“I just wanted to make sure you got home safe.”
The silence stretched between us. My head was rattling with what I could say to him that wouldn’t set my mother off in a barrage of questions. “How did you know my number?”
“Kota had it.”
Wouldn’t Kota have told him I was okay? It made me wonder if there was another reason why he called and he made up an excuse. “Oh.” I wanted to ask further but I didn’t know how to phrase the question. How did Kota manage to get the number when I didn’t even know it yet? My mother crossed her arms in front of her. Her scowl made creases at the corner of her mouth and around her eyes. Oh please, I thought, not while I’m on the phone. I don’t want Silas to hear.
“He said I should wait to call. He said you were probably freaked out still from this afternoon and that we needed to give you a break.”
Kota had told them to avoid me! “I... I’m fine.”
“Who is it?” my mom said in a loud tone.
“It’s the school,” I said, loud enough for Silas to hear. My mom looked at me as if she didn’t believe me but stalked off back to her bedroom, or at least in that direction.
“Not safe to talk?” he asked.
“Uh huh,” I said, again trying to sound bored and unimpressed in case my mother was still listening, hoping Silas would understand.
“I won’t be around tomorrow,” he said. “I’ve got practice.”
“That’s okay.” Was he thinking I would assume he would be around? Or would he have come over if he didn’t have practice? His true meaning whirled around in my head. What was practice? I wanted to run to my room with the phone and shut everyone out but doing it would look so suspicious.
“I’ll talk to you later?” he asked.
There was a distinctive click and then the sound of breathing. My mother had picked up another phone and was listening in.
“Yeah,” I said.
“‘Bye,” Silas said and hung up.
I held my breath, waiting and listening to the breathing on the line.
“Hello?” my mother’s voice sounded like an echo in my ear because I could hear her from her bedroom as well as in the phone. “Who’s on the line?”
I cringed and pulled it away from my face. I heard the line click again and then I switched off the phone.
“Sang! Come here!”
I shuddered where I stood, gently placing the receiver onto the cradle. I steeled myself, readying my lies.
Keeping friends was harder than I thought.
“Sang,” my mother spat as she leaned on the edge of her bed. The mattress sagged under her weight. When I was eight, my mother went to the hospital with a sinus infection, stayed for a month, and came back with a bottle of morphine and was kept to her bed. My parents never told us what was wrong with her, but I overheard whispered in their late evening discussions about her liver and pancreas. Sometimes at night she cried out in pain and my father took her to the hospital. She held her bottle of pills in her hands now, twisting her palm over the cap as if trying to remember when she took the last one.
“Yes?” I said in a near whisper. I stepped barefoot onto the cream carpet of her bedroom, doing my best to look bewildered. If I could only make her believe me this time.
“Who called you?”
“The school,” I said. My eyes flitted to they light brown and ivy green wallpaper along the walls and the whirling wicker fan above her bed. Her eyes were too intense for me. “It was a reminder about registration.”
Her thin lips pursed. She put her bottle of pills down and smoothed her chubby fingers over the covers of her quilt blanket. “It looked like you were trying to hide something.”
I sighed. “I’m not used to getting phone calls.”
“Why was it a man? Why did he only ask for you?” Her eyes narrowed at me, picking the holes at my story. “Why didn’t he also ask about your sister?”
“I don’t know,” I said, my fingers fluttered to the base of my throat. “Maybe he’ll call back for her in a minute. Or maybe it’s because I’m younger...”
She chuffed. “No. You’re lying. I don’t think the school has our phone number.” She stood up and then pointed a finger at me. “Who did you give this number to?”
My eyes widened and I took a step back, accidentally bumping into the wall. “No one! I don’t even know our phone number.”
“It sounds like a lie.” She crossed the room toward me. “Why are men calling to talk to you?”
“I don’t know!” I cried out, turning my face away from hers, pressing myself back against the wall. Please, no. Not now.
She grabbed my arm and started wrenching me until I was on my knees. I cried out in pain. “Who called you?” she asked through her teeth.
“The... school,” I sobbed. What would she do to me? There was no way I was going to tell her about Silas. She could do what she wanted to me.
Her nose flared and I felt the sweat from her palms as she pulled me up to my feet. I cried as she yanked me in to the kitchen. My heart was pounding and my body was shaking. Why wouldn’t she just believe me this once? Why couldn’t I call people like other girls?
“Get on your knees,” she said.
I closed my eyes, wrapping my arms around myself and sunk to the floor. It wasn’t uncommon for her to punish us by having us kneel on the floor for hours at a time. I thought this was one of those cases. If that was the case, I would have been grateful.
She started moving around me, pulling vinegar from the shelf and lemon juice from the fridge. I didn’t understand but I kowtowed to her on the floor, crying. I whispered to the floor, pleading under my breath that she would stop and just send me to my room.
She created a concoction of half vinegar and half lemon juice in a glass and then handed it to me. “Drink all of this. You are never, ever to let a boy call here.”
My lips trembled. “Please don’t make me,” I begged. Tears slid down my cheeks, dripping from my chin.
My mother reached for my hair, yanking it back until my face was up.
