Sleeping With the Hilltop

Matt is coming over today. Matt.
MATT IS COMING OVER TODAY AND IT WAS HIS IDEA TO CATCH UP. I have fucking butterflies and its only 9:30. Faarrrk.
What will we even do, half the house is still in boxes and the other half is empty or lame. I guess just Xbox then, or talk. I don’t know if I want to talk to him or not, half of me has wanted to from the beginning but the other half doubts he will want to be friends with me once he knows how high my voice is. And if I do talk to him, he will he no doubt ask what’s wrong and I will with no doubt tell him and he will with no doubt think I am fucked up and should be in an asylum. Shit, now I'm more nervous than the first day of school. Shit. Shit. Shit.
I went back upstairs to my room and tried to un-nervous myself by blasting some OM&M through my speakers. Mum and dad were both at work today so I turned it up really loud. They are always at work. Let Live came on and I got up and started singing and screaming along with Austin. Singing was the only thing that I could pour all of my problems into and forget everything. But it was hard being mute and loving to sing. Not really though because I hated my voice so it never lasted long. I decided to clean up a bit while I was waiting. Not gonna lie, my room could do with a clean-up.
Two bin bags and three loads of washing later and it was 12:30. It really didn’t feel like that long so I went to check my phone to see if the wall clock was right and I had 2 missed calls and a text from Matt.
From Matt: hey man, I just woke up, what’s your address so I can come round?
The voice mails were pretty much the same except better because you could hear his accent. I texted him back my address and said sorry, I was busy. He said no probs and that he had just left.
MATT WAS ON HIS WAY TO MY HOUSE.
I decided that now would be a good time to get changed out of my pyjamas and have some breakfast, chai latte and oats. Yum.
I took them back to my room and turned my music down a bit so I could hear the doorbell when it rang ten minutes later.
‘Hey man. I brought some Tim Tams, I hope you like chocolate.’ Matt had turned up with two packets of biscuits that I had never seen before, in a Seth Sentry shirt and chinos, making my old jeans and homemade hoodie look tacky as.
I smiled and gave him a cheery wave before welcoming him in. I decided that I should turn my music down as OM&M was still blaring from my room. I gestured for him to follow me as I made my way through the empty house to the stairs, and then into my room. He was glancing everywhere, trying to take in the excess of clean, empty spaces. Once we were in my room and the music was changed to something that he would like more, Drapht, we sat down and opened a pack of his chocolate biscuits. They were the fucking best things I had ever eaten. Two chocolate biscuits with chocolate cream coated in milk chocolate. Australia, you did it right.
‘So what’s been happening man?’ Matt finally broke the silence while chewing on his third Tim Tam.
Should I talk? Probably, I mean, I have already spoken to him before. My voice should be okay, I’ve been singing half the morning.
‘Not much, just sitting around here, I guess. You?’
~Matt P.O.V~
Kellin’s house was still half empty from moving states, I’d guess he’s only lived here for a month or so. His room was the most settled in, with posters covering almost every inch of wall, clothes and papers everywhere but in semi-neat heaps, a couple of plastic storage tubs in one corner and a double bed next to the tubs. I sat on the corner of the bed and opened the Tim Tams while he sat cross-legged on the floor. I passed him the Tim Tams, he took one and had a nibble from a corner and by the looks of it, it was the best thing he had ever eaten.
After my third I decided to break the silence, ‘So what’s been happening man?’ I knew that it would take a while for him to reply, Kellin was probably having an internal battle as to whether or not he should talk to me. But as Dan said last night, if he does like me, he will most likely talk.
‘Not much, just sitting around here, I guess. You?’ hey hey, he chose to talk. I decided to act as if it wasn’t a big deal so that he wouldn’t become self-conscious or regret talking.
‘Yesterday after school I went and saw Vic and Jaime’s band practise, that’s why I didn’t get your texts straight away, sorry man.’ I could see him tense up as I mentioned the two things that were bound to come up sooner or later, Vic and Jaime and last night’s messages.
‘Oh, yeah, okay. Nah that’s cool. I'm glad you’re fitting in here.’ It wasn’t cool with him, it was obvious by the way that he was now just holding his biscuit, letting it slowly melt into a chocolaty mess in his hands.
‘It’s not cool man, why do you turn so down whenever I mention them? Seriously Kellin.’ He looked up at me with sad eyes
‘You just seem to fit in here so well already, Matt. I never will, I will always be the awkward loner-mute, same as my last school.’ I had to help him, in any way that I could, so I sat down on the floor in front of him and decided to cut to the core and ask it straight out,
‘Kellin, tell me the whole truth ,why are you selective mute? It’s cool if you don’t want to tell me but I promise I won’t tell anyone and you can trust me.’
He was a mixture of surprised and nervous, like what he told me would change our friendship. Or break it.
‘Well, partly the reason that I gave you in math but that was more why it was easy to stay mute. The real reason is that when I was a kid, I had a really high voice. Like, really high. And no one minded. But the start of middle school, all the other guys voices were breaking. But mine didn’t. This group would tease me for it all the time, they started calling me ‘Kelly’ because I sounded like a girl. Everyone copied them. Then they started hurting me, kicking, punching, all because I have I high voice. They broke my ribs more than once, bruised me and gave me blood noses. I thought that if I stopped talking, they would stop too. They didn’t though. I only had two friends but they weren’t in any of my classes so they couldn’t help much.’
This was horrible, how could anyone do that to someone else all because of their voice? You don’t choose your voice. He had started tearing up. I don’t blame him, he had to re-live this all by telling me. I leant over and hugged him, but he wasn’t finished…
‘Then last year, they started threatening me too, saying I should kill myself or threatening to do it for me, that I was worthless and a waste of space. And I believed them.’ At this, he lifted up the top of his jumper, showing me his stomach. At this, my tears started. All down his stomach were dozens of scars, some pinky-white, some reddy-brown. There weren’t any new ones so that was a relief but it still broke my heart to think that Kellin did this to himself. Words couldn’t describe my emptiness. I just leant over and hugged him tighter to show that I cared and wanted to help him, any way possible.
‘But I moved here, I could start over a new school and life. And I met you and Gabe, I felt kind of happy again. Not fully but I didn’t feel empty any more, I just felt like things could get better. Because of you Matt, because you made an effort to talk to me that first day in math. That’s all it takes to change someone’s life. I love you.’ At that point in time, I would have jumped over the moon for him. That’s when I realised, I loved him too.