The Melody of Silence: Crescendo

by LP Tvorik

“Okay, okay!” Alex exclaimed, pressing a kiss to my lips before pulling back to her side of the table. “What should I wear?”

  “I mean the date ends in the woods, so…”

  “Ballgown. Got it,” she said, smiling as she pulled her book open. I watched her read for a while, and the smile never left her face. It didn’t leave mine, either.

  ‥ ‥ ‥

  I dropped Trish off at her sleepover at four, which left just enough time to run home, shower, and pull on my newest jeans and least ratty t-shirt. I arrived at Alex’s house at quarter to five. I half expected her to be wearing a ballgown just to be funny, but the sight that greeted me when she opened her front door was so much more tantalizing than that.

  She wore jean shorts that were probably a little too short for her father’s liking, and the same sneakers she always wore to traipse around in the woods. Her shirt was a casual halter top that left her shoulders bare, displaying a smattering of freckles. The only part of her that seemed done up was her hair, which she’d brushed into compliant, shiny curls that hung to her shoulders. I stared at her, wondering if she’d be cool with skipping past dinner and the movie and going straight to the sex portion of the evening.

  I didn’t really want that, though. I wanted to sit in a restaurant with her and buy her food. I wanted to make out with her in a crowded theater. Call me an exhibitionist, but I just really wanted every person in the world to know she was mine.

  We ate dinner at Applebee’s. I didn’t have many options. Our town wasn’t exactly at the forefront of Michelin star dining. The only other decent place I knew of was an Italian restaurant that cost $25 a plate and I think Alex would’ve killed me if we went there. She knew I was trying to save.

  So we ate at Applebee’s, surrounded by families and loud frat boys getting drunk at the bar, yelling at the game on the screens above them. We didn’t talk much while we ate. At that point, Alex and I didn’t really have to. We’d long ago reached the point where we primarily communicated via significant looks and off-handed comments. We were two teenagers who had settled comfortably into the rhythm of a middle-aged married couple with kids.

  We still had the libido of teenagers, though, and I don’t even remember what movie we saw. We sat in the back row, and the second the lights dimmed, Alex’s hand was in my lap. By the time the movie started she herself was in my lap and my own hand was up her shirt, wrapped around a bare breast. Twenty minutes into the film, some beleaguered theater worker came by, shined a flashlight on us, and asked us to leave.

  We walked back to the truck, laughing hysterically. Alex clung to me, her arms around my waist as we walked, and I kept an arm around her shoulders. Older people stared at us and rolled their eyes, and I knew deep down that we were being obnoxious, but not even a small part of me actually cared.

  Instead of taking her home, I drove out to the same secluded spot by the lake where we’d celebrated my birthday. There, I killed the engine and returned the favor she’d done me back in February.

  There’s some moments that stick with you no matter how distant they become. Most of mine are bad, but that night is one of the rare, good persistent memories. I’ll burn out with the dying sun, remembering the taste of her arousal on my tongue, and the feel of her hands gripping my hair. I’ll remember the smell of diesel and sweat, and I’ll remember the sound of her crying out when she came.

  For a few minutes after, Alex didn’t move. She just slumped against the door, panting, one arm draped over the back of the seat, the other hanging down toward the floorboards. Her hair was matted, her skin shining with sweat, chest heaving as she tried to catch her breath.

  Immensely satisfied with myself, I gathered her up in my arms and pulled her into my lap, kissing a trail up her neck toward her mouth. She wrapped her arms around my neck, snuggled close… and fell asleep.

  I admit, my dick was pissed the fuck off. I did my best to ignore it, though, because this was kind of a dream in itself. I lowered my face to her hair, breathing in the flowery fresh scent, and let my own eyes drift shut. A cool breeze trickled through the half-open windows, drying the sweat on our skin and carrying with it the smell of damp earth and springtime. Alex sighed, nuzzling closer, the warmth of her body penetrating my skin and making me unbelievably drowsy.

