Marked with Silence

Sapphira avoided me for the next few days. I couldn’t blame her, really. I wouldn’t want to look at me either.

She even refused to walk beside me on the way to her house on Friday. And even though this stroll was also silent, the air was different than it was last week. I guessed it was because I wasn’t blackmailing her last week.

Her aunt and uncle weren’t at the apartment when we arrived. I asked her where they were, but she didn’t respond; big surprise.

She brusquely went in to the kitchen, and reemerged with a bag of pretzels, which she chucked at me—full force. I didn’t know that she was pissed off the entire time.

I followed Sapphira to her room, and she barely let me enter before she slammed the door shut.

She pushed me to on to the bed before yelling, “Do you hate me or something?!”

I adjusted myself on her bed; in shock from the sudden fall and her loudness.

“Well?” Her eyebrows rose.

“N-no,” I stammered. “I don’t hate you.”

“Then why,” she walked closer to me until her face towered above mine, “are you threatening to tell the whole school about my family if I don’t tell you the details about their death?”

It was weird, hearing her talk so much. Usually, she was as concise as she could possibly be. But now, angry words were spilling from her mouth. I had never seen her like this before, and I had no clue how to react.

“Are you just that sick of a person or are you just too Goddamn nosy for your own good?”

I gulped. I had no clue what to say to her. I didn’t think ‘I like you and am so infatuated with you—that’s why I’m putting you through all this pain’ would have gone over so well.

“Answer me,” she demanded, but her voice cracked at the end of it.

It was an interesting thing, seeing someone break down. But intrigue clashed with guilt because I knew I was the cause of it.

Sapphira sunk to the floor until she was staring down at my feet. I was too scared to touch her, even when I saw her shoulder begin to shake.

“Car crash. January 21. My parents were taking my brother back to college. They asked me if I wanted to come but I had a lot of homework that I had to finish. They were five miles from campus when they were pushed to the other side of the road because some woman lost control of her car because the ground was slippery from the snow that had melted and re-froze. They were hit by this huge truck. My mom and dad died on site. And my brother died three days later in the hospital while I was crying on top of his unconscious body.

“None of them had funeral arrangements so I made all of them. I picked their coffins and their tombstones and the music was played. I picked the flowers and the funeral home and the hearses that took them to the graveyard. I picked the plot that my brother was laid in.

“My mom was an only child. And my dad only had my aunt, and they weren’t talking because of some feud over who she married. I barely remembered her when she came to pick me up to take me to here—my new home in a new county. And when I was forced to go to a new school, I didn’t want to talk to anybody. I saw all the people that came to my dad’s, and my mom’s, and my brother’s funeral. I saw all the people missed them, missed them so bad that they screamed out in pain. I saw all the hurt that their deaths caused. And when I came here, I decided not to make new friends. I decided not to be missed, because I didn’t want to bring anyone the kind of pain that my family brought upon me. ‘Cause when I’m dead, I don’t want anyone to even think that they’ll have someone to miss.”

I didn’t know what to say, or more like, I couldn’t say anything. Sapphira had just told me everything I had wanted to know…and then some. I wasn’t sure what to do. I didn’t know if I should try to console her; hold her close and rub her back while whispering softly into her ear. Or maybe I should apologize first; give her a hundred apologies on my knees for making her reveal the painful truth about her family.

She was crying freely now—not trying to hold back any sobs or moans. But then again, I didn’t expect her to just to make me less uncomfortable, I didn’t’ deserve it.

I got off of the bed and knelt on the floor beside her. I gingerly placed my hand on her back, seeing if she would allow me to touch her. When she didn’t scream or move away, I threw my arms around her quickly, clutching her close in case she fought back. To my astonishment, she did quite the opposite. Sapphira sunk into me, relaxing her body against the circle of my arms. She didn’t object when I rested her head upon my shoulder, or shoot me down when I told her, ‘I’m sorry.’

We stayed in that position for over half an hour, and I saw first-hand the damaging effects of ‘bottling it in.’