Page 96 of Muted

“What do you eat then?” I ask, putting in an order to be delivered. I decide to get a few different options and I’ll let her choose what she wants when it all arrives.

The smile falls from her face, and now she looks just as confused as I do. My fucking phone rings again. With a scowl, I silence it.Again. “Should you answer?” she asks, moving past my question, then slides the cutting board toward her. “Knife?”

“I don’t want to answer,” I say, then point at the cheese she’s unwrapping. “I was going to do that. You don’t have to.” The phone starts ringing again, and I pinch the bridge of my nose. “I’m so sorry.”

She waves me off. “I like doing this.” The shrill sound of my phone grates against my eardrums, but watching Susu meticulously slice through the cheese and set on the charcuterie board in perfect order calms my nerves. This time, I switch my phone over to silent and push it into the corner on the counter. Leaning on my forearms, I watch her as she works.

She’s fully concentrating, that little space between her eyebrows slightly wrinkled. With each pass of the knife, she slides it through confidently, and I find her completely mesmerizing. I’m glad she decided to take the job because it gives me an excuse to watch her. “You’re staring.” Her voice is soft, with a hint of a smile behind it.

“You’re really beautiful.” There’s a small flush that creeps over her cheeks at my compliment, which only amplifies how gorgeous she is. “Will you tell me something about yourself? When did you move here?”

Her hand only falters for the briefest moment, but I catch it. “A few months ago.”

“Was there a specific reason you chose this city? Like a job or something that didn’t work out, and that’s why you’re at Sonority?” I can’t imagine she would have moved here without having something lined up first.

Susu hesitates before answering. It’s clear she’s choosing her words carefully and I narrow my eyes, trying to read between the lines. “It wasn’t that I chose this place specifically. My move wasn’t to find someplace new, but rather to leave someplace old… if that makes sense?”

“I think so? So, what were you leaving behind, little songbird?” My question seems innocent enough, and a natural progression to the topic we’re discussing, but the way she hunches her shoulders worries me. Reaching out, I put my hand over hers where it’s clutching the handle of the knife, knuckles turning white. I open my mouth, but nothing comes out. I’m not sure what to ask.

Her throat bobs, but after a deep breath, she releases the knife and turns her hand underneath mine. “The town I lived in… well, I didn’t get along with many people there. School was hard.”

NowthisI can understand. “I struggled too with the school. My parents homeschooled me for a while, but I did go for a few years. By the time I went, everyone already had their set groups, so I kind of stayed on the outskirts. Never found anyone that I had much in common with. Was that what happened to you? Not finding your people?”

She snorts an incredulous laugh and shakes her head. “No, that’s not what happened to me. I was very unliked at school, and you know how teenagers can be. They’re ruthless when they get in packs.”

“You were bullied?” I ask, flexing my fingers over her hand, not liking the picture she’s painting. I may not have had friends in school, but no one would have dared come after a ‘Stoll’. Not with the ring my parents run in.

Her eyes lock on mine, almost begging me to understand the depths of how sincere she is when she answers, “Yes. Badly.”

My body shifts toward her over the counter, and I grip her hand tighter. “What did they do to you? Why were you bullied?”

“Most of it was common high school stuff. Everyone liked to name call, take and hide my things, spread rumors and gossip about me, mock me for my clothes. They liked to trip me from time to time, but I could avoid that normally.” The way she says that was the normal stuff pisses me off because that’snotnormal behavior for the average school. Sure, some of those things would happen, but not by everyone.

The first thing she said finally registers, and I jerk my head back. “Most of it was this? What was the rest?”

She chews on her lip, like she’s trying to consider if she should say more. “I was jumped quite a few times.”

“By the girls there or something?” I ask, my mouth dropping open. Running my eyes down her body, I hate the image of her being surrounded by catty bitches, pulling her hair and pushing her around. She’s smaller than most of the girls I went to school with, and that’s a serious disadvantage, especially if she wasn’t prepared for it.

Her mumbled, “Sometimes it was girls,” makes me shoot to my feet.

“You’re saying you were jumped by the guys in your school as well? Jesus, Susu. Did they at least get suspended or kicked out for that shit?” I’m furious on her behalf and if I had known, I’d have been there to kick their asses for her. I’ve seen a group of people attack a single person before, and the memory is sickening enough when I didn’t even know the victim.

She slips her hand free and twists them together, looking away from me. “It wasn’t normallyatschool, so there wasn’t much they could do about it. I did report it at first, but nothing ever came from it except to make them angry and they’d do it again. It was better if I didn’t say anything at all.”

The shock of her words renders me speechless.Better if I didn’t say anything. I can’t help but wonder if that’s why she doesn’t speak now. “Is…” I trail off, not sure if I should ask, but decide to say fuck it and ask, anyway. “Is this why you don’t talk?”

“P-Partly.” She stumbles over the word. I’m not so oblivious that I don’t hear the agony behind it, and I know that there’s much more to her story than just some high school students with a vendetta.

Grinding my jaw, I bite out, “Why?”

“I really don’t want—” Her voice breaks, and she rubs her throat with her palm, making a pained face before continuing. “—want to think any more about it.”

Grinding my teeth together to keep my temper in check over the way she was treated, I ask, “What about your family? Did they do anything to stop it? Where are they now?”

“They did what they could. They, umm… they moved to Pensacola when I left town. We all sort of went our separate ways.” Filing that away, I open my mouth to ask more.

The ringing of my doorbell halts the questions I want to keep pushing at her. “That must be dinner. You hungry?” I know she’s not, but I’m determined to change the subject and get her back to when she was relaxed. She forces a smile and nods her head stiffly. I know it’s a lie, but no way am I going to call her out for it.

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