  I’d dozed at the spot before, with Alex curled against my side. I’d shared her bed in the days after her mother died. I’d never really slept with her, though. Waking up a few hours later, I realized that I’d never really slept at all. Not until that night. That night, I sank into an inky black soup that smelled like Alex, and echoes of the future drifted around me, bright and hopeful. When I woke, it took me thirty seconds to get my bearings. Thirty seconds of groggy vulnerability as I blinked away dreams. That kind of weakness was like a death sentence in my world.

  I blinked open gritty eyes, trying to remember where I was. Alex had slipped down so that her head was in my lap, her face turned into my stomach, one arm shoved between my back and the seat behind me. Confused, rubbing at my eyes, I brushed hair off her face.

  “Alex,” I whispered, smoothing a thumb over the scar on her temple. “Wake up, angel.”

  It took three more tries before her eyes blinked open, glistening up at me in the dim light.

  “I think we fell asleep,” I whispered.

  She blinked. Then her eyes widened, and she jerked up, looking around. “What time is it?” she asked. I glanced at my watch.

  “11:30.” Her curfew was midnight. “We’ve still got time to get you home.”

  Alex breathed out a sigh of relief, shifting back over to her side of the bench seat. Her shorts were on the floorboards, and I bent to retrieve them, dropping them in her lap.

  “Thanks,” she mumbled, awkwardly slipping back into them. “Sorry I fell asleep.”

  “It’s okay,” I told her, starting the engine. The headlights made me wince, and all I wanted was to go back to sleep—a sleep I’d never known was possible. “I did too.”

  We didn’t talk on the drive back to town, but Alex held my hand, humming along with the crackling music pouring out of my crappy speakers. We rolled the windows down all the way, and the wind played with her hair, whipping it about her face. She was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.

  I got her home with two minutes to spare, and she kissed me goodbye and slipped out of the truck. I shamelessly watched her ass as she jogged across the lawn. At the front stoop she turned, blowing one last kiss before darting into her house.

  I was utterly at peace for the whole drive back to Tim and Marsha’s place. Still heavy and listless with sleep, I parked on the curb and hopped the low, chain link fence. The house was dark and I said a silent prayer of gratitude as I slid my window open and climbed inside.

  It was strange, being in an empty room. I kicked my shoes off and sprawled on my bed. Without Ronnie snoring in one bed, Paul sleeping talking in another, and Trish tossing and turning in the third, the silence was almost deafening. Little noises rose up in the emptiness and jammed themselves into my ears.

  Noises like the house settling. Noises like the midnight train, four blocks away, and the slam of a car door two blocks over.

  Noises like the soft sound of stifled sobbing, coming from the room on the other side of my wall. The girls’ room. Trish’s room.

  Deb’s room.

  Chapter eighteen

  alex

  The day things started to end was appropriately dreary. I woke up to rain falling hard on the roof above me and, although it was well past sunrise, heavy clouds blotted out the sun to give the impression of evening.

  Despite the weather, I woke up chipper and cheerful. It was Monday, and I hadn’t seen or heard from Nate since our date on Friday. I missed him. Where, to other kids, Monday meant the first day of the slogging school week, to me it meant something different. It meant the first of five days of guaranteed
facetime with the guy I loved. Our Friday date had been a rare exception to the rule. Nate worked so many hours, we didn’t get afternoons together, and evenings were even worse. His foster parents were way too strict, and he had to wait until after they fell asleep to sneak out.

  My father was sitting at kitchen table when I came downstairs.

  “Morning, sugar,” he greeted, lifting his coffee cup in acknowledgment without looking up from his book.

  “Morning, Daddy.” I pulled a travel mug from the shelf and mixed my own coffee. I took it with a gallon of creamer and eight metric tons of sugar mixed in. Nate liked to make stupid jokes about how I took my cream with a splash of coffee. I rolled my eyes to myself as I poured the last of the pot into a second travel mug for my boyfriend, who of course took it black.

  My father and I had reached a tentative agreement. Loathe as I was to admit it, whatever Nate had said seemed to have worked. I was still on thin ice, but the lectures had stopped and my father had started mentioning tickets to my orientation over the summer and plans for a road trip to drive me out at the start of the school year.

  Of course, he never said he was proud of his daughter for gaining admission to one of the most prestigious universities in the country. I couldn’t hold that against him, though. It was my dream, not his. I was just grateful he was letting me live it.

