Silence Falls

Bam’s family had just moved into Silence Falls, in hopes of their lives getting better. April and Phil both held their breath as they watch their son, Brandon, help carry his pregnant fiancé’s suitcase into their two story suburban home. Only seven months along, Emma looked the happiest she’s ever been in her life, but deep inside she was feeling a bit frightened and nervous. Emma’s parent said going to visit Bam’s parents was a bad idea, especially if Bam was going to go along. Emma placed a reassuring hand on her belly as her soon-to-be-husband walked past her without so much as a word. Bam’s parents could clearly tell things haven’t been going well between Brandon and Emma, due to the tension in the air, but they didn’t feel like it was their place to pry into their lives so they kept their mouths shut. Instead, they turned their thoughts to more positive thoughts such as their hopes that Emma and Bam’s vacation stay with them would help loosen up the strain in their relationship so that they could work things out. They were about to be parents, after all, and their children deserved to have both parents there for them as they grow up instead of having to be passed back and forth between them. Bam and Emma were high school sweethearts, but after getting into alcohol and having his best friend die, Bam had been having some anger problems towards his friends and family. The doctors have tried all they could to help ease his temper, but so far nothing seemed to work. When Emma got pregnant shortly before senior year, Bam ran his car purposely into her parent’s living room as some form of retaliating outburst. Thank goodness they weren’t home at the time, and if it wasn’t for their love for their daughter they would have sent Bam’s ass to jail without a second thought. Unfortunately, Bam felt pressured to propose to their daughter in order to make amends for his unstable mentality and tried to work on making things right between them. Emma’s parents were relieved that their grandchildren wouldn’t be born out of wedlock and gave him their blessing.

So here they are, moving into Bam’s parent’s house, and starting a new life together as parents.

April opened her arms to her little baby boy, her eyes slightly glistening with tears of joy at the thought of being a grandmother for the first time. “Oh my baby, how I’ve missed you!” April squealed, making Bam wince as he leaned against his mother for a warm inviting hug.

“Hey Ape, missed you too,” Bam mumbled, before nodding to Phil and then walking up the stairs to find his room, dragging Emma’s luggage along behind him. Phil and April watched him go up, as Emma came over to join them.

“He’s been acting like that all day, like he doesn’t care to be surrounded by anyone’s company.” She gently rubbed her belly. “I’m trying not to take it personally, but it’s hard. He doesn’t even acknowledge me or the babies anymore. It’s like I’m a ghost or something, and he can’t see me.”

“Oh Emma, he needs more time to mourn. Losing Ryan was one of the worst thing that could possibly happen to him. This bad behavior is just temporary, I’m sure.” April assured her, taking both of Emma’s hands in hers.

“April’s right, Em. It could also be the new medication he’s on. Trust me, living in this lovely town will do him good. He’ll turn around in no time.” Phil said, smiling. “Now if you two ladies don’t mind I have burgers and hotdogs on the grill for tonight’s dinner.” With a kiss to his wife’s cheek, and a nod to Emma, Phil left out the back door to his grill. April went to the kitchen to prepare the salad and some lemonade, and Emma went upstairs to her search for her fiancé’s room.

“Bam? Can I come in?” Emma called through his bedroom door, hoping Bam would hear her over his loud rock music blasting on the other side of the door. No answer. Turning the knob, Emma let herself in. The room was covered in posters of Bam’s favorite bands. A rack of old skateboards were nailed to the wall by his nightstand, and a guitar was sitting against his bookshelf. On the bed laid Bam, leaning against the headboard as he leafed through an old rock magazine, and gently nodded his head to the music pounding through his speakers.

“Bam, honey.” Emma softly spoke after she turned down the volume from his speakers, “Your parents are making hamburgers and hotdogs for dinner. Are you feeling hungry yet? I can grab us a small bowl of chips or something to snack.”

“I’m fine.” Bam said without looking at her. Emma bit her lower lip as she sat down in front of him, bolding placing her hand on his knees and slowly running them up his thighs as a sexual suggestion.

“You know, we have a couple of minutes before it’s time to eat. How about you and I have some alone time together? Like we use to do when we were younger and you didn’t give a damn who sa-“

“No, thanks. I’m good.” Bam cut in quickly as he got up and searched through his CD’s racks for a different album to play. Emma sighed, and tried to push back her disappointment, but failed miserably.

“Bam, we need to talk.” Emma demanded.

