Read Online The Language of Silence by Tiffany Truitt - Free Book Online
Authors: Tiffany Truitt
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race. The high I felt after my encounter with Evelyn is quickly fading. Suddenly, the idea of being anywhere near Brett seems beyond stupid. And she has to be in Tristan’s room? That’s the last place I want to be. Talk about a bad situation suddenly becoming nuclear. I reach inside my jacket pocket and pull out the bag of shrooms Evelyn left me. I don’t over think it. I pop two in my mouth.
Dry. Starch. Weird. I push through, chewing and swallowing before I have a chance to rethink it. I wait. But I don’t feel anything. Did Evelyn trick me?
Stupid.
Stupid.
Stupid.
I have nothing to fear. I don’t need drugs, real or fake, to do this. It’s just a girl. It’s just a room. I make my move.
I don’t hesitate to open the door to his room. I don’t feel bad invading his space. He’s dead. He doesn’t exist anymore. I see Brett. She stands perfectly still in the middle of the room. She turns slowly to face me. She just looks at me, and I can’t bear it. I clench my jaw and look at the ground, spying a pair of Tristan’s dirty socks in the corner. I begin to silently pray the drugs will work.
“I thought we could clean that bathroom,” I somehow manage.
I look up because it hurts more not to look at her than it does to look at her, and that’s saying something. I see her lip quiver. She slams her eyes closed. For a brief moment, I think she might cry.
Instead, she straightens her back and flips her hair. “It’s not every day a boy offers to help clean up your puke. I must be special.” She walks out of the room without giving me a second look.
“I think I might be dating Evelyn Goodwin,” I almost yell down the hallway. I don’t know why I say this to her.
She stops, but still refuses to face me. “Of course you are,” she replies.
We clean in silence. The whole time, I get the feeling that I have taken something from her that I can never give back.
And these drugs suck.
Chapter Twelve
Brett :
I find myself unable to look at Ed while we wipe down the bathroom. I can’t talk to him either. I feel too many different things with him.
Evelyn Goodwin?
When will he see what he’s doing? He can’t sleep with half of Wendall High and hope that it proves something. Months from now, girls like Georgina and Evelyn will laugh about him. And then they will forget he exists at all. And where will that leave him?
Empty.
I know he feels the loss of my brother. I feel it too. And even as we wipe away the proof that he is gone, the one odd thing that confirmed his death, I know the loss connects us now. Before Tristan died, we were connected by something else, something less easy to define. I wonder now if we will only be able to see each other as a reminder of Tristan’s death.
“I’ll walk you out,” I tell Ed when we are finished. I don’t thank him for his help. I know he did it more for himself than me. He nods, and we walk in silence down the hall. I wonder when we will be able to speak to each other again, truly speak to each other. Have we ever been able to truly speak to each other? Tristan was always the buffer.
What will we become without him?
There was a moment last fall that threatened to tear down the walls we so painstakingly built , a moment where Tristan couldn’t protect us from what we felt. My mother, Tristan, Ed, and I went to Virginia to tour UVA. My father had gone to law school there, and Tristan was expected to do the same. Tristan didn’t want to be a lawyer. Loud, annoying Tristan whose voice boomed throughout whatever space he occupied never found his voice when it came to my father.
The summer before I started my freshman year at Wendall High , something shifted in my relationship with Ed. Maybe it was because I finally got boobs, or maybe it was for much nobler reasons. Either way, he looked at me differently. He would open doors for me and pull out my chair. Sometimes, he would catch himself in these small moments and attempt to make some joke
Dry. Starch. Weird. I push through, chewing and swallowing before I have a chance to rethink it. I wait. But I don’t feel anything. Did Evelyn trick me?
Stupid.
Stupid.
Stupid.
I have nothing to fear. I don’t need drugs, real or fake, to do this. It’s just a girl. It’s just a room. I make my move.
I don’t hesitate to open the door to his room. I don’t feel bad invading his space. He’s dead. He doesn’t exist anymore. I see Brett. She stands perfectly still in the middle of the room. She turns slowly to face me. She just looks at me, and I can’t bear it. I clench my jaw and look at the ground, spying a pair of Tristan’s dirty socks in the corner. I begin to silently pray the drugs will work.
“I thought we could clean that bathroom,” I somehow manage.
I look up because it hurts more not to look at her than it does to look at her, and that’s saying something. I see her lip quiver. She slams her eyes closed. For a brief moment, I think she might cry.
Instead, she straightens her back and flips her hair. “It’s not every day a boy offers to help clean up your puke. I must be special.” She walks out of the room without giving me a second look.
“I think I might be dating Evelyn Goodwin,” I almost yell down the hallway. I don’t know why I say this to her.
She stops, but still refuses to face me. “Of course you are,” she replies.
We clean in silence. The whole time, I get the feeling that I have taken something from her that I can never give back.
And these drugs suck.
Chapter Twelve
Brett :
I find myself unable to look at Ed while we wipe down the bathroom. I can’t talk to him either. I feel too many different things with him.
Evelyn Goodwin?
When will he see what he’s doing? He can’t sleep with half of Wendall High and hope that it proves something. Months from now, girls like Georgina and Evelyn will laugh about him. And then they will forget he exists at all. And where will that leave him?
Empty.
I know he feels the loss of my brother. I feel it too. And even as we wipe away the proof that he is gone, the one odd thing that confirmed his death, I know the loss connects us now. Before Tristan died, we were connected by something else, something less easy to define. I wonder now if we will only be able to see each other as a reminder of Tristan’s death.
“I’ll walk you out,” I tell Ed when we are finished. I don’t thank him for his help. I know he did it more for himself than me. He nods, and we walk in silence down the hall. I wonder when we will be able to speak to each other again, truly speak to each other. Have we ever been able to truly speak to each other? Tristan was always the buffer.
What will we become without him?
There was a moment last fall that threatened to tear down the walls we so painstakingly built , a moment where Tristan couldn’t protect us from what we felt. My mother, Tristan, Ed, and I went to Virginia to tour UVA. My father had gone to law school there, and Tristan was expected to do the same. Tristan didn’t want to be a lawyer. Loud, annoying Tristan whose voice boomed throughout whatever space he occupied never found his voice when it came to my father.
The summer before I started my freshman year at Wendall High , something shifted in my relationship with Ed. Maybe it was because I finally got boobs, or maybe it was for much nobler reasons. Either way, he looked at me differently. He would open doors for me and pull out my chair. Sometimes, he would catch himself in these small moments and attempt to make some joke
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