  I barely had time to shove a piece of toast into my mouth before I heard Nate’s truck rumble up outside. He honked twice and I kissed my father on the cheek before pulling on a rain coat and dashing through the rain to the truck parked by the curb.

  I had my head down against the downpour, and I didn’t look up until I pulled the car door open.

  I froze.

  Rain pounded against the hood of my jacket. My right hand was wrapped around the edge of the door, and droplets trickled down my hand into the sleeve. Nate sat behind the wheel, jaw clenched, right hand wrapped tight around the gear shift. Next to him, arms crossed and glaring at me...

  … Deb.

  She looked different. Usually she dressed to impress. Or, rather, she dressed to depress anyone who liked to think that women were something more than sexual objects. Today, though, she wore jeans instead of her usual short skirt, and her hair was lank and pulled into a sloppy ponytail. There wasn’t a trace of make-up on her face, and dark shadows hollowed out her eyes.

  Perhaps because Deb and I had always had an unspoken rivalry, or perhaps because I was young and self-centered and insecure, my mind barely paused on the clear evidence that she was going through something. Instead, it went straight to the absence of her usual leather jacket— two sizes too small so that, when zipped, it pushed her boobs up toward her chin. My attention focused on what she wore instead— a sweatshirt that was three sizes too big, swallowing her frail frame.

  There was a rip in the sleeve of that sweatshirt, from where it had caught on a branch while Nate had chased me through the woods. There was a stain near the hem from where Tom had spilled hot chocolate on him during the big snow storm.

  Correct me if I’m wrong, but there’s only one girl to whom a teenage boy should give his sweatshirt.

  “Deb, scoot over,” Nate growled, still not looking at me. “Let her in.”

  Shooting me one last glare, Deb shifted over the bench until she sat flush against Nate’s side. The sight sent a stab of pain spearing through my chest, and I lowered my gaze as I climbed into the truck, pulling the door shut behind me. I set the coffee I’d made for him in the cupholder, where it remained untouched and unacknowledged.

  The ride was painfully silent, and my thoughts expanded and multiplied in the vacuum until I was halfway to tears with despair. Nate was cheating on me. He’d got what he wanted from me and now he was going to dump me. He’d loved Deb all along. I was just a distraction. As we pulled into the parking lot, I forced myself to calm down. Maybe I was overreacting. Reading things wrong. All I had to go on was Deb’s presence and her strange attire. I needed to give Nate a chance to explain.

  Unfortunately, he didn’t seem to want to give himself a chance to explain.

  “You go ahead, Al,” he said as he put the car in park. “I’m gonna walk Deb to her first period.”

  Walk Deb to class? Are you fucking kidding me?

  “Sure,” I said, the pain my chest so powerful I could hardly breathe. I shoved the door open and went to hop out, but Nate’s voice stopped me.

  “I’ll see you in English,” he said unnecessarily. It wasn’t the words that held me up, but the tone. He sounded almost desperate, and I heard the unspoken plea in the undercurrents. Please don’t be mad. I’ll explain. It was so unlike him, I almost demanded an explanation right then and there. Something was so clearly wrong.

  But what?

  “Sure,” I said, unable to keep the bite of hurt from my voice as I slid out of the car.

  First period was AP European History. I don’t remember a word the teacher said. Every time I tried to tune in, I got distracted by the memory of Deb’s fierce glare and the way she tucked Nate’s sweatshirt around her, huddling closer to him while he drove.

  Second period was AP Chem. I couldn’t really afford to miss a word of that lecture, but I did. I spent that class wondering exactly what had happened between his departure on Friday night and his arrival that morning. I’d never felt closer to him than I had on Friday. He’d brought me to a high I’d never imagined, then held me close as I floated back to earth. We’d slept together, our minds mingling as we dreamed. It had felt like the first stone in a path to forever, and my entire weekend had been a series of daydreams, from our first apartment together to our rocking chairs on a sunset-gilded porch.

