Page 1 of Tortured Whispers
TRIGGER WARNING
This book contains self-harm and depression.
This love story is only for the open minded and brave of heart. If you are squeamish or draw a hard line at strong themes, this book may not be for you, and that’s okay.
Brooklyn…
The first time I drowned was the scariest time. I’ll never forget the suffocating feeling of helplessness. Like my lungs were useless sacks.
It was a normal September day and I was starting ninth grade. I went to my classes as usual and got pulled out during math for speech therapy. I used to need it daily in eighth grade, so I was excited that my dad bumped it down to once a week when I got to high school.
My speech apraxia had gotten much better although I would always talk with what sounded like an accent and some words would never be pronounced properly. I still wanted to keep trying.
I remembered that therapy session being routine. Nothing stood out. I went back to class and looked around for the teacher. I needed to give him my therapy summary. He wasn’t in the room though.
Ashley Hartwell, a girl with a short pixie cut and doe eyes, stood to look at me. I remembered her name from roll call in homeroom. I thought she looked nice enough and when she stood the entire class stopped talking to look at her. I wanted to be her friend. She commanded the room. She was strong and probably popular.
“W-w-where’s M-Mr. Parkew?” I asked her while the class looked on. I hated pronouncing any word that had an R. It automatically turned into a W.
Heat climbed up my neck and I fought to hold her gaze. I hated the sound of my voice and I hated talking in front of people even more but my dad insisted that I step outside of my comfort zone.
Ashley tipped her head back and laughed. It sounded wrong. It seemed to fill up the entire classroom. It was a contagious laugh that jumped from kid to kid until the entire room roared with laughter.
That’s when I felt the water. Normally, the water was only in my head. It made words in my head get jumbled on the way out of my mouth but this time the water was engulfing me. Filling me up from the inside out.
My cheeks warmed and I looked down at my shoes. They were denim ballet flats with a golden bow on top. “Oh my God,” Ashley said in a high-pitched voice. Everything about her said that she should have been nice. She had big innocent-looking eyes and a soft voice. Nothing about her was innocent or friendly though.
“You’re a fucking retard,” she mused.
More water. It sloshed out of my head and into my throat. It ran down my shoulders and arms and wrists and hands and…
“Is that why you got pulled from class? So they could give you meds?”
“She probably needed therapy. Fucking mental case.” Another boy looked at Ashley and scoffed his words out. He would have been handsome were it not for the ugly words spewing from his face.
“Ew. Just what we need in this class. A crazy retard.” She moved closer to me and I wished the teacher would come back. Couldn’t anyone else see I was drowning? Water was swallowing me up. It was pouring out of me and filling up the classroom while everyone watched.
I was cemented to the floor while Ashley approached with a crooked smile. “Aren’t you going to say anything, retard? Is your stupid tongue tied in a knot? Hmm? God. You can’t even talk. You should kill yourself now. Get it over with.” She shrugged with such ease and walked back to her seat. Everyone laughed, but I drowned.
I drowned in front of the entire class and nobody helped.
I was invisible.
Mr. Parker came back, took my therapy summary, and barely looked twice at me. He dismissed the class and everyone filtered out without helping me. I don’t remember how I moved along from class to class but I remembered feeling weighed down. I remembered feeling like I was walking through water.
At lunch, the water surrounding me muted the clamor of kids talking and laughing. I couldn’t suck in a full breath to save my life. I sat alone near the front by the door hoping to catch a breeze so I could breathe easier. It seemed the loneliness suffocated me just as much as the water did.
“I guess this is where trash goes.” I looked up when I heard Ashley’s voice. It was just in time for her tray full of trash to crash down on my head. Chocolate milk soaked my hair and dribbled down my forehead. I hated my life at that moment. It was a stupid life and the universe would be better off without it.
Teachers and administrators ran her off but she still laughed. The sound pierced the water around me and made it harder for me to breathe.
Nobody could get me to speak after that. The school nurse called my dad to pick me up because I was consciously nonresponsive. I was scared to open my mouth because I’d either get made fun of or I’d sink all the way to the bottom of the water.
I’d gone all day barely able to breathe. I’d gone all day feeling like an invisible anchor sinking to the bottom of the sea. I wanted to snap out of it but…I couldn’t. No amount of kind words or pep talks could pull me out of the water.
Every breath was harder to take. I thought I was going to die. I knew I was going to die sitting there on my bed. I was desperate to feel normal. To feel like I could breathe again. To feel…anything.
My dad was talking on the phone right outside of my door. I could hear his deep voice. Normally, it would soothe me but nothing could soothe me right then. I was numb. I’d been underwater for too long.
