Breaking The Silence

Braelyn watched the water slide down her hands as she washed her hands underneath the tap. She rubbed her hands together one last time underneath the tap, and turned them off. She grabbed a towel and tried her hands on them.

It was after dinner. She had about ten minutes to get ready before Youth Group would begin. She walked back into her room, deciding to change into some clean clothes since she had been in them all day. As she pulled out a dark coloured top, a piece of paper fell out of her bag, landing on the wooden floorboards.

Already knowing what was on the piece of paper she picked it up, and looked down at it. It was a family photo, which was taken on her fourteenth birthday. That was almost three years ago. She had looked much different then. Her hair was a nicer, light brown colour, and she had a front bang then. Now, her fringe was grown-out and pulled to one side of her head and her hair was a darker set of brown.

Braelyn turned her attention to her mother’s features. She looked exactly like her mother back then. She had inherited most of her mother’s natural phenotype, from her eyes and nose to her lips and ears. Except for her hair colour. Braelyn had gotten her lovely brown coloured hair from her father.

Braelyn moved her eyes to the other side of the picture, but frowned when she realized the rest of the picture was missing. She brushed her finger over the edge of the rip, remembering when her mother had ripped her father from the photo during their divorce and thrown it in the bin. But as soon as her mother turned her back, Braelyn collected the photo from the bin and sticky taped the photo back together.

She quickly dived into her bag, messing up her neatly folded pile of clothes as she searched for the missing part of the photo. When she had reached the bottom of the bag, relief came over her when she found her father’s photo.

Realizing the time on her watch, she placed the photo onto the table, mentally noting to re-stick the photos back together as soon as possible. She was already late for youth group, and she hated being late – especially on first days. She quickly changed into the dark coloured shirt she had pulled out earlier, and grabbed the first pair of denim jeans she found in her bag. Then ran out the door.

She was rushing down the stairs so fast that she hadn’t realized she had knocked into someone until they spoke up.

“Sorry,” he said, as Braelyn caught her balance. “Are you alright?”

Braelyn nodded as she kept her head down. She stood on the spot hoping that he’d walk off without saying anything, so she wouldn’t look rude if she walked off first.

“I’m Nick,” he introduced.

Braelyn nodded again before walking off. At that very moment she didn’t exactly care if she looked rude. She didn’t want him being frustrated since she very well knew that she wouldn’t reply back to anything he said to her.

Braelyn entered the main area where Youth Group was being held. They had already begun. Braelyn quietly crept into room as quietly as she could and placed herself at the very back of the group. The youth leader, which was a female, was up the front entertaining the crowd with some jokes.

It was only a little while later when Braelyn had realized everyone had gotten out of their seats to socialize with everyone else in the room, trying to broaden their networks. Braelyn stayed in her seat, not even bothering to get up and start a conversation with anyone.

Maybe she could skip the Youth Group and run back into her room. No one would notice if she was quiet enough, and if Reverend Jackson asked where she was, she could pretend to fake sick and lie in her bed until her thoughts would drown her out-.

“Hey, are you alright?” a voice came, cutting her thoughts off.

Braelyn looked up at the voice and nodded at him. He looked familiar to Braelyn, and that’s when she realized that he was one of the three teenagers in the picture she was looking at earlier. Except that he looked very different than he did in the photograph on the church wall. Braelyn looked besides him, noticing that the two other people standing next to him were also from the photograph.

“I’m Joe,” he introduced.

Braelyn nodded again.

“Jonas,” he hastily added, wondering why Braelyn wasn’t answering back. Then he gestured to people beside him. “They’re my brothers. This is Kevin and that’s Nick. Anyway, nice to meet you.” Then, he walked off, pulling Kevin with him.

Braelyn wondered to herself for a moment, why Nick didn’t follow them.

“We met before on the steps,” Nick reminded her.

Braelyn looked away, ashamed that she wouldn’t speak to him. She frowned slightly not wanting him to get anywhere near frustrated. Heck, she didn’t even want to be near frustrated people herself! She nodded at him once again, at walked off leaving him shocked for words.

God, sometimes she hated being a mute.