  What had his weekend been like? Had he taken Deb out to that exact same spot and shown her that exact same future? Had he held her as she slept? Had he wrapped his sweatshirt around her shoulders when she began to shiver in the cool night air? Did he make her feel as loved as he made me feel? Was that why she’d abandoned the too-short skirts and the skin-tight shirts and the caked-on make up? Because he made her realize she didn’t need it?

  Tears blurred my vision and I blinked them back, forcing myself to concentrate on the board as the chemistry teacher scrawled out equations.

  I was halfway insane by the time third period English finally rolled around. Nate and I didn’t sit together. He insisted on the back of the classroom and I always sat at the front. Sitting with him would have been pointless, anyway. He always slept in Mrs. Parker’s class. Shamelessly, too.

  That day, he didn’t even look at me as he entered the classroom. He kept his head down as he walked by me, and I forced myself to look straight ahead. Even so, I followed him with my ears, listening as he slumped into his seat with a sigh. Anxiety made my stomach turn, and my heart hurt like someone was squeezing it in a fist.

  At the end of English class, I let myself get my hopes up again. Nate ate lunch with me and my friends. Always. Every day since we’d come out to the school with our relationship. But when the bell rang, he swept past me before I’d even zipped my backpack. When I reached the cafeteria, my reluctant eyes found him in the corner, sitting with his old crew.

  It would have been bad enough if he’d been laughing and joking with his friends. Instead, he sat at the end of the table with Deb, and they ate in relative silence. As I watched, Deb picked up a piece of pizza, then dropped it back onto her tray. She said something, her face crumpling, and Nate wrapped an arm around her, pulling her to his side. He lowered his face, and I could tell he was speaking by the way she nodded occasionally, tucking herself further into his body. I wondered if the soft rumble of his voice made her chest warm the way it did mine.

  “What in the actual fuck is going on with lover-boy?” Gemma asked, appearing by my elbow. I realized with shock that I was standing in the middle of the cafeteria, staring. That, and half the cafeteria was watching me, eyes wide, expecting a reaction
.

  Shame burned in my gut. Even if he wasn’t cheating on me, which felt less likely with every passing hour, how could he have so little regard for me? How could he flaunt it for the entire school to see, as if he’d never cared for me at all? Surely he knew what they’d say.

  “I don’t know,” I said, tearing my gaze away from Nate and leading the way to our usual table. I purposefully sat with my back to Nate. If the school wanted a show from me they’d be waiting a long time.

  “Seriously, Aly, what gives?” Gemma asked, sitting across from me and glaring over my shoulder. “You two are all lovey-dovey one day and the next he’s making googly eyes at the sister, which… I know they’re not really related but… ew.” She made a face that would’ve had me laughing in different circumstances.

  “I don’t know,” I said again. “I haven’t seen him since Friday. I don’t know what’s going on.”

  “Ohhh, you had your date, right?” Gemma said excitedly. Then she lowered her voice. “Is that what happened? Did he want you to put out?”

  Even Gemma didn’t know I’d given away my virginity. I’d oscillated a lot about wanting to tell her, excitement battling with lingering shame. Now I was glad I hadn’t. If this really was the beginning of the end, I was glad nobody knew how much of myself I had given to the jackass. Nobody but the jackass himself, and my father. Which… what would he say when he found out I’d been dumped? Would he tell me he saw it coming? My heart couldn’t take that.

  “Just leave it alone,” I sighed, shaking my head and pulling my lunch out my bag. Since October, I’d made two lunches every day. One for me, one for Nate. Two coffees and two lunches. And, like the abandoned coffee in his truck, his lunch sat in the bottom of my bag. I resolved to throw it out on the walk home from school.

  “Fine,” Gemma said. “But if you need me to beat him up, I will.” She flashed me a grin and I tried like hell to return it. “I’m pretty sure I could get a few good shots in.”

  “If anyone hits him, it’ll be me,” I said, but my words took me back to the fight we’d had in March. I’d been so angry, but the rage had drained out of me at the panicked gleam in his eye. I’d been reaching out to take his hand, and he’d reacted like he thought I was going to snap his neck. It blew my mind that he thought I’d actually hit him, and the look on his face when I promised I never would had ripped my heart in two. Disbelief. Polite, restrained, unspoken incredulity.