Marked with Silence

The walk to her house was silent, but I should have known better than to expect anything different.

So far, my time at Cadbury High School had been bearable. When I wasn’t thinking about Sapphira, I was meeting a lot of my classmates, thanks to Dylan. I was right, he was very popular in our class, and he introduced me to everyone that he could. He definitely surpassed his duties as a school guide. I guessed Dylan was just that nice, and I hoped tha we might actually become real friends.

Sapphira’s outfit wasn’t much different today—baggy, faded jean with a loose-fitting, solid blue t-shirt. From my experience with girls I knew that if they had the body, they’d use it. And if not, they would try super hard to get it.

Why does she try too hard to cover it up? Maybe she has something to hide…, I contemplated.

She made a sharp left, and I just came out of my thoughts in time to not enter the street.

I tried to start a conversation for the second time, “So why did you transfer schools last year?”

She didn’t even turn her head. Her eyes didn’t even move from the sidewalk.

“Do I bother you or something?” I was starting to feel frustrated.

Sapphira stopped for the briefest second, looked at me, and shook her head.

She then made another left, but this time towards the doors of an apartment building. Sapphira pressed a button near the top of the intercom and said without emotion, “It’s Sapphira.” A buzz was heard and I stepped in front to hold the door open for her. Maybe chivalry was going to get me somewhere.

The inside was nicer that I had anticipated. The floor was shiny, and the lights bright. The elevator was a nice silver, with buttons that lit blue when pressed. We listened to the swish of floors passing as we went up nine levels. When the doors opened, I let her lead the way. And instead, I got to see the swish of her hips.

Then I realized something. The back pockets her jeans were big and fell so low that they mainly rested on her thighs. The crotch was much too long and didn’t touch the right places. She was wearing mens’ jeans.

My eyebrows furrowed together, Does she have a boyfriend? No, that can’t be possible. She doesn’t talk. But maybe it’s all physical…

I shook my head and tried not to think about it. It might have meant nothing. Sapphira might just not have liked how tight girls’ jeans were. After all, she did seem to favor very loose clothing.

Sapphira made a right into an apartment whose door was already ajar. And I was greeted by the smell of salty meat and light blue walls. She went into the living room, where I was very surprised to see a white man watching television.

He got up as soon as we entered. “Well, this must be Jerome,” he said as he extended his hand for me to shake.

“Hello, Mr. Torres,” my voice filled with more question than I had intended.

From the corner of my eye I saw Sapphira jaw clench tightly.

The man looked to her and then at me. “Oh, no” he shook his head. “I’m Sapphira’s uncle, Bill Chadney.”

It was the first time I had seen Sapphira bite her nails.

A woman then immerged from the kitchen. “Hi Jerome, I’m Sapphira’s aunt,” she greeted in a slight accent.

I was deeply confused. Sapphira didn’t live with her parents. And it appeared that Sapphira didn’t even like the people she was living with. Her uncle and aunt didn’t even bother to greet her. Or maybe it was because they knew all too well that she wouldn’t answer back.

Mrs. Chadney then said something to Sapphira in tagalong. I was rusty. I only caught the words ‘sit’ and ‘door’ and something about snacks.

Sapphira merely nodded and Mrs. Chadney gestured that I should follow her.

I was surprised when Sapphira led me to her bedroom. She quickly removed her shoes before stepping on the white carpet, and I did the same.

Her room was the opposite of her quiet persona. The walls were each painted a different color—pick, blue, green, and yellow—of neon and several posters were hung on them. Glow-in-the-dark stars graced the ceiling and stuffed animals were littered on the bed. I was never more confused as to whom this girl really was.

She dropped her bag on the floor before turning to me. “Don’t sit on the bed or close the door,” she said before brusquely reentering the hallway.

I took the seat at her desk; it was either that or a lavender bean bag chair. I turned on the computer and monitor, and saw that the computer was not off, but hibernating.

Microsoft Office Picture Manager opened. Four faces stared back at me, one of them being Sapphira with much shorter hair. On one side stood a boy with an arm around her shoulders, who was obviously her brother. On the other were a man with Sapphira’s nose and a woman with her eyes.

The picture suddenly disappeared from the screen, and I looked to my upper right to see that Sapphira had leaped over me to close the file. She threw the bag of chips she had retrieved into my lap with some force.

She clenched her jaw again, in addition to her fists.

“Is that your family?”

Sapphria turned to reach into her backpack. She opened up her Honors World History folder and handed me the outline she’d made for the PowerPoint Presentation.

We didn’t say a world to each other for the next hour. The outline was very detailed. I typed it up, and if she wanted to change something, she would steal the keyboard, type, and then look to me for approval. I had the picture stuck in my head the entire time. That was unmistakably her family in the photo. And if she was living with her aunt and uncle, the only coherent explanation was that they were all dead. That explained the mid-semester transfer. But was that also the cause of her silence? Was that also the reason she didn’t want to get close to people anymore?

If I ask, would she hate me forever?

A thousand possibilities crossed my mind. How they died, and if it was just a little over a year ago. If she suffered from some mental instability from the result of losing her family, or if she was always a quiet child who got even more quiet.

This was why Sapphira didn’t want to make the meeting at her house. She didn’t want me to know that she didn’t live with her parents. And I knew that she sure as hell wasn’t expecting for me to find that picture on her computer. I felt guilty that I made her bring me here, when we could have easily gone to the library since I had a laptop at home.

Our heads turned at the knock on her door. It was Mrs. Chadney.

“Do you guys want anything else to eat? What about drinks?” It seemed that she was talking to me more that to her own niece.

“No thank you,” I replied.

She nodded and smiled at me, being more kind to me than was necessary

“She seems nice,” I mentioned to Sapphira, who barely nodded.

I pressed on, “Have you always lived with them?”

She pasted her eyes back on the computer screen.

“Do you-“

“Just leave me alone,” she said on the brink of desperation, before pulling up an article on Filipino Christmas customs.