“Okay!” I screamed, “I’ll do...”
The glass was pushed to my lips so hard I tasted blood at first as my lip split, and then all I could taste was the heat of the acid mix between lemon and vinegar. I forced myself to swallow, unable to catch a breath. If I didn’t drink, I would drown.
The liquid slipped past my throat and I felt it burning. Out of instinct, my hands sought out her arms, trying to push her away. She held me in place until I drained the glass. When I was finished, and her hands released me, I collapsed to the ground in a heap. I choked, holding my palm to my mouth, gasping and sobbing so hard that I couldn’t catch my breath. My lungs ached as I was trying to breathe and my throat was on fire. Every breath was painful to my throat.
She threw the glass into the sink and it shattered against the metal. “Next time a boy calls, it’ll be bleach. Get up and go to your room. I don’t want to hear from you.” She stalked back to her bedroom and I heard her shaking her medicine bottle and opening the container.
I felt my stomach lurch. I pushed my palm to my mouth until I could run up stairs to the bathroom. I knelt at the toilet, my head buried in the bowl and I heaved.
When I was done, I fell on my back against the carpet of the bathroom. My body trembled and I tried breathing through my nose and mouth at different lengths but it was useless. Every little bit of air passing my throat made the pain sharply return. I forced myself to stop sobbing so it wouldn’t hurt so badly. I got up, nearly crawling on my knees to the sink, dipping my head under the faucet for water, but the water’s coolness sent me to my knees again as it splashed against my throat.
I sensed someone watching. Marie stood in the doorway. Through the tears in my eyes, I shuttered under my sister. Her brown hair hung long past her shoulders and her dark eyes looked curious and fearful.
“What was it this time?” she asked. I knew what she wanted. She wanted to make sure she never did what I had done.
I parted my lips, “Ah...” I coughed. “A boy...” I whispered. My eyes popped open. I tried again to talk. Nothing. I closed my eyes, and fresh, hot tears slid down my cheeks.
My mother made sure I couldn’t answer the phone.
Nathan
I dreamed I was lost in a house I didn’t know. There was a ghost behind me, rattling the windows and screeching so loud that I would cower in the corners to avoid it as it flew by my head.
I woke up in my bed, my heart pounding. When I calmed myself and fell back into the pillow.
Ever since I was nine years old, I started having nightmares about monsters coming at me in the night. They took on different forms all the time. Sometimes it was hairy, brown tarantulas so big they could knock down trees as they chased me through a forest. Sometimes men in dark clothes with guns hunted for me in underground mazes. In every dream I had, I was running from something that didn’t want me to exist, and running toward a place I couldn’t see. I taught myself not to cry out so I wouldn’t wake anyone else in the house up. Screaming was pointless.
No one would come.
The next morning, I was out the door at dawn. It was a risk after the previous day, but I needed to escape. I needed fresh air. My throat no longer burned but it was sore. I tested my voice a few times but what I managed to say was raspy. It worried me that perhaps my voice was permanently damaged. I couldn’t stand to think that was the case. I would be Sang, the girl with nothing to say and no voice to say it.
I wore a pair of jeans and a simple pink blouse, ready to walk through the woods a million times to pass the hours. I wasn’t sure if I should try to visit Kota. I’d been up half the night going over Silas’s words. Kota had warned everyone to stand by to give me room to relax. Or he had meant to keep everyone away from me because they wanted to distance themselves from me? Which did he mean?
With no voice, I wanted to avoid him a little, too. How could I explain it? I wasn’t sick. Or maybe I should pretend to be sick. It would be a good excuse. Only it wasn’t possible. What if he tried to call? What if Silas tried to call again?
The morning air was already warm, and I breathed in the humidity. It felt heavy and thick as if I was walking through a lake I could breathe in. I wondered where that chill evening with the rain had gone. I almost regretted wearing jeans but I didn’t like to walk through the woods in shorts if I wasn’t sure about the paths. I never knew when I would want to explore something off the trail and would end up knee deep in underbrush.
The woods behind my parents’ house was a couple of acres in size. There were more woods behind Kota’s house on the other side of the street and I tried to find a way into that forest, but the empty lot was the only place to cross into it without walking through someone’s yard. The lot had a cluster of trees so thick though, I couldn’t see a path into it.
I cut through the back yard, crossed a small wooden plank that served as a small bridge over a drainage ditch that separated the yard from the tree line. I disappeared behind the wall of trees, seeking out the footpath I had discovered the first afternoon my family had moved in.
There were a handful of trails in this forest and I had taken a few of them. I found one I hadn’t tried yet and followed it. It wound around close to where I could see other homes along the street through the trees. The sunlight filtered through the leaves. The shadows from above casted an eerie green shade. I felt enclosed and separated from everything, which was wonderful in the moment. I didn’t want to be seen. Fresh moss and pine scents filled my nose. A few mockingbirds were awake, one seemed to be following above me, calling out a tune that resembled a car alarm.
Along the path, a maple tree had fallen across the dirt trail. The broken limbs, many taller than me, blocked the way.
I considered going back but the tree didn’t look too dangerous. There was space between branches where I could climb through. I thought if I reached the center, I could probably get to the other side.
