Breaking The Silence

Braelyn stared at the young man before her as he gently dabbed the cold damp towel against the side of her forehead where she ended up sporting a bleeding cut when she was shoved over. Straight after the group of guys were out of sight, Carmella helped Braelyn off the concrete and helped her walk back to Church, apologizing to the brunette repeatedly.

When the pair reached the Church, Nick was more than happy to help Braelyn from wiping the small amounts of blood from her cuts to the putting cream on the cut so it wouldn’t get infected.

The brunette patiently sat on the bench. She looked up at the plain white ceiling as Nick moved his attention back down to the first aid kit to find more supplies of what he needed.

“How does your head feel?” he asked, grabbing a cotton ball and squeezing a thick white cream onto it.

Braelyn shrugged. To her, it felt fine. No pain was felt there even though she was bleeding there. But it was the limbs where she felt the pain, where she was sporting bleeding grazes from landing on the rough concrete surface.

The brunette held still as the young man gently rubbed the disinfectant cream over her elbow.

“Sorry,” he muttered softly, as he saw her jump slightly when the cold cream hit her graze. “So I managed to convince you not long ago, to tell me why you’re not talking.”

Braelyn cringed, knowing where he was going with this. Nevertheless, she didn’t stop him.

“I got the hint that it isn’t something… brutal,” he continued in a quiet voice. “But maybe something personal, then?”

To be honest, Braelyn was actually quite surprised that he managed to guess that far when he had little to start with. How long had he been thinking about this? Not many people managed to guess this far about her problem since they had nothing to start with.

Eventually though, Braelyn slowly nodded, answering his question.

“Past experience?” he guessed again.

Braelyn blinked unsure of what he’d meant by that guess. She sighed to herself and looked away, guess; it felt so much like a game – like something a ten year old did for fun of it, but this was serious.

“Something happened to you when you were younger that caused you to be like this now,” he clarified, finally understanding why Braelyn wasn’t answering him.

The brunette nodded, and smiled, signifying that he was getting warmer.

“Would you tell me now?”

Braelyn looked down at the floor, realising he was starting to get a little impatient with her. Scared that he would walk off with frustration, she jumped off the bench, and turned her back towards Nick then lifted her dark brown hair from behind, showing him the disgusting scar that was left on her body.

Nick glanced at the mark on her neck, shocked to see it was even there. It was a zig-zag line on her neck that started half way down her neck, and just by the look of it, he knew it continued all the way down her back. It was coloured a pinkish-red, and badly wrinkled and swelled. Whatever happened to her, it was nasty.

He then quickly turned his attention to the desk, and grabbed a scrap piece of paper and a pen. Nick walked over towards Braelyn so he was facing her. Her head was still hung down, and her hands behind her head, lifting her hair. He grabbed her hands from behind her head, and gently dropped them besides her. Immediately, her dark coloured hair fell back into its place, covering the ugly marks on her neck.

“What happened?” he asked her softly, passing her the paper and pen.

Acid burn, she wrote slowly.

But after she’d passed the paper back to Nick, there was a slight feeling of regret in her body. Why was she telling Nick this in the first place? Before she came her, she swore to herself that she wouldn’t let anyone figure out her problem, and now, here she was practically telling her life story.

Maybe she really did hit her head too hard on the pavement.

“Who did this to you?”

Braelyn hesitated for a moment, knowing how bad it would sound when she would tell Nick. My father, but it was an accident.

“You’re not speaking because of your father?” Nick asked, slightly confused. He was sure he didn’t understand what Braelyn meant.

She shook her head quickly before writing, I have to find him.

“Why?” he said, trying his best to not sound as eager and desperate as everyone else would be if they heard this kind of news. But much to his luck, it failed, and his voice was filled with nothing but impenitentness.

Braelyn swallowed, and showed Nick what she wrote, wondering how he’d react towards it.

Because he is the reason why I’m not speaking.