Silence Protect Me

“Ivy, how come you never talk to anyone?”

I lifted my head from the grassy hillock I was laying on, squinting in the sunshine as I thought carefully about how to reply. That question is easy. I just don’t like to talk. When someone’s quiet, people don’t niggle at the person as much. They are free to think and dream privately, keeping their secrets under lock and key. Of course, Beth wouldn’t understand an answer like that. Beth is someone I would probably consider my best friend, if I actually had any other true friends then her. She is around the same height as I am, with rare warm black eyes and startling dyed white hair. Almost everyone over the age of twelve I know dyes their hair.

“I don’t have a lot to say, I suppose,” I replied carefully, weighing up each word and contemplating the damage it might do to say them. Beth’s raven eyes crinkled up at the sides, her nose ruffling slightly. Inside of my head, I smiled. She always gets that look on her face when she’s about to protest against something. Beth protests against a lot. That’s her reason why she should dye her hair white, to protest against looking like a clone. I laughed at that. Doesn’t she realise that by protesting over being a clone you become a clone of the people protesting? I tried to explain that to her once and got nowhere. My mind just grasps strange logic like that.

“Of course you have a lot to say! You just antagonise too much over saying it.”

Wrong, I thought silently. I do not antagonise over saying anything, because I have the sense not to say it. Again, more strange logic twittering around my brain. No wonder adults think I have autism. I’m beginning to suspect so myself.

Beth sighed, ruffling her white hair in annoyance. Her roots had already turned dark, a startling contrast to her snow-white mane. Sometimes I bug her to just quit dying it, sick of the little line of brown ruining the ethereal effect. But Beth never listens to me. In our friendship, I’ve always been the listener. And I don’t see that changing in the future.

“Sometimes I wonder why I hang out with you,” she commented wryly, not for the first time. I raised my eyebrows a fraction.

“You hang out with me because no one wants to hang out with either of us, and you figured that loners should be alone together.”

“That makes no sense.”

“You should’ve thought of that before you sat next to me in 2nd grade.”

Ah, yes. The typical meeting place of life-long friends, that little prison full of miniature desks and colourful chalk. We both went to a more private school; what with my Dad being famous and her mother being a high-paid barrister (It’s ironic, really, since Beth couldn’t care less about the law). It was my first day and I was hiding in the book corner, a place I was sure no other kid would venture. And Beth, she just saw me hiding in there and bounded straight over. Undeterred by my lack of social skills and unwillingness to communicate, she’s been stuck to me ever since.
“Shouldn’t you be getting home?” Beth asked suddenly, nudging me with her sneakers. My leg twitched involuntarily, from her gesture and the thought of home. Home. Such a strange way to describe that mess. It doesn’t really fit.

“Hmmm.”

Beth snorted.

“Great answer, very well constructed. I thought your Dad was due to come back tonight.”

“Yes, he is.”

“And are you going to elaborate on that?”

I shook my head, smiling inside at her flaring nostrils. Silly Beth. She let me wind her up with my short answers all too easily. Some years ago I couldn’t even tell when she got wound up. Now I can, but purely because I’ve been around her so long. No other reason.

“Fine. Let me just guess, then. He’s coming home. There’s going to be one of your famously awkward family dinners, complete with nervous guests and you’d rather listen to me shoot off my mouth then go.”

“Actually, I’d prefer to read a book, but your idea is good too.”

Beth would’ve hit me at that point if she had been carrying anything with her- and if she wasn’t a strict pacifist. She always drags me along to her peace protests, even though she knows very well I hate crowds and noise. I bring earplugs and a good book if she absolutely forces me to go.

“You’ll have to go back eventually,” Beth pointed out, looking at me sideways. “I could come with you, to make it more bearable.”

“No. We already have an audience.”

Whenever Dad comes home, he invites his band mates and their families over for dinner. Then they all get to sit around our humongous table, staring into their dinner places and trying to ignore all the snide comments flying between my parents like broken glass. The younger kids are lucky. They are allowed to leave the table and go eat in the den, turning up the TV until they can’t hear the bickering. I’m too old to do that now. I have to sit there and bear it.

Beth grabbed my arm, shaking me gently.

“Come on. It won’t be that horrible.”

“How many of the infamous ‘family dinners’ have you sat through?”

Beth shifted uncomfortably, her cheeks reddening slightly as she remembered all the other dinners she had sat in on in the past. The last one almost ended in a screaming match. Almost. Luckily Billie had been there and was able to calm things down….

Ah, Billie. The eye of the storm. He could sweet-talk my mother into a better mood, joke with my Dad until he forgot his bitterness, praise Deedee’s intellect until her frown turned into a begrudging smile and even make little Tyler eat his vegetables. He’s good with me as well. I think he understands my unwillingness to communicate with others; the way I detest using spoken words. He is probably the only person apart from Beth that can crack my emotionless shell and see straight past my blank face without me having to speak.

I wish bitterly that other people would do that.

Beth casually took a sip from her dripping water bottle, trying to look like she wasn’t frantically debating her own mind for some sort of suitable answer. She never knows what to say on the matter of my family, just like everyone else who has seen into their uncensored world. My parents have lost a lot of friends over showing their true colours. No one wants to talk to you once they’ve seen you in a vicious vocal battle.

“Well…” she began cautiously, fiddling with her snowy locks. “I’ve probably seen the worst already. They don’t get any more… fierce… then that, do they?”

I shrugged blankly, refusing to give even a notion of a real answer. What she had seen at the dinner table had been somewhat charged and violent, yes. But the actual fighting itself is never an issue. It is the aftermath that hits the worst. The younger ones take days to get back into normal habits- and of course, I, with my complete lack of empathy and social skills, can’t really help. This why I’ve decided I should never have children. I’m too cold, a freezer devoid of visual emotion and physical bonding. No child should have to suffer me. I cannot image how they would feel, but my moral compass at least knows children need a warm environment.

“Ivy… I know you don’t like your family, but you hardly ever get to see your father.”

She kept prodding at me, trying to provoke some show of passion from me. I’m used to this. Beth refuses to believe that I simply don’t show feeling. She thinks if she annoys me enough, I’ll snap and cry for her just for some peace of mind. Of course, that’s not going to work. I have withstood too much to succumb to mere annoyance.

“I know. But that isn’t my fault. Our schedules collide. He’s always touring or in the studio, and I always don’t feel like talking to anyone.”

“Honestly, I don’t know how I stand you,” Beth muttered, rolling her eyes. I rolled back onto the grassy hillock, staring up at the darkening sky.

“Well, you haven’t strangled me yet. Something’s holding you back.”

“Oh ha, ha. Stop changing the subject. You’ll have to go home eventually. It’s better to see them on a full stomach.”

“I already ate.”

“Liar. Come on, get up and dust yourself off. We still have time to get to your place, make you look presentable and hopefully eat a good meal.”

“I highly doubt it. I have a feeling Dad might be cooking.”

“If your Uncle Mike is over, I think we’re safe.”

She dragged me to my feet, linking her arm in mine and roughly marching me across the green. I didn’t protest, of course. It wastes time and energy, also it would mean I’d have to say a lot more then I’d feel comfortable saying in one day. Plus, trying to get Beth to back down is like trying to shatter a brick wall with a slipper.

Nigh impossible.