Without a Sound

“This is the best chicken I’ve ever tasted!” I exclaimed, licking my greasy fingers greedily.

Celia looked at me skeptically while picking at her salad. “How much chicken have you even tasted?”

I frowned. “Well, okay, not much, but this definitely tastes amazing,” I insisted.

“You’ve only tasted chicken Mikey made for you, right?” she asked. When I nodded, she mumbled, “We really ought to have you two over for diner more often. Or maybe I should teach you how to cook.”

“I know how to cook,” I retorted indignantly. “I just don’t know how to use all your gadgets in your kitchens.”

She laughed at me. “Oh, Charlotte, I feel very bad for you sometimes,” she said, sighing.

“He’s really not that bad of a cook,” I grumbled.

She raised her eyebrows at me.

“Okay, compared to this, his chicken tasted like rocks,” I admitted. “But until now I had nothing to compare it to, so I thought it was perfectly fine. It was food, at least. Anything tastes good when you haven’t eaten in…”I trialed off.

Shrugging, Celia replied, “I guess so. How bad was the place you were in?”

I shuddered. “Not any light made its way in. It smelled like rotting flesh until I was too weak to breathe. There were bones all around me. I couldn’t move, speak, breathe, blink… I was half asleep. And then, after forever… Mikey was there.”

Celia glanced around. There was nobody sitting at the tables around us as if we repelled people, but I suppose she wanted to make sure nobody was listening. Leaning closer to me over the table, she asked, “How did he know you weren’t dead?”

I squirmed a little, getting uncomfortable. “Um, I think he thought I was dead, but he wasn’t sure, so he came to check. I realized that he was a man and I wasn’t wearing anything… So I blushed.”

She snorted, nearly choking on her tomato. After professionally collecting herself, she said, “Ah. I see,” and went back to eating.

I wondered what Mikey was doing. Would he eat even though I wasn’t with him? Was he thinking about? Did he miss me like I missed him?

I jumped. Celia had just snapped her fingers right in front of my face. “Are you going to eat, or are you going to stare off into nowhere?” she demanded.

“Sorry,” I mumbled, and I picked up another piece of chicken. While still eating, I surveyed the people all around us. One man was talking on a very small phone, a woman was trying to control her children, another man was tapping his foot impatiently while waiting in line for pizza, and…

Sitting on a bench not that far from us were two young adults: a male and a female. I began to sip the fizzy orange drink in front of me, and then I froze in mid-sip. The boy leaned in and kissed the girl for a long time.

I got a strange feeling, one I’d rarely felt before. I believe I had labeled it as jealousy, the feeling of wanting something another person had. I didn’t want that boy. I didn’t even know him. No, I just wanted that kiss, along with the feeling behind it. I sighed.

Celia followed my gaze and asked anxiously, “What’s wrong, Charlotte?”

I met her eyes guiltily. “If I tell you, you’ll tell Gerard. Or worse, you’ll tell Mikey.”

Now she looked even more concerned and even more determined to get it out of me. “If you don’t want me to, I won’t tell anyone, Charlotte. We can keep it just between you and me.”

I looked down, feeling ashamed. “He doesn’t kiss me like that,” I muttered, nodding towards the two young people.

Celia didn’t answer me for a very long time. I didn’t even know if she had left. I didn’t want to look up and check in case she was still there.

Finally she asked, “What do you mean ‘like that?’ He kisses you at all?”

I could tell that her words were careful, so I was cautious too. “Before I go to sleep, he kisses me on my nose, forehead, cheek, or the top of my head. First it was only when he though I was already sleeping, but now… I’m awake.”

She was quiet for a long time before she said anything again. “And you like it?”

“Why else would I want him to kiss me now?” I asked, feeling a little more irritable than usual. Neither of us were really comfortable with this conversation.

“Do you love him?”

“I don’t know!” I exclaimed in frustration. “I don’t know what love is. I’ve never felt it before. All I knew for so long was fear, pain, and loneliness.”

“What does it feel like?” she prompted eagerly.

“It’s a mixture of happiness, longing, pain, jealousy, compassion, trust… too many things to name.”

“What is it then?”

“I don’t know!” I insisted. “What is love?”

“Love is wanting to make a person smile at any cost. It’s not only wanting them to be happy, but wanting to be the one to comfort them when they aren’t. It’s wanting a person all to yourself. It’s missing them so much you can’t concentrate on eating your chicken” – she grinned at me meaningfully – “and wanting them to miss you back.”

I began rubbing my temple. Did I feel all those things?

“Love is when you can’t stand another person’s pain,” Celia continues more grimly, seeing my reaction. “It’s feeling the person’s pain in your own chest, wishing you could take it all away from them. It’s wishing you could forget everything but each other for a little while.”

I sighed. “I don’t know, Celia.” I looked up at her for the first time. She was looking back at me intensely. “I still don’t know. Please don’t say anything.”

“I won’t,” she promised. “But if you ever need to talk, just ask Mikey if you can call me. If he gets suspicious, just tell him I told you to call me every once and a while. Drop a hint that you want to talk, and I’ll do what I can.”

I smiled at her sheepishly. “Thanks.”

“No problem,” she replied quickly. “Okay. You’re done eating, right? Time to go get you shoes!”