Where the Willows Weep

Suffocating in Silence

Chapter 4: Suffocating in Silence

Avery

Flower blossoms lay dying on the hood of my car. They must have fallen from the tree branches hanging above, that still hold a few living pink blossoms. The few that were scattered on my car had begun to lose their pink color, edges turning brown as they began to shrivel into nothing. Seeing those flowers lying there made me want to scream. Blinking back the tears I’d been refusing to spill for quite some time now, I manically wiped them off until my car was clear. Staring at the now empty hood only made me feel worse. Life fades all around us. Every day, every minute. And most of the time we never even notice it. And then suddenly it’s gone.

One deep, steadying breath and I’m good to go. My whole life is like this. One second on the edge of a panic attack and the next pushing my emotions aside. There’s no use in crying. It won’t change anything. So, instead I climb into my car and slide the key into the ignition.

This has become an almost nightly routine for me. Whenever my mom has already long since fallen asleep and I run out of things to keep my sleep-deprived mind occupied, I get into my car and just drive. It’s soothing to me, almost like I was a baby that needed a late-night car ride to fall asleep.

Ahead of me a car pulls into an all-night diner yet I continue on past the diner, past the school, and out of town. I keep going, on and on with no place in mind as to where I’m headed. I hate destinations.

Destinations. Every person has one. There's almost never a point in time where you don't have somewhere to be, whether it's somewhere at that moment or somewhere that you planned to arrive in the years to come. We were all working towards something, meaningless or meaningful, it's all the same really. At least to me.
Destination-less. That's me. No place that I need to be in any given moment of time. I just am. Driving is like this for me. I wish that I didn’t have to stop and turn around. Sometimes I pretend that I never will. That I'll just keep going and going until I drive right off the face of the earth. Why this thought is appealing to me I'm not sure, yet night after sleepless night I find myself here again. In my car, coasting to some unknown destination that I know I'll never reach. It helps me stay sane. Sounds like something a crazy person would say, if you ask me.

Endless road stretches before me and I find solace in this. I could go anywhere, do anything, be anybody. The possibilities are as endless as the road itself. I could start over. The idea itself is appealing to me, but I know that to do this I’d have to rid myself of all my memories. And there are some just too dear to part with. For now, though, I’ll pretend that I could. I’ll continue to drive until I’m forced to return and then it’ll start all over the following day. When reality is too harsh to handle, I’ll dream instead.

* * *

At school on Monday all anyone can talk about is Chastity Blake. It seems like every Monday there’s a new person that becomes the topic of the day due to their weekend adventures. This isn’t the first time Chastity has made an appearance in the Monday gossip and normally I wouldn’t give a damn other then, well…the fact that Noah is involved as well.

The story is that Noah and Chastity both went to some party over the weekend. They started dancing and one thing lead to another. They had sex and he promised to call her and then never did. That’s the main gist of the story from what I’ve heard. However, Chastity has been giving a much longer drawn-out version mingled with a few fake sobs throughout the day as well.

This story wouldn’t have even been news other than the fact that Noah was the guy. Everyone knows that Noah doesn’t really bother with girls most of the time. He flirts and gives a certain amount of attention to them, but never seems to let it get any further. And then every now and then you hear a story like Chastity’s and it’s suddenly big news. Every girl seems to think that they’re the one that’s finally going to catch him or whatever, yet by Monday morning when he hardly spares them a second glance they realize how wrong they are. By Tuesday nobody cares anymore and then a month or two later it all happens again.