I started to pick my way through the branches. The leaves were still green on the tree so it hadn’t been down long. I wondered if it fell after the rain that happened a couple of days ago when I met Kota. My sneakers sunk into piles of soggy leaves and crunched the smaller branches.
When I was near the trunk, I gripped one of the thicker branches to step on top of the center and climb over it. I hesitated, trying to figure out my next move. The branch snapped, I lost my balance and held to it. There was a loud crack, the sound echoing through the woods. I slipped, crashing into a mess. I reached instinctively with my hands flailing, trying to protect myself, feeling light scratches from the branches. It spooked me so bad that I cried out, which came out a more of a raspy yelp.
I landed under some of the branches. I wasn’t hurt, just surprised and my heart was racing. I was shaking some leaves away from my head when a shout echoed to me.
“Someone over there?” It was a male voice, deep. Not as deep as Silas’s. I didn’t recognize it.
My heart started to pound and my eyes went wide. I couldn’t let someone see me like this. Still, there wasn’t an easy way out of the middle of this tree. If I tried to move, it wouldn’t be quiet and he’d for sure hear me anyway.
“Yeah,” I called out, but it was a stage whisper. I stood up, hunching over to avoid an overhanging branch.
I heard footsteps coming nearby. I scrambled to get out of the branches. One of them struck my face and stung my cheek.
The footsteps stopped short of the fallen tree. “Where?”
“In the tree,” I screeched out. I coughed. Trying to yell to him irritated my throat.
“Didn’t you see it was down? Why didn’t you take the other path?” The footsteps came closer.
I found a thicker branch to stand on. I climbed for a short distance until I could see over most of the leaves. A guy with a stern face and such serious blue eyes looked back at me. He wore a red and white Nike shirt, the sleeves cut off, and sport shorts in a matching red color. Earbud headphones hung around his shoulders. His hair was cut short, a mix between red and brown, leaning more on the red side. His chin was angled and his jaw was set as he looked at me. The expression was so solemn. This guy could mean business just by his look. He was about the same height as Kota but it was the bulk of his muscles that had my spine tingling. He had broad tapered shoulders and there was a power in his stature that was undefinable.
“Can you get out?” he asked. He dropped a hand onto his hip, with his head tilted toward me, and a baffled look on his face.
“I think so,” I whispered, not trying to get too cocky with my predicament. I was already this far. I picked my way over branches and pushed away leaves from my face.
“What’s wrong? Why are you whispering?”
I took a deep breath in and then patted my throat where he could see.
“Your voice broke?”
I partially smiled at the way he said it and nodded.
“Move left,” he said.
I turned left, squinting my eyes to try to figure out what he was talking about because the branches were thick on that end.
“Shit, sorry. I meant my left. Your right.”
I turned around and then pointed to the trunk, raising my eyebrows.
“Follow it down the tree until you get beyond the branches,” he motioned toward where the trunk had split, where the branches stopped. He maneuvered himself to walk around the edge of the tree, picking his way beyond the path to find where the tree limbs thinned out.
I followed his instructions, hanging on to tree branches carefully this time. Using the trunk as a bridge, I shuffled my way over the limbs. It was a slow process but I managed to get to the point where the tree trunk started to slant upward where it still leaned against the base it had snapped from. When I was there, I wasn’t sure what to do.
“Can you climb up to the top?” he asked when he saw me starting to turn around. He was standing by the roots, a hand covering the top of his eyes as he looked at me against the sun.
I coughed and whispered as loud as I could, “What do you mean?”
“Just climb up here and then jump down.”
I tried to judge the distance from where he was pointing. My heart started to thump again. Did he mean for me to jump from that high?
“You’ll be fine. Come on.”
My heart was thudding but he seemed confident in his decision. I crouched a little on the trunk. Using my hands to help, I pulled myself up until I was out of the way of branches and I had a clear shot at the ground. I got up to a point where he was standing under me. He lifted his arms up, urging with his hands.
“Jump from there,” he said.
I blinked at him. “Back up so I’ve got room,” I whispered. I was already weary of the distance, but I’d had some training as a kid in elementary school on how to fall and I thought I could tumble roll when I hit the ground.
“No, it’s fine. I’ll get you.”
My mouth dropped open. He couldn’t mean he was going to try to catch me after I jumped down. Wouldn’t it hurt?
He smirked. “Will you just listen to me? Jump.”
I hesitated again, swallowing and considering trying behind me where he wasn’t able to reach.
“Fuck thinking. Thinking hurts the team. Jump.”
My heart was thudding but I lined myself up and leapt down to him. If he wanted to get hurt trying to soften my landing, I’d let him.
With his arms out, he seized me around the waist as I fell, and spun me a little to ease the momentum. My head was pressed up against his chest, and I breathed deeply from the adrenaline rushing through me. I inhaled a leather and Cyprus scent from him. My body shook against him.
He didn’t let go. A hand came up at my back, holding me to him and he rubbed at my shoulders. His chin moved against my forehead so I felt the gruffness of coarse hair against his face. “It’s okay. You’re fine. You made it.” He repeated himself a couple of times, softly and assuring.