The Wind's Silent Voice

EVERY one has a secret that will die with them. For me, it’s Bianca. 

Dr. Gordon glanced up from her clip board, positioned on her lap. Her glasses gliding down to her angular nose. It was just like her personality, sharp, unconnected.

“August,” She reached down and pulled her leg up into a crossed position. “have you noticed a change in your behavior recently?”

I just stared at my fingers, looping a hairband through them again and again until it was so tight it cut off the passageway for blood to run through my fingers. Then, I pulled my fingers from the tight loop and started it again.

“Like not wanting to fidget all the time?”

She stared at my fingers like she wanted to cut them off and break the band in half.

Not looking up from the brown hairband, I spoke to my fingers.

“No.” I muttered in a darkening voice. I pulled the rubber band off my hand and brought it up to my shoulder length, gently browned hair that couldn’t be persuaded to grow any longer.

Her mouth twitched in frustration. “August, your parents don’t pay me every couple of days to sit in the chair and learn nothing!” She breathed out the air so used into the awaiting world.

I pulled the rubber band up to my right wrist again, exactly where the palm ended, and the arm begin. I took my eyes off of the distracting hairband and looked her in her crisp black eyes. “I don’t have parents! I only have Jen and Walter. They decided that as soon as the split up. They are no longer ‘parents’ they’re just Jen and Walter. Jen. And. Walter! Got it?!”

She huffed out air. “You don’t mean that August and you know that.” But she had no idea.

“I do.” I spitted out at her. I grabbed my wool coat, pulled my jeans comfortably up to my hips, and got up from the soft armchair.

“AUGUST GET BACK HERE!” She demanded.

My heart hammered in my chest. “You shouldn’t disobey her! Your already a mess, a freak. Just. Sit. Down.” It screamed. It pounded furiously against my rib cage for keeping it trapped. But I didn’t listen to it, I just kept walking towards the door.

I was done with therapy, with medication, with treatment, with being called a freak, a mess, with OCD, with parents, and with FRICKING LABELS! I am done!

I marched down the carpeted hall, the same clinic pattern stitched into the ground, wanting to light a fire into every single fiber that made up the carpet.

I taped my foot in a pattern. Right foot one, left foot two. One. Two. One. Two.

“Sorry.” I was concentrating every thought on that pattern that I hadn’t realized I’d bumped into someone until they’d spoken.

I looked up, the beat fading from my ears, my mind. A girl with long, waved, auburn hair, misty blue eyes outlined by eyeliner and framed by mascara, and a lightly tanned skin, smiled apologetically at me, her lip gloss reflecting the fluorescent light. “I didn’t mean to bump into you.”

“It’s ok.” I smiled weakly at her.

“I’m Emely.” She tucked an escaping strand of hair behind her ear and adjusted her butchered jeans. Her tight white laced top revealing a belly piercing. I felt awkward in my cut Rolling Stones top and old jeans.

“August.” I looked to the ground excepting her to ask why my parents had given me such a strange and boyish name.

“I like it.” She smiled again.

“I like your name too. It sounds foreign. French?” I guessed.

“I don’t know.” She shrugged. “I think since my dad’s French.”

“Can you speak?” I asked intrigued. I had never been out of the country or the 48 consecutive united states for that matter.

“A bit. Wanna hear?” She cleared her throat. “Tu es très jolie.”

“What did you say?” I tilted my head in confusion. Language and I never got along.

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” She smiled, mischievously with a titled to her head. She started to turn around, but something stopped her.

“Me and some friends are throwing a party, you wanna come with?” She smiled, showing two perfectly shaped front teeth.

“Ummm…” I would’ve loved to have gone to a party with her, if my life had been different, if party wasn’t another word for personal hell. Ever since Bianca, I haven’t been to a party since.

“I know it’s completely random, and we’ve only just met, but you look like you could really use going to a party. Here,” she said, pulling her phone from her tattered jeans pocket. “what’s your number and I’ll text you the address in case you change your mind.”

I recited my number to her, and she put it in her contacts.

“Hopefully I’ll see you then.” And she continued down the length of the corridor.

As soon as I stepped out the barrier from the office to the outside, the wind tore at my hair, the awkward color that’s too dark to be blonde but too light to be considered brown.

The wind bristled the trees. Swept the snow. It observed all, but kept it concealed in its silent patterns. It knew everything, the secret’s that some who die with, and others would die because. It knew everything and it didn’t tell.  

I reached my ice covered, statue hand to tear the hair from my mouth, then shoved my hands straight into my frosty pockets of my woolen coat. My black rainboots were reluctant to go any faster than a trudge to get to the Audi Q7 waiting in the parking lot for me, the heat making the metal melt off the car until it was left with only it’s structure standing.

“How did the appointment go?” Jen asked, when I opened the passenger side to the car. It was my plan to ask for my own car for my birthday.

“Fine.” The resentment not hiding well in my voice.

“Someone’s grumpy today.”

“I’m not grumpy.” I emphasized.

“What’s wrong?” She asked like a 6th grader searching for gossip.

“Nothing.”

“If you want to play that way then, fine.” Then, she turned to a country station she knew I hated, she turned the volume up and sang in her lemony voice. Sweet when sugar was added, but tart on its own. Today, it was so tart I could taste the bitterness in my mouth.

