Chapter 11 #2
“Singing for a group is a 911?” she murmurs, and I nod emphatically. She frowns at me, and then gets that look of understanding as it clicks, because she gets it. She always does.
I don’t join in for the rest of the class. When Miss Umber questions me about it, Blaise cuts her off and flirts mercilessly with her until she forgets why she ever walked over to our group. Instead of thanking him, I hand him the iPod and he nods.
We communicate better with lyrics than words.
Later that night, when Blaise has left our tutoring session and Avery is freshly showered, I explain our confrontation with Joey at lunch.
“He’s up to something.”
Avery rolls her eyes at me. “He’s always up to something. The question is, what’s changed? He’s stayed away from you because of the Jackal’s warning so he must have found something out if he’s playing with you again.”
I nod and take a seat at the bench while she fusses with the stove. “Ash wasn’t too happy about Harley joining me. He thinks we’re walking into a trap. I mean, we are, but what choice do I have?”
Avery cocks her head as she stirs her cocoa. “I’ll try and put some feelers out, see if there’s any gossip about what he’s planning.”
I nod and sigh, scrubbing a hand over my face. Who would think high school politics would be this complicated?
“So? Are you going to tell me why singing is a 911?” Avery shoves a spoon into a tub of ice cream and slides it across the breakfast bar countertop toward me.
It’s cherry flavored; I’ve never told Avery it’s my favorite and yet the sneaky bitch knows.
I swear to God, she’s going to take over the country someday.
Or she’ll put a puppet in power, pull all the strings and make the whole damn world dance for her.
The secret, darkest parts of my soul whisper to me about how much I love it.
“Have you ever heard of the NTT? Naval Torture Technique?”
Avery shakes her head and sips her cocoa.
Talking about this is impossible without removing myself from it entirely.
It’s one of the most traumatic things that’s ever happened to me, and the fact that I survived it is irrelevant because I’ll never really recover.
If I can avoid thinking about it, or being reminded that it happened in the first place, I can function and that’s about the best I can hope for.
I keep my voice clinical, monotone, like I’m reciting a passage from a textbook and not yakking it up about the worst of my nightmares.
“It’s a way to increase your pain tolerance.
It’s a long process where the degree of pain inflicted onto you is increased slowly until you’re able to stay silent and function even when you’ve been shot or have multiple broken bones. ”
Avery doesn’t react or make a sound, doing her best not to trip over my damage, but she definitely looks a little green around the edges. She put down her cup while I was talking, and now her chin is propped up on her fist as she watches me with a carefully blank sort of expression.
She really is the best.
I take another breath before I continue. “I can’t hear the sound of my own raised voice, not yelling nor singing, without triggering my PTSD from my training.”
She gives me a curt nod, a small acknowledgement without making a fuss over it all, and then she rubs her eyes with her fists like she’s trying to scrub the shock and horror out of them. “Right. Who did this… training to you?”
“The Jackal.”
Avery nods and drops her hands away from her face, disgust and rage clear in her eyes, but it’s comforting for me now. “I should have known. Can you switch out to do a sport instead?”
I raise my leg up so she can see the thick scars that run from thigh to ankle. “Nope. I’ll be in agony for days after any major activity.”
“You really are broken, aren’t you?” she says with a smile.
I think if anyone else said it to me I’d lose my mind at them, but she says it like she knows exactly what that feels like, what it means to be broken, what it costs you to keep going.
There’s this kindness in her eyes that can only be bled for, that only those of us still clinging to life with the last of our strength can possibly bear.
She knows exactly what it’s like to be shattered into a million pieces and taped back together in the wrong order.
Fuck, we’re both a hot mess.
I shrug and eat some ice cream, then wash the dishes while Avery roots around in the bathroom. I think she’s doing her bedtime routine but then she hands me a pack of earplugs, saying, “Put those in,” and then drags me over to her record player.
If there is anything in this room that I’m truly jealous of, it’s Avery’s record player and collection of vinyl. It was her mom’s, and Blaise adds to it constantly with his own music and anything else he thinks she’ll like.
“What are we doing?” I slip one of the earplugs in.
Avery messes around with the record player for a minute and then whirls around to me. “We’re fixing you. I heard you sing to Miss Umber so we know that you can do it, we just need to practice. We’re going to do this over and over again until it’s perfect.”
I hesitate as she hits play, only to startle as ‘High Hopes’ by Panic at the Disco starts. I roll my eyes at myself, because of course she looked at my worksheet while I was having my little episode. I sigh and slip the other earplug in just before I need to sing.
I make it through the whole song. I remember the lyrics, having listened to this song a hundred times, and after the first chorus I’m calm enough to open my eyes.
Avery watches me with rapture, sitting on her bed with her head propped up by her fists.
When the song ends I give myself a second to breathe before I take the earplugs out.
“We need to fix you because you need to sing, Lips. I can’t even… there aren’t words for how you sound. Blaise is going to lose his mind when he hears you.”
I blush and shrug. I don’t see myself getting over the PTSD. I’m going to do this because I need to keep my scholarship, but I’m never going to be able to just sing along with the radio or hold concerts in my shower. It’s just not possible.
She starts the song over and I go again.