Tiptoe Through the True Bits

I wanted a fresh start. I didn’t want to be trapped in this godforsaken house with a family who were basically strangers to me.

I constantly reminded myself that as soon as my parents’ insurance money came through, I could leave and do whatever I wanted.

But, until that day, I was stuck here with three people who didn’t even try to understand me. They all thought I was insane, and they were probably right. But I didn’t really feel like a nutjob. I felt how I think every teenage girl feels; misunderstood.

I didn’t want their sympathy. I didn’t want their sad smiles and squeezes on the shoulder and “chin up, champ”s. As pathetic as it sounds, I just wanted a friend. Somebody who I could just be with, who wouldn’t constantly try and coax me out of my silence and who wouldn’t feel uncomfortable around me. I hated the way everybody tiptoed around me like I was this super-fragile fucking vase or something. They seemed to forget that I was still human just because I chose not to speak.

The day after my first proper appointment with Dr. Gould, my aunt sent me to the store to fetch some milk. It’s probably worth mentioning that my aunt lives in a fucking castle about two miles away from any sort of civilisation, so this was not a small task.

But I was itching to get out of the house, so I nodded and grabbed my car keys, stepping out into the brisk evening air.

Summer was dwindling into the dawn of autumn, so it was a cool evening, but I felt warm enough in my jeans and CBGB T-shirt to brave it. I made my way to my car and clamoured in.

My aunt had offered to buy me a new car, but I had shaken my head and glared at her. I was driving my dad’s car and that was that. It was a pretty old car, and the blue paintwork was becoming invaded by ugly orange rust, but it was the car that I grew up with and I was adamant that I was going to drive it until it died or until I died, whichever came first.

I teased it into life and smiled faintly to hear the familiar and reliable growling of the engine. Good old James. My mother named the car James for apparently no good reason, and I wanted the name to stick in her memory.

My mother had a habit of naming inanimate objects. I remember how when the fridge broke one year she had pounded on the motor furiously, yelling “come on, Ralph!” until it eventually clunked and whirred back into life. She had grinned at my seven-year-old face. “They just take a little motivation,” she had told me, and I had chuckled and told her she was silly.

“Um, ma’am?”

I looked up from my hands and realised the cashier was talking to me as I had been in a daze.

“That’s a dollar sixty-five, please,” she smiled, holding out her hand as I rummaged through my wallet for change. I handed her the correct amount and she smiled as she counted it out on her hand. “Thanks, bye.”

I gave her a quick smile and turned to walk away, but I bumped into the person in the queue behind me.

It is at times like these that I missed talking, because people tend to assume I am just plain rude when I don’t apologise for my actions or thank the cashier. So I have to use my smile a lot. I had finally fine-tuned it into multiple expressions that relayed multiple meanings, and most people understood. I think maybe some people thought I was deaf, or something. I didn’t care.

But when I looked up at this guy to give him my apologetic smile, I was greeted by some familiar hazel eyes.

“Hey,” he smiled softly, stepping towards the cashier and handing her his bread to swipe.

I carried on smiling and gave him a small wave. I wished I could open my mouth and say hello to him and ask him how he was feeling, but it had been too long now. And I didn’t want to see the smug look of satisfaction on Dr. Gould’s face if he found out I had spoken. I was committed to my silence. I just hoped Gerard Way didn’t think I was rude.

“Two-fourty,” the cashier announced from behind him. Gerard spun back around and handed her a bill. She took it and gave him his change and he came back over to me. I smiled again, clutching my milk desperately in my hands.

“So, you’re Elise, right?” Gerard said.

I frowned a little, confused as to how he would know my name, but nodded anyway.

“I heard Dr. Gould say it yesterday,” he explained as we ambled slowly towards the exit with our purchases. “I’m Gerard.”

I nodded again. It was all I could really do. Just nod and smile and wave. I’m sure he probably thought I was disabled and felt sorry for me. Why else would he be talking to me in a grocery store when we had only seen each other twice for a space of about 2 seconds?

“So, I don’t want to sound rude, but you’re awfully quiet,” he laughed nervously as we reached the door. We stopped outside the store and I squinted ahead into the low evening sunshine and shrugged apologetically, giving him a weak smile. He seemed to get it. “You don’t talk?”

I shook my head, letting my hair swish around my head as I did so. I could feel beads of condensation fall down my cold milk carton and into my hands.

“Ever?” He raised his eyebrows.

I shook my head again.

“Can you talk?”

I considered this for a moment. Physically, of course I could talk. I used to talk all the time. You could never shut me up. But I wondered if I had been silent for so long that I had neglected my vocal chords. Maybe they just wouldn’t work anymore.