***

I fingered the beat-up copy of my favorite book. Tracing the cover with the end of my nail. Flipping to my favorite page, the one I’d written multiple notes on and creased the page countless times, I read the quote aloud. “Two can keep a secret if one of them is dead.” I felt a hand, colder than bucket of ice, reach up and touch my back.

My phone’s screen shot blue into my eyes, as it was awakened by a text. It was Emely. Helium filled my head and bubbles bounced off of each other in my stomach.

hey. its emely. heres the directions to the party. just in case u change ur mind. it will be funnn.  

I can’t go, not after Bianca. Not after what I did. But I do want to see Emely. Mabey I’ll just stop by for 10 minutes. That’s it. Just. 10. Minutes.

Spending the next 5 minutes deliberating on how to reply, I finally opened up messages and typed into the awaiting, blank box full of endless possibilities, I’ll be there.

Within less than two minutes, my phone vibrates with a response. Greatt with 10 exclamation points and an accidental period. Party starts at 9.

I walk over to my closet and open up the door, and start flipping through clothes with sudden great care.

What about this tank top? I hold up the blue dyed top to myself in the mirror. No it looks hippish and old.

What if every one’s wearing dresses or casual big t-shirts?

I through the lavender beetles sweatshirt to the ground and sink on my knees. What am I going to wear?

***

8:45

Shoot, I’m 5 minutes late. But at least I’m dressed.

I check myself in the mirror for any bumps, or imperfections at all. I nervously pull down on my black mini top and hoist the ruined jeans unto my hips. They were Jeans I used for art and, as consequence, had become ripped, stained, and perfect for tonight. I think.

My face looks actually pretty for the one time I’ve used make-up. But one look at my hair tells me to just leave it alone.

With a thumping sensation in my heart, I grab my mom’s keys from the hallway, my heavy woolen coat, and make a bolt for the door.

***

Music.

It pounds, shakes the house.

People.

Scattered in clumps, everywhere across the lawn like unwanted litter. Everyone attaching themselves to another person.

Trash.

Beer bottles, plastic cups, and liquor find its way to invade every single space.

I immediately retread into my wool coat, regretting the decision without even making it into the house. I shouldn’t have come here. It was stupid coming here just so I might see Emely. So fricking stupid. I shouldn’t have come.

The memory of that night is too strong here. The vibrating music, the mounds of people, the scattered trash all seem like the all too real scene.

I don’t deserve to be here after Bianca. I don’t. I can’t.

She told me she didn’t want to go. She thought we shouldn’t. I called her a wimp, so she went. And then…and then she just wasn’t seen again. She disappeared because of me. This was all because of me.

“Heyyy.” I turn around to see Emely approaching me with a bottle of port wine and a drunken grin.

“Hi.” I nervously intertwine my fingers together.

“I was looking for you.” She says throwing one of her muscular, outlined arms around my shoulder.

It felt warm and wonderful. What?! August. You have a boyfriend. But I didn’t shake her arm off.

She lead my into the house, pointing out random people and calling a “hi”.

The inside was dark, and it felt like being inside a drum. My ears started to bleed from the noise and eventually fall off.

She lead me outside.

The music seemed softer, gentler, more forgiving. The people seemed quitter. The littler didn’t invade the yard.

It’s dark outside and I can just make out a couple of stars over the tip of the trees. Snow glides down from the vast void above.

Her hand leaves my shoulder, and she breaks into a run under the snowy sky. “Are you coming?” Her scattered words reach to me by the falling, frozen H2O particles.

The wind, once again, rushes through my hair as a comb determined to get out all the knots, which is an impossible task.

The tree’s pirouette in and out of view as we race in the forest, father from the party. “Why are we going away from the party?!” I shout over the wind. It’s interesting to think how much noise frozen water droplets can make.

“You’ll see.”

I hated surprises, but this surprise didn’t take long to be revealed.

“Why are we here?”

“August,” Her voice turns cold, her eye’s shimmer like an alligator’s at night when a light is shined into them. My heart refuses to beat, my bones ice over. Somethings not right, but I can’t seem to think. Confusion has enveloped my mind like fog. Can’t see, can’t think, can’t breathe, can’t blink. “Two years ago, at a party similar to this, your dear friend Bianca Highfields disappeared. Correct?”

What?! Why was she bringing up Bianca? That was a topic usually avoided by all means.

“Correct?” The knives, of her words, cut deep into my throat, leaking blood onto the leaves on the carpeted forest floor.

“Y…yes…” I barely mouthed the words, but Emely didn’t care about my answer. Why was she bringing this up?

“Do you know what happened to her, August Van-Hail?”

“H…how do yo…you know my last name?” My words were shaky, I was unstable. What the hell is happening?

“ANSWER ME!” Emely shouted to me. I’m Scared. Terrified. Unsure of what to do.

“Umm.. n…no. No one knows.” I trembled from the cold of her voice, her words, her face.

“And that, August, is where you’re wrong. I know.” Her voice started to seem like a lion toying with its food. A scene from the lion king, where Scar played hide-and-seek with his dinner, flashed in front of me. Emely was Scar. I was the pathetic mouse, with nowhere to run, hide. The only difference is I didn’t have a Zazu to come save me. I was on my own.

“You?” Words weren’t in my mouth anymore. Thought’s didn’t fill my brain. I was alone, empty.

“Yes. I know what happened to your poor friend Bianca Highfields. I am the only one who knows now besides you. But as the Mark Twain once said, ‘two people can keep a secret if one of them is dead.’” And she pulled a sharp, kitchen knife from her front, coat pocket.