared, and then my mouth was on hers. It wasn’t like the movies at all. Nothing like I expected. My lips pressed against hers hard. I could practically feel her teeth behind them. But she didn’t push me away. I couldn’t move, my mouth glued to hers. Her hand gripping mine. Our breaths rushed and desperate between us through our noses.

  It was nothing like the videos.

  But so much better.

  Because it was with Rylee.

  She finally pulled away, probably to catch her breath. I knew I was winded, like I’d just run around the neighborhood during the summer. My body was warm and every muscle was strained. Every muscle.

  “I’m sorry…” I didn’t think about it until it was out. Too lost in the moment, in what just happened, I didn’t realize what I’d said until it was too late. I only thought it, and then spoke it, not paying any attention to the reality of my actions.

  She sucked in a sharp breath and stared at me with wide eyes. The light from the TV screen made them glisten as her sight flickered about my face. “W–what did you say? Did you just talk?”

  I didn’t know how to respond, so I simply laid there, staring at her.

  “Killian. Did you just speak to me?”

  Feeling my words being sucked back in, I nodded.

  “But…but I thought you couldn’t talk?”

  I shook my head and closed my eyes. I only opened them again when I felt her fingertip trace the scar on the right side of my face. No one had touched them, not even her. But right now, I couldn’t pull away. I couldn’t remove her hand from me.

  Panic filled my veins, pumping through me with each intense beat of my heart. I couldn’t hear anything over the rush of blood in my ears. Then suddenly, she smiled, and everything else faded away. The whooshing sound disappeared into the distance, the pressure against my chest eased, and as if her breaths along my face gave me air, I inhaled deeply.

  I was safe with her.

  “I was told not to talk. They told me not to talk to anyone. And I haven’t. I don’t know why I said that to you. Or why I’m talking now.” They were whispered words, only audible by the air serving them to our ears. But that was more than I’d been able to utter in the last five years.

  “So this whole time, you’ve been able to, you just haven’t?” When I nodded, she gently ran her palm over my cheek and brushed the pad of her thumb over my eyebrow. “Does anyone know you can talk?”

  I shrugged, and then thought better of it. I liked speaking to her. I liked how it made me feel for her to hear my voice—whispered or not. “I don’t know. After it happened, I was sent to a lot of doctors. Some of them were like therapists. They all said there wasn’t a reason for me to be unable to speak.”

  “So you haven’t said anything because those men told you not to?”

  “They said if I did, they’d do to me what they did to my parents.”

  “You were just going to keep silent forever?”

  “Until I found my voice again.”

  She smiled and traced my lips with the tip of her finger. “I think you just found it.”

  “Don’t tell anyone. Please.”

  Her brow grew tight and it cast a shadow over her brown eyes, making them indistinguishable. “Why? I mean, I won’t…but why? I’d think now that you’ve found
your voice, you’d want to use it.”

  With my hand on her shoulder, I pulled our foreheads together. “I only want to talk to you. If I could, I’d steal the moon from the sky. I’d still the earth and keep it from turning into day. I’d stay here with you, talking to you, listening to you…kissing you. Forever. I don’t want to talk to anyone else, say anything else. I don’t want to be anywhere else except here. With you. You make me feel safe.”

  She covered my lips with hers. Although, this time, it was softer, slower. Our mouths weren’t pressed together in a race against time. She somehow slowed the clock, drug out every possible second of the kiss, and made it mean so much more.

  “You make me feel safe, too,” she whispered. Her weak voice and airy words billowed against my lips until I inhaled them, swallowed them, made them part of me. “I won’t tell anyone. I promise. You can talk to me anytime you want. You can still write me letters and draw me pictures. I don’t want anything to change between us.”

  At her last sentence, I closed my eyes and just allowed myself to feel her presence. I wanted things to change between us, even though it was scary. I wanted to keep kissing her. I wanted to kiss her the way they did in the videos, but I thought it’d scare her off if I pushed my tongue into her mouth. There were so many things to change between us, but she didn’t want that. She wanted to be friends, and I understood why. I had to sneak into her room, and barely saw her when her mom was home from work. Her parents wouldn’t approve of me.

  And I didn’t want her to get pregnant.

  But that didn’t mean I didn’t want things to change.

  Maybe when she was older. Maybe when her body went through the things mine did, things could be different. And until then, I had to settle for my imagination. I had to be okay with the meetings beneath the cover of night, beneath the stars, and the written words we’d share in between.

  One day, it’d all be different.

  I’d find my voice in the real world.

  And then we’d be together.

  Like my parents.