It had taken me a while to grow accustomed to not making any noises. It takes time to learn to overcome your reflexes, but once you do, it’s hard to imagine ever having them. For example, when you are surprised it is natural to scream. But I had blocked that out. I just widened my eyes now. And I wondered, even if my vocal chords were fine, if my brain would just refuse to formulate the words anymore because I had become so used to being mute.

Eventually I looked back up at Gerard and I shrugged. He nodded like maybe he understood, and kicked at the dirt a little with his feet. He opened his mouth to say something but then hesitated and closed it again and we stood in awkward silence.

Even if I had spoken, I don’t see what we would have to talk about. I mean, what did I really have in common with this man? Probably nothing but the fact that we shared a psychiatrist. Great basis for a friendship.

“Well, I should get going,” he said eventually. He then gave me a quick smile and I retaliated appropriately. “Maybe I’ll see you tomorrow,” he added as he began to walk away.

Dr. Gould had made me an appointment for tomorrow. Were the two of them cahoots to get me to speak or something? Why was the good doctor scheduling all of my appointments right before Gerard’s? Something was suspicious, so I just frowned after Gerard in confusion, but he was already way down the street.

I sighed and made my way to James, placing the milk carton in the passenger’s seat and starting the engine.

I wasn’t really concentrating all that much on the drive home. I was on auto-pilot as I weaved through the tiny country lanes that connected my aunt’s house with the rest of the world. To be honest, it was a miracle I didn’t hurt myself or anybody else because I wasn’t paying attention to the road at all. It was quite possible that I ran a red light or something. Guess I wouldn’t know until I got a fine through the mail.

I couldn’t stop thinking about Gerard. Perhaps Dr. Gould had seen the glance and the smile that the two of us exchanged at our last meeting and was going to use Gerard as a way of getting me to talk again. I scoffed as I reached my aunt’s driveway. That was probably it.

Nice try, Doc.

Close, but no cigar.

“Goodness dear, you took your time,” Aunt Fran said as I entered the kitchen with her milk.

You’re welcome. Bitch.

“What took you so long?”

I don’t know if she expected an answer or not, but she was always asking me these sorts of questions. My theory was that she asked in the hope that one day I would just forget about my vow of silence and answer her. But I didn’t see that happening, to be honest with you.

Instead I just rolled my eyes, plonked the milk carton on the kitchen table, and walked right past her for the stairs.

Sometimes I think I embarrass her. When her friends come over and they think I can’t hear them, they always ask her how I am and what it’s like to live with me, and she always responds with a heavy sigh and I can imagine her rolling her big buggy eyes and waving her hand dramatically, as if it is all just too much to bear talking about.

Fuck you, Aunt Fran. I don’t want to be here any more than you want me to.

“Dinner will be ready in ten!” she called after me, her voice exhausted and melodramatic once again.

I ascended the steps and headed for my bedroom.

“Freak,” my cousin Tom coughed as I passed by his room. I flipped him off and carried on, not even stopping to acknowledge the little bastard.

Tom is thirteen, and one of the meanest kids I have ever had the misfortune of knowing. His parents spoil him rotten and doesn’t it show. He is everything I hate about the human race, and more. Sometimes I think he is so goddamn cruel that he is barely even human.

When I first moved in, he used to tease me because his parents were alive and mine were dead. How fucking twisted is that?

“Can you pass me the cereal, mommy?” he used to grin, stretching out the word as he articulated and looking right into my eyes the whole time. His mother never got it, or if she did she didn’t care, so she would just smile and do whatever the fuck he wanted her to. She was a puppet on his string, and it was fucking backwards.

I try not to throw around the word “hate” too much, because I think it’s a horrible word, but I really fucking hate that kid. I hate him to the point that, if I were crazy, I know I’d have strangled him with a cheese wire by now and thrown his body into the ocean. The only thing that stopped me from doing so was my sense of morality.

So I was forced not to rise to his bait, and every time he opened his poisonous little mouth to me, I would just smirk and shake my head. This really pissed him off. He wanted to make me cry, I could see it in his eyes. But I wouldn’t give him the pleasure. If he said something that really got to me, I would wait until I was alone in bed and I would cry silently into my pillow.

Such was my tolerance that he soon became bored of these games, and instead resorted to coughing things as I passed him. How extremely original. It was pretty clear to me that he only resented me because I was in his house, and I was getting more attention than him because everybody thought I was mental.

I almost felt sorry for him for requiring that level of attention in order to function normally.

Almost.