Breaking The Silence

The delicious smell of sausages seeped through the bedroom window, waking Braelyn up. She sniffed in the smell as her stomach growled loudly of hunger. Just as Braelyn pushed the blanket off her legs, a ringing sound came. Braelyn had thought it was an alarm – a signal that it was time for her to wake up – so she climbed out of her bed and walked over to her luggage and pulled out a pair of fresh, clean clothes.

Once Braelyn had changed her clothes, she walked out of her room, and into the main area where she was last night.

“I’m glad you’re up now, Braelyn,” Reverend Jackson’s voice came.

Braelyn turned around.

“I wasn’t sure if I should have woken you up,” he continued. “This morning we have Kids At Church, so if you want, you can help them out. Usually we’re inside but today we have Sausage Sizzle Day. So would you like to help us out?”

Braelyn nodded. She was sure that none of the kids would notice her if she blended in with everyone else, which was easy. She knew she had to look like she was having a good time, and a few rounds of sausages, then no one would both come talking to her.

The brunette walked outside of the church and into the front garden where grown-ups to young adults were talking to each other while infants to teenagers and toddlers played with one another. Braelyn walked over towards the table of food and picked up a plastic plate, placing food on it. Just as she reached for the sausage, Reverend Jackson called out to her.

“Braelyn, can you please help out the kids at the drawing table?” he asked.

The girl walked towards an almost crowded table as she took a bite out of her breakfast. She sat down on the empty chair and looked around at what everyone else was drawing. Did she have to draw herself? She had only gotten up to looking at the drawing two seats away from her when someone distracted her.

“What do you think?” a brown-haired kid asked, as he held his drawing at chest height.

Braelyn looked at the drawing for a moment, distinguishing what he had drawn. Four people were on a stage – one holding a microphone, two playing a guitar each and one sitting at the drums – whom all had arrows pointing at their heads with names. The two people who were playing guitars were Kevin and Nick, the one holding the microphone was named Joe and the one at the drums was labeled as, ‘me’. And at the very bottom of the picture, had the name, Frankie written messily.

Suddenly Braelyn had remembered she had met three of them last night at youth group.

“I know you’re thinking it’s the Jonas Brothers but when I’m of age, I’m going to be in the band,” he added proudly. “And Nick’s not going to play drums anymore because I am. I’m going to kick him off the drums and he’s just going to stick to singing and playing guitar… and possibly piano.”

Braelyn smiled at the Frankie boy and nodded, indicating that she had liked what he’d drawn. Then she quickly looked down at the blank sheet of paper in front of her, hoping that he’d realize she didn’t want to talk to him.

“Are you new here?” he persisted.

She nodded.

“What are you going to draw?”

Braelyn shrugged. Whatever. She was going to draw whatever – whatever that meant far from whom she really was inside. That was a lie.

“I’m going to show this to Nick and see what he thinks about this,” he chuckled to himself like it was an inside joke.

Braelyn watched him climb off the wooden chair and grab his drawing before running off to his brother. Then she stared back at blank sheet in front of her and grabbed a dark coloured crayon from the tub of colours. Amongst the loud noise, she heard someone speak very loudly, as she began to draw a line on the sheet of paper.

“Okay, Frankie,” the happy voice said. “Since it’s my turn to draw, I’m going to draw Kevin, Joe and I performing on the stage while you’re backstage helping out with the lighting!”

“Aw, Nick, that’s not fair!” Frankie whined, jokingly.

Nick grinned, letting out laughter as he sat down on the wooden chair and grabbing a blank sheet of paper and crayon from the middle of the table and began drawing. “That’s going to teach you next time to not kick me off the drums!”

If Braelyn had decided not to become a mute, she swore she would have burst out laughing like any other normal human being. It was obvious that Frankie and Nick were close, and happy. She sighed to herself, pushing her jealousy aside.

“Trust me, I’m usually not this mean to my brother,” Nick chuckled from across the table.

Braelyn looked up from her drawing.

“Oh, we met last night, it’s good to see you again,” he smiled. “Are you going to be here for a while?”

Braelyn shrugged.

“Why are you ignoring me?”

Braelyn ripped a piece of paper from her drawing and scribbled a couple of words on it, and passed it to Nick. It read, who said I was ignoring you?

Braelyn stood up at walked off leaving her drawing behind. It was a picture of two grown-ups, with a small child standing between them and holding hands, placed in front of a house. It was a family. Something Braelyn had always wanted. Something that she had always hoped for – that it would happen again.

Someone should have told her not to hold her breath.