Listen Before You Speak

Chapter 2

"So, going to answer me or just stare at me the entire lunch break?" Blake asked, a twinkle in his eye. It was like he was laughing at me, without laughing at all.

I just shrugged. I haven't spoken in four years. I wasn't about to start now, except off course for my laps earlier today.

"Will you write it down? Your answer, I mean..." Blake said as I gave him a puzzling look.

He grabbed his backpack and pulled out an old notebook, flipping it to a clean sheet as quickly as possible, almost as if he was afraid that I would see what he had written on all the others.

He handed the notebook to me and then scrambled in his bag to find a pen, which he also gave to me.

"I'm so not going to make this easy for you," I thought, and gave him another puzzled look that probably revealed a hell of a lot of lines on my forehead, which thanks to my fringe he couldn't possible see.

"You write your answer there," Blake said pointing at the notebook. "So, you're not really mute are you?"

I gave him my are-you-mad look, and ignored the notebook all together. What the hell does he want me to write in the notebook anyway? Give him evidence to show the teachers and the other kids that although I don't talk to other people, I do sing loudly to My Chemical Romance when my mom isn't home? That I sometimes have a lapse and say my name out loud when confronted by an excruciating sexy guy? Nope, that is not going to happen!

Shake your head Elijah! Shake your head!

Slowly my head obeyed, and my lips stayed stuck to each other like they should.

"Okay... I think I get it. You don't want to tell me?"

I shook my head again.

"Then tell me, why don't you sit in the cafeteria at lunch?"

I pointed to the cross over my lips, making Blake frown and mutter; "Yeah, you don't speak... I forgot..."

"You forgot? Seriously? Aren't we sitting discussing my muteness at this very moment? I have a damn cross over my lips to remind you of that every second of every day!" I wanted to scream to him, but instead I just gave another frown that he couldn't see. Gosh, maybe Blake wasn't anywhere near as smart as what he wanted to make the world believe with his correct Scarlet Letter answers and his Lucy-sarcasm.

Before he could ask another stupid question or say something else meaningless I grabbed the notebook closer and began to write as his eyes followed the ink seeping into the paper.

Look, I don't know what you want, but I really don't talk. And not just that, why would you hang out with a weirdo? I'm sure you could make lots of nice friends. Alice seems to really like you.

"Not interested. Alice isn't my type," Blake said and watched as I started scribbling away again.

Lucy maybe?

"Bleach blonde, brainless Barbie just doesn't go with cool hipster kid, don't you think?"

This time he said it with more than just his eyes laughing. This time the sound came from him and for a moment I so longed to just laugh one more time. I used to love laughing. But you never truly appreciate something as simple as laughter until you're not allowed to do it anymore.

There's lots of other kids that can actually hold a conversation.

"I think we are doing pretty well with holding an actual conversation at the moment," Blake said and put his hand on mine, preventing me from writing any further.