Silent Is The Heart

CHAPTER 1

Easton

Death by pudding— that’s how they’ll get me. It hits me with clarity as I stir yet another serving of the brown glop on my lunch tray. And here I thought it’d be from going stir-crazy from being trapped in this hospital bed. Something a little more guts and glory, like the electric chair after I jab a spork into that stupid psychologist’s jugular.

Feelings .

Is she for real? Like she honestly gets paid to ask people the obvious? How do I get that fucking job?

‘How do you feel about what happened, Easton?’

Gee, let me think…

I have freaking metal plates and screws in my leg and there’s some kind of primitive-looking torture cage fastened to it. The doctors don’t know if I’ll have a permanent limp. I had to learn how to fucking swallow again like a damn baby. I can’t talk, and hm, what else? Oh, let’s see.

Mom is… dead.

Gone-forever dead. Never coming back because I didn’t save her from that miserable bastard.

Everything is fucking peachy.

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— before the accident. There’s no after . 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 I feel ?

“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— healthy inspiration. 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 whipping POP-ITS at 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.

We stole a few of his dad’s beers later and camped out in the woods behind his house. I can still remember the feel of his hair against my arm when I wrestled him into a headlock while teasing him over his fear of the cracking pop noises from earlier.

I knew he was curious. I think I’d always known. Our tit-for-tat dares and talking shit over the previous school year when he moved to town had escalated to the point I knew it was only a matter of time until one of us caved in and took the leap. All our joking and feigned brotherly love pecks to the other’s head or cheek for months weren’t the mockery we played them off to be. At least not to me. I was just waiting for him to find his nerve.

I can still feel the way his trembling hand cupped over my fly as we lay in our tent. That was the start of it. The real start—the beginning of no more lying, no more pretending to be people we weren’t.

I wonder what he’s doing now. Unlike me, he’s always had the chance to go to college. Is it wrong that I feel bad, though, for not being at his sexual-discovery disposal for the rest of senior year? He’s too damn shy about it to try with anyone else at Wayside High.

High school. Another memory.

I never expected to go to college, but I at least thought I’d finish high school. I’ll be even further behind the curve than I thought whenever I get the hell out of here. As long as they don’t dump me off in Wayside when they evict me, I’ll make the most of it. There’s nothing for me there.

“You like him a lot, don’t you?”

Studying Mom’s mouth, I can almost imagine it moving as she vocalized that ridiculous assumption. Yet, I think she knew even then that Ben and I didn’t spend time together because of some teenage infatuation.

“He’s all right,” I’d told her. I’d boldly elaborated then—because I suspected her curiosity—the way I always did, “Cute butt, even if he does scream like a girl.”

Maybe it’s the honesty I miss the most. Because right now, I’d love someone I could be completely honest with the way Mom and I always were with each other. Being honest with yourself doesn’t feel as good as it does with someone you can trust.

A clatter near the door to my room has my hand flinching. My discarded tray slides across the floor amid the soft exhale of a man’s voice cursing, “Oh shit.”

Following khaki slacks up to a belted waist and a neatly tucked in green polo shirt, my eyes take in the way its snug fit spreads over its owner’s chest. The way it clings to a set of broad shoulders. How the sleeves hug his biceps. I didn’t know ridiculous clothes could fit someone so well, but it might have something to do with the head attached to the most enticing body I’ve encountered in my seventeen years.

A faint shadow of stubble frames his jaw and his… smile. Fuck. Maybe it’s because I was just reminiscing over my romps in the woods with Ben, but a tingle trickles down to my dormant cock like his smile is sending a radio signal to it.

Ben’s lips made me curious about kissing, simply because I knew he was into guys and would let me. This guy’s mouth, though? It’s an education because I’m suddenly imagining how well everything else would go with kissing it, letting me know anything I’ve done before was just child’s play.

Side-stepping over my pudding like it’s an afterthought, the fuck-me smile, the sparkling jade-green eyes, thick brown hair, and the sexy, youthful face that can’t be too much older than me approaches. One hand extended, the other holding a takeaway cup from The Shake Shack . The mouth moves in a way that shouldn’t be so hypnotic.

“Hi. I’m Aaron. Aaron Manicki.”

Somehow, my palm ends up connecting with his like I’m a robot that has no control over my body. It defies every rebellious behavior I’ve exhibited during my stay at Hampton ‘ Hell Hole ’ Hills where I’ve been shipped to in the armpit of northern Maine. I don’t consort with the enemy. My brain seems to be ignoring the fact Hampton’s logo is embroidered on that well-fitting polo shirt. His warm grip makes my heart flip.

What the hell is that all about?

“Oh, my God,” he whispers, his face going slack.

Can he feel it too?

Every muscle in my body goes rigid. Instinct has me wanting to check if my dick has gone hard beneath the hospital bed sheets and I’ve been caught, but I remember my folder is open on my lap. He can’t see anything, even if my teenage hormones decided to make their first reappearance since before the accident right now.

Except, he sees something . Mom. My drawing of Mom.

“Jesus. That’s absolutely incredible,” he whispers.

Those ashen eyes flick to mine like I’m a world wonder. It’s the first time someone here has looked at me like they’re trying to figure me out, but in a way that doesn’t make me want to punch them in the throat. It’s a look that makes me think his statement means I’m incredible. That I’m not some unfortunate kid who lost his mom because his dad is a piece of garbage. That it’s completely irrelevant for once that I had a traumatic brain injury, smashed my lower leg to smithereens, and am just a number waiting to be ejected out of here and into the system.

A sliver of guilt threads its way through my marrow over how good that makes me feel. I’m not supposed to feel good. I’m supposed to be miserable. Mom can’t feel good, so I shouldn’t either.

Except, the longer I stare into those eyes that seem mesmerized by me and feel that strong, warm hand surrounding mine, the more I don’t want to let go or look away.

“Um, sorry,” he stammers, releasing my hand and shaking his head like he was lost. It’s a heady idea, the ability to make someone feel lost over me. “I tried to draw when I was in high school art class, but I was terrible at it. Not a talented bone in my body.”

By all that’s holy, I think I’m smiling. Who am I?

“I’ll be your new speech pathologist,” he adds.

Fuck.

Speech. There goes my smile and him thinking I’m incredible.

But then he smiles again, like the prospect of talking to me is the reason he was put on this earth. It’s such a goddamn sunshine-y sight that it should make me sick, not send a ping of static down my limbs.

“I’m looking forward to getting to know you and, if you don’t mind…I’d love to see more of those drawings sometime.”

It’s probably cordiality, trained professionalism, and more fake pleasantries because he’s a staff member here. Maybe I hit my head harder than I thought because it doesn’t register as a ploy. It just sounds like exactly what I want to hear.

Ben and I must have been really bad at our camping explorations because not a single blow job from him left me as breathless as I feel right now at the idea of Aaron Manicki wanting to get to know me. Hampton Hills must have had him locked up in the fuck-me-running-closet and just unleashed their biggest weapon because if he keeps smiling at me like that, I think I might try to say anything he wants me to for him.