Page 20 of Deafened By Silence
When Tony passed a few years later, the whole street felt it. One of the brightest lights in our community, a father figure to many of us boys who were rushing to become men, just gone. I know he would’ve looked after Mom while I was locked up. Hell, if he’d still been around, maybe the events of that night wouldn’t have happened at all.
But right now, safe in the confines of my head, they’re both alive and we’re back there. The crowd is deafening but it’s good energy, filtering through my bones with a lightness I’m not accustomed to. We find our seats, three rows back on the end, but my mind isn’t on the baseball. A hot dog the size of my head is in one hand and similarly large lemonade in the other. I haven’t had a sip yet, but I’m already bouncing, so excited I feel like I might explode.
Fully invested in my hot dog, Jeremy points outs a group of children running down the aisle between innings, waiting for a ball to be thrown their way. He urges me to join but I shake my head. It’s such a big stadium, and as much as I want to put my street instincts aside, my wariness keeps me firmly in my seat. Next thing I know, Jeremy is hollering to a player resting against the railing by the Nats dugout and pointing directly at me.
“Hey yo, Roark! My little brother in your biggest fan!” he yells, much to my embarrassment. After a moment of staring my way, Roark ducks down out of sight, probably to avoid being bothered whilst waiting his turn to bat. But a short while later, he pops back up and beckons me down the steps. The kids all around glare and scowl my way, but I shoulder through with the help of my big brother.
“I know greatness when I see it, kid. You’ll do great things one day,” he says, tossing me a signed ball and placing a baseballcap over my blonde waves. Jeremy snatches the cap for himself as I marvel at the ball in my hand. Crisp white, red stitching and a scrawled signature across the side. My new prized possession.
“He’s right you know,” Jeremy nudges me out of my thoughts. “You’re going to be the best of both of us. And I’m keeping this cap.” I can’t describe the pride that detonates within, looking up into my brother’s eyes, wishing I could be just like him. Brave, resilient, humble.
But we weren’t in control of our own fates back then, our path had been mapped out long before we were even born. We just didn’t know it at the time, nor that Jeremy would be buried with a tattered Nats cap before he had a chance to become the man he was supposed to be.
Kenneth’s lumpy shape shudders as he giggles out of nowhere, evidently not asleep beneath his cover like I’d previously thought. I rest on my elbows to watch him roll out of bed, a huge smile spanning across his face.
“What’s gotten into you?” I ask raising one eyebrow. His red hair is a tufty mess of curls and cowlicks, sticking out in every direction.
“Had a funny dream is all,” he bursts into a fit of laughter like a squeaky maniac. “You were in it too.”
“I don’t even want to know,” I mutter, returning to tossing my ball high into the air. The dorm door closes as he makes his way to the bathrooms, but I can still hear him muttering and chuckling to himself down the hallway. Shaking my head, I swallow past a new lump in my throat.
I can’t begin to imagine what it feels like to wake up that happy. To have your brain feed you some nonsense while you sleep and leave you smiling like an idiot. That kind of joy doesn’t exist for me anymore. Probably never did, but it’s different for Kenneth. He got a normal childhood. I don’t need to know thedetails to know that. I can see it in the way he moves through the world.
Swinging my legs over the side of the bed, I make the most of my time alone. Dressing quickly, I shoot a text over to the Essay Whizz I was telling Harper about last night. Little bastard tried to double his usual fee for the assignment I requested, knowing full well I didn’t have the money to pay. I’ve bargained some self-defence lessons instead, agreeing to work off ‘my debt’. As if he doesn’t have the file at his fingertips ready to send over.
I grab my hoodie from the floor and pull it on. Kenneth re-enters just as I’m tucking my hair beneath the hood, his eyes still twinkling with leftover amusement.
“Why do you do that?”
“Do what?” I crack my neck side to side and roll my shoulders.
“Hide your hair all the time? If you don’t like it, you could just shave it all off.”
The idea chills the blood in my veins. My movements pause mid-stretch, a tightness pressing into my chest, making it hard to breathe. I manage a head shake, but no words follow. Just a noise caught somewhere between a grunt and a sob. He doesn’t get it, and I don’t want him to. This isn’t my life I’m living and these choices aren’t mine to make. Weren’t mine to make. Fuck.
Tension knots in my shoulders as I shoot to my feet and storm out of the room. Kenneth jumps out of the way just in time. I slam the door, not stopping until I’m standing in front of the bathroom mirror. I lean over the sink, splashing water on my face until the sting behind my eyes starts to ease.
I know what’s waiting when I look up. I do it anyway. Pulling down my hood, Jeremy stares back from the mirror. His blond waves. His black eyes. That wide, steady stance. My body has filled out to match his perfectly. Externally, we’re the sameperson, if only my mind would catch up. Jeremy wouldn’t beat himself down, he’d dust himself off and keep pushing forward.
Yet, I keep doing this to myself like it’s a punishment I deserve. Maybe it is. If this is what it takes to remind me that he existed, then I’ll take it. I’ll keep looking, I’ll keep hurting. I’ll take it every day for the rest of my life.
I emerge, the pent-up energy I’ve been trying to set aside all morning returning with a vengeance. Luckily, Kenneth has already left for his morning shift at the veterinary student’s coffee shop, ‘Toadfully Caffeinated’.
I tap my phone, waiting for that particular file to hit my inbox, struck with restlessness. Since when do I sit around twiddling my thumbs, waiting to help out a girl in need rather than hitting the gym before class? I even debate dropping into the morning basketball drill to let Rhys dial up my fury a notch, but that I decide not to choose violence today.
Instead, I pull the acoustic guitar from the bottom of the wardrobe and settle back on my bed. Most people will have headed out for breakfast before class by now, not that I give a shit either way.
I strum my fingers across the strings, the soft harmony reaching my ears and offering a kind of relief that nothing else can. I shift through a range of chords until one sticks, my hands choosing the song that matches the ache in my chest without needing my permission.Photographby Ed Sheeran spills into the quiet, not aloud, just inside my head, the lyrics threading through my thoughts until everything else fades away.
Every time I visit my mom, I take Jeremy’s guitar and work through the long list of songs she always has ready for me. Her full-faced smile and glassy eyes are worth every ounce of self-hate that crashes over me the second I walk out of that place again.
The chorus lifts me, pulling me into a pocket of sound where nothing else matters. A space where the noise in my head finally shuts up. The grief I can never escape drains from my skin, like it’s searching for a new host while I’m too wrapped up in the moment to stop it. I barely register the tears until they’re already there, slipping silently down my face. I make no effort to wipe them. Wouldn’t matter if I did. This part of me is too loud to ignore. Pain is stitched into every inch of who I am, and sorrow is the thread that keeps me standing.
My stomach growls and breaks the spell, tugging me out of the fog. With a quiet sigh, I slide the guitar back into its hiding place and look around the room. I shove my feet into battered sneakers and grab my backpack on the way out.
The second I enter the cafeteria, I regret it. Every table is taken. Loud voices, messy chewing, mouth breathers at every angle. A full room of people existing without thought. And I just stand there, trying not to lose whatever calm I had managed to steal.
Shifting towards the buffet line, my back shields me from everyone else’s presence as I grab a tray and eye up the potential breakfast options. I know my prepaid card balance is running low, but hopefully I’ve got just enough to scrape by until the next round of weekly funds drops in. Grabbing a baguette and pushing a miniature takeaway cup beneath the dispenser, I press for a double shot espresso to carry me through the morning.
