I Don't Hear Silence

Chapter Five

5.          It was nice not to feel alone for once. For so long, I had been trapped, feeling as if I were drowning. For the first time, I had been freed. I could breathe. I could stand without being pushed to the ground. I could do what I wanted. I could be me. With Amelia, I could . . . do anything.

                I looked at Amelia beside me, sitting anxiously in the driver’s seat. Rider sat hunched forward in the back.

                “Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh . . . my God!” he repeated, sweat pouring from his temple.

                “Relax,” Amelia signed. “So what, one suspension won’t do you any harm. Besides, you’re making yourself sick.”

                “I just spoke out against our Principle, Amelia. I have straight A’s, I never missed a day of school, and my mom is going to kill me. I have a reason to be sick.”

                “Do you?” I spoke out loud, my hands locked to the steering wheel as I made a left turn down Sycamore. “I mean come on, with your record, what is holding you back from getting in trouble at least once?”

                “Maybe because I am expected to be this straight A, honors student, with no life, only text books and study guides.”

                My eyes wondered to the houses as I drove, every single one, almost identical. Something wrapped its way around my nerves, breaking through my wall of strength with such ease. My foot found the brake with a stomp. The tires screeched; Rider was thrown from his seat.

                “Hey, straight A student, put on your seatbelt,” I said with a laugh. Amelia, watching my lips intently, laughed as well.

                “Why are we stopped,” she mouthed.

                “Well,” I spoke to Rider and motioned to her with my hands, “it is only 11:30. We have exactly three and a half hours to get you guys home. Why not have a little fun on our . . . teen-ditch-day-adventure?”

                “Sure,” Amelia said.

                “Hey, you speak!” I exclaimed.

                “She could always speak. She’s just uncomfortable with it, and since she never went through SP, she had to learn from basic, everyday strangers,” Rider announced, looking down at his hands.

                “Uh . . .?”

                “It’s okay,” Amelia signed. “Sometimes he doesn’t even realize he does it.”

                “Well thank you, Rider,” I signed, pressing my hand to my chin and bringing it down like a drawbridge, almost as if I were pulling the words from my lips, and throwing them towards his reflection in the mirror as I turned back around. Though, as I still didn’t know his signing name, I spelled it out with my fingers: R.I.D.E.R.  

                “Where do you want to go?” Amelia asked, her fingers dancing in the still air of the car. “I mean, besides parked in the center of the road.”

                “Oh shoot,” I said out loud. Moving the car off to the side of the road, I signed, looking around so that they could both see, “Where do you guys want to go? And we might want to think quickly as we look kinda weird just parked in front of some random house.”  

                “Well, I know a place,” Amelia signed with a bright smile.

                “Oh, no,” Rider both said and signed. “Not this again, Amelia, come on.”

                “What, you won’t even hear me out.”

                “What? What’s your idea?” I inquired, though no answer came.

                Slowly excluding me from the conversation, I watched and listened. Their hands frighteningly fast.

 Rider: “I do know that we’re only in high school. Plus after today, I don’t want even more crap to go on by tab.”

Amelia: “Your tab? You did one thing wrong in fifteen years!”

Rider: “That’s one thing too many!”

Amelia: “It’s one club and it’s from ages fifteen to eighteen.”

Rider: “Still, it’s a club.”

Amelia: “More like a group!”

Rider: “If they were any good, then why would they be hosting on school days?”

Amelia: “Why don’t you ask them?”

                The conversation ended as fast as it had started. Rider glared, clearly out of excuses and Amelia smiled.

                “Well,” I cut back in. “Looks like we’re going to a day club, am I right?”   

                “Yes!” Amelia mouthed, throwing her fist in the air with a silent whoop.

                “Though, where is it exactly?”

                “It’s right here in town. Only, most people think it’s a . . . well, I don’t care what they think,” she put in.

                My foot hit the gas before my mind did. We sped down Sycamore, turning right on Alverson, and straight on towards Sharlow road, running through town. My car---a silver minivan for the time being, as mine was in the shop---strode past pedestrian after pedestrian, speeding faster and faster.

                “Slow down!” Rider exclaimed from the back seat.

                “We don’t want to waist our entire day, now do we?” I shouted over the roar of the open windows, though really all I heard was silence.

                Amelia smiled again. Funny how a smile, a sliver of movement in the facial muscles, could brighten moods in an instance. The corners of my lips twinged into a slight smile, and the way that I felt was reflected in her eyes. A smile lit my face as anything was possible with Amelia. And yet, I knew her for a total of four hours.

                 It was by far, the best four hours of my life.