Page 2 of Silent Is The Heart

At least he’s in jail, so they tell me.

They tell me lots of things—like how they buried Mom last month while I was in a coma. How I’m a ward of the state now since I have no available or appropriate guardians. How, if or when I do regain my voice and the ability to walk, I’ll be set up with a foster family since I’m only seventeen and essentially an orphan. In short, they tell me all the new ways in which I’m fucked.

That’s what I get for thinking I had it bad before the accident. Life decided to make me earn my self-pity the hard way. Staring at the glop, I blink at the liquid heat in my eyes.

Before the accident.

That’s the definition of my life now—beforethe accident. There’s noafter. Not any way you look at it. No matter how many screws they put in my leg. No matter how many specialists they send in here to try to fix me physically or emotionally. Mom is gone, and I’m just a kid, a poor kid from nowhere, from nothing, with nobody, and now I’m broken.

How do Ifeel?

“I fucking hate everything!” The raspy words tear from my throat in no more than a whisper, but it’s like I’m ejecting broken glass. I can’t even scream to expel my demons.

IFUCKINGHATETHIS!

The tray clatters to the floor from the sweep of my arm. The minor exertion, the carnage of the pudding spattered on the floor, brings zero relief.

MJ is on duty today, which means I won’t even get scolded for my outburst. She’s too… patient. I’m sick of everyone feeling sorry for me. Sick of learning terminology I’ve never heard of before:prolonged intubation,vocal fold paralysis. Sick of the pitying looks when I refuse to speak. Sick of the stupid tactics to get me to communicate.

I’m not going to fucking type or write notes, saying I’m sad, pissed off, and maybe even a little terrified about what the hell will happen to me. If I don’t feel like saying it out loud, I sure as hell don’t feel like writing it down. What difference will it make? It’s not like it’ll change anything. Can’t they at least allow me the dignity of not complaining?

Boo-fucking-hoo.

I’m alive. Mom isn’t. If I’m supposed to feel grateful for that, I don’t understand how it’s possible.

I just need to walk. If I have to sound like an eighty-year-old who deep-throated someone for the rest of my life each time I speak, fine. As soon as I can get out of this fucking bed, though, I’m gone. I’ll find a job somewhere. One that doesn’t require speaking. I don’t have anything to say anyway, nor do I have the desire to speak to anyone, even if I could.

Flopping my head back against my pillow, I dig the heels of my palms into my eyes just to feel pressure somewhere other than in my chest and my leg. My cheekbones are so pronounced they feel bony under my touch.

I’m so damn weak. I should have eaten the fucking pudding.

With my luck, they’ll think I had trouble swallowing again from my vocal fold paralysis and threw my tray in frustration from that. If they downgrade me on this abysmal dysphagia diet, I really will lose my shit. I was already on the scrawny side before the accident. Now, I’m as puny as a thirteen-year-old. I should have bulked up so I could have stopped Leonard.

I should have…

Should have…

Stop, Easton.

Stop it.

You promised not to do the‘should have’game again today.

Pinching my eyes closed, I exhale deeply, trying to ward off the ever-present crowd of regrets. I’m not sure what’s worse—being a prisoner of my grief over Mom or being a prisoner in general. If I had more mobility, at least I could burn off some of the restlessness over the things twisting me up inside.

Reaching over to my nightstand, I feel for the folder of printer paper that Dr. Deetma, the psychologist, left for me to communicate with like a caveman. Swiping up a pencil, I flip the folder open and pull the drawing out that I tucked behind the unused pages. Dr. Deetma doesn’t need the chance to dissect my sketches. I’d never get out of here if he saw this.

The demon, engulfed in a backdrop of hellfire, however, soothes something in my agitated soul. I feel a sense of kinship staring at it, as though it’s my reflection. I don’t need a psychologist to tell me the comparison probably isn’t healthy.

Putting the graphite tip on a blank page, I wait for inspiration—healthyinspiration. Less violent inspiration. Good thing I have a fuck load of time because nothing comes to mind.

The vise grip around my heart that squeezes at night when it’s silent as a tomb here at Hampton Hills Rehabilitation Center gives a tug on the dead organ in my chest when a vision comes to mind. The happy memory calls to me, begging for me to give it life. I shouldn’t. I really shouldn’t because I’ll end up a sobbing mute mess that will get me put on some prescription I don’t need, but my fingers move.

They trace out the outline of almond-shaped eyes, long lashes, and sparkling irises. My thumb rubs in the shading of cheekbones, moving with fervor now as some of the gnawing rage melts away. My gaze gets lost in the illusion coming to shape before my eyes.

It’s not her. I know it’s not her, but it’s the only way I can see her now. I don’t even have any photos of her here. Who knows what will happen to my meager possessions in our trailer back in Wayside? It was in Leonard’s name. I might be a kid who doesn’t know shit about the world, but I’ll bet because it was his, he had to sell it for lawyer fees. I doubt there was little concern over what to do with the crap inside.

Scratching the lines of Mom’s curly blonde hair, I’m determined to resist the pain threatening to choke my heart. It feels traitorous to cling to a happy memory when I should be mourning her, but God, I can’t help it. I need something positive for just ten minutes, even if it is just a trick of the mind, a vision that’s forever lost in time. Her smile takes form under my ministrations—the recall of her laughing last summer at me and my buddy Ben when we were whippingPOP-ITSat each other in the backyard on the Fourth of July. He kept screaming like a girl each time I connected one of the little paper TNT bombs in his vicinity. Mom and I nearly pissed ourselves at his shrieking.

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