Without a Sound

I could tell Celia was grinning from ear to ear even though she was trying her best to conceal it. She didn’t answer my extremely personal and revealing question for a long time. I didn’t know if it was because she didn’t know what to say or if it was because she was smiling too big to speak. The rhythmic sound of rain hitting the windshield kept the silence bearable and restrained me from going insane from not knowing what her answer would be.

“Oh, you don’t have to worry about that,” she said confidently after several minutes. “He loves you. He just doesn’t know it yet.”

This didn’t reassure me. “How do you know if he doesn’t even know?” I demanded skeptically.

Celia rolled her eyes. “Please, Charlotte. It’s obvious. Even Gerard sees it. Mikey treats you like you’re ten times more breakable than you really are. He gives you practically anything you want and more. And if that isn’t enough, haven’t you realized how he acts around you?” She looked at me, expecting an answer.

I just shrugged, not knowing what to say.

She continued, “He talks to you like you’re the most important thing in the world to him, which is probably true, since he has nothing else. He hovers around you and touches you like he wants to hold you. You said he kisses you, too.”

I nodded. All those things were true. Why did I keep arguing about it? “Why would he love me?” I countered.

Celia’s eyebrows furrowed together as she replied, “What’s not to love? He found you when he needed you most. You’re completely innocent and sweet, and you don’t demand anything from him. Not only that, but you’re simply gorgeous.”

I blushed at her compliments. Did Celia really think so highly of me? Could Mikey really see me, the girl who was originally skin and bones and covered in dust, as beautiful?

We were starting to make our way into the city. There were much less trees and many more buildings.

What about Ivy? My hopes were crushed at that instant. I felt my dead heart being torn out of my chest and the little self esteem I had left shatter. “Mikey can’t love me,” I almost whimpered. “He loves Ivy.”

Celia turned into a small parking lot near a local coffee shop. This wasn’t the bad part of the city. It looked clean and nicely kept up. “Of course he loves Ivy,” she agreed with me as we steppe out of the car and into the rain and slightly musty city air. “He’ll always love her and their little angel Sylvia. I never expected him to really get over all of is. Not in a hundred years.”

“Then he doesn’t love me,” I concluded.

“Not so fast!” Celia exclaimed, holding her hand up and motioning for me to halt. “It’s possible to love more than one person. I know it’s hard to understand, but it wouldn’t be terrible for him to find someone new. Not to replace Ivy, but to do what she can’t anymore. It’s not right for Mikey to be alone for all this time.”

That guilt flooded into me again, and I groaned, saying, “I left him all alone again today for us to do this. I could tell he really didn’t want me to go. I hurt his feelings, I think.”

Celia put her arm around my shoulder when we walking through the coffee shop’s doors. Everything was a shade of brown, except for the black floor, the white ceiling, and the red, comfortable-looking seats. “He’ll be okay.”

I frowned and sat in the chair across from the one se sat in. “I hope so,” I said truthfully.

Celia examined me tactfully while I stared at the wall. I wanted to be with Mikey right now, and I wished he would know that. I wanted him to sleep with his head in my lap every time he went to sleep so that he wouldn’t see horrible things when he closed his eyes. And I wanted him to kiss me before we went to sleep. Not on the cheek or the nose, but on the lips.

I hadn’t even noticed that Celia had left. The next thin I knew, she slid a cup across the table to me. I smelled it and sighed, thanking her,

“No problem,” she said easily. I wondered how many times she could say that. After a few minutes, she asked, “How did you decide that you love him?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. I just know that all those things you said about love… I feel that way about Mikey. And I read a poem about love. That’s what made up my mind: the poem.”

Celia looked a little surprised. “A poem made up your mind?” she asked disbelievingly.

“Yes,” I retorted confidently. “It did. It described perfectly exactly what I was feeling.”

She nodded, but I still don’t think she understood. She asked, “So what are you going to do? Are you going to tell him you love him?”

My eyes widened, and I panicked. “No!” I exclaimed. “I can’t tell him! What if he doesn’t love me back? He’ll get mad and make me leave. I wouldn’t have anywhere to go to, and I’d be all alone.”

Celia shook her head, restraining from rolling her eyes again. “He would never do that, but if he did, you’d be welcome at our house. But back to telling him… You’re just going to wait until he says something to you?”

I squared my shoulders and nodded. After that there was not anything else to say, so I stared out the rain-splattered window and sipped my delicious coffee.

Celia drove me home – to Mikey’s house – and I thanked her.

“Have some confidence in yourself,” She told me just before I got out of the car and sprinted to the porch. Unable to wait a second, I flung open the front door.

Mikey threw his arms around me the second I was inside. “You’re all wet!” He complained, but he didn’t let go right away.

I laughed. “Sorry. It’s not my fault it’s raining.”

“I know,” he replied. “You were wrong, though. You weren’t back before I missed you.”

“Sorry,” I repeated.

“That’s alright,” he said quickly, adding, “I have something to show you.”