“Talk about what, Emmaline.” Bam sighed, already getting annoyed with her hovering over him like a vulture. She could always tell by his tone of voice, or more recently, when he used her full name that something was wrong. Calling her Emmaline was a maneuver Bam uses to pretend he was talking to someone else rather than her because she was pissing him off and he was trying to prevent his temper from exploding. Sometimes it helped, sometimes it didn’t.

“It’s Emma not Emmaline, Bam! Why the hell are you calling me by my full first name! You know I hate that name and prefer to be called Emma!” She argued, her fists balled up at her side. After two years of being together she still didn’t understand why he continued to call her Emmaline when she’s made it abundantly clear how much it gets under her skin.

Bam stood up from where he was crouched and glared at her menacingly over his shoulder. “I know that, woman! After how many months we’ve been together you really think that wouldn’t have hit me by now? Jesus Christ Emmaline, I have anger issue, I’m not fucking retarded.” Shaking his head, Bam turned around and went back to his task of finding another CD, muttering, “stupid bitch.” under his breath. Emma chose to run out of the room with tears in her eyes, and slammed the door on her way out.

______________________________________________________________________________

“Oh, Emma we are so glad you two have decided to come stay with us, especially with the coming of the babies.” April Margera gushed, one of her hands clasped tightly in her husband’s hand and the other in Emma’s delicate one. Emma nodded with excitement as well, a smile of happiness on her face. Yes, babies, Bam grimaced to himself from his slouching position in his chair, picking the sesame seeds off his burger as the two women gushed about the twins. Phil watched Bam closely out of the corner of his eye. He clearly saw the look on his son’s face at the mention of the babies, and he recognized it immediately. When Phil was younger, getting a woman pregnant was a man’s worst nightmare, but after having two boys Phil found himself loving the life of parenthood. The same look of dread that was on Phil’s face when April was pregnant was all over Bam’s face. He obviously wasn’t thrilled about becoming a father.

“So what have you two decided to name the twins?” April questioned, looking between Emma’s glowing face of pure happiness, to Bam’s irritated expression. Concern flitted over her features at the look on her son’s face and she was about to ask him what was wrong when Emma made an announcement that had snatched her attention back to her. “Well, we decided…” Emma said, while grabbing onto Bam’s hand. “…on Sketch and Luxx!” Emma squealed in excitement, her eyes sparkling with pride. Phil flashed her a fake smile of approval, before looking away to frown at the awful names the two lovebirds chose for his grandchildren. April faked a joyous laugh, but clapped her hands together in support despite her disapproval on the baby names too. Bam’s expression of disgust snapped in Emma’s direction and he snatched his hand out from under her gentle hold. “Sketch and Luxx?! More like YOU decided those fucking names, Emma! I wouldn’t give those names to a fucking gold fish much less a pet rock!”

Emma glared at him with so much hate that she almost forgot they weren’t the only two people in the room with them. Emma quietly got up from her seats and dragged Bam with her to go and meet in the kitchen so they could argue in privacy. Emma couldn’t remember most of the stuff she said to him in there, but she knew they were bad. For the longest time, her feelings towards Bam had been repeatedly bottled up. All that pain and anger was about to break through her walls and flooded out her mouth beyond her control. With her hands on her hips, Emma decided to turn and face him to give him what for.

“Excuse the fuck out of me Bam, but it is I who will be giving birth to these two precious babies, not you! Yes, I did pick those names without you and yes that will be their names, Sketch and Luxx Margera. You had your chances to participate in the baby naming process, but you always brushed it off as if your kids were absolutely nothing to you! You care nothing about anyone, admit it! I know you don’t. Everyone knows. Who’s been buying them their clothes, huh? Me! Not you! Who painted their baby room and bought them their furniture and built their crib from scratch! Me, that’s fucking who!” Emma wiped the tears coming from her eyes as she stood in the kitchen yelling at Bam who was leaning against the fridge with his arms crossed, not really listening to a word she was saying. The dining room and the kitchen were pretty much one room except for the counters that separated them, so Phil and April couldn’t avoid the argument going on even if they wanted to.

“And who almost had a miscarriage from the stress caused by their lazy alcoholic father! Me! I did! I had to call the hospital to come get me because you were too hung over from last night to help me! I had to lay there in the fuckin hospital bed scared to death that my babies weren’t going to make it! And where were you? Go ahead Bam, say it! Let your parent know where your ass was!” Bam didn’t respond to her question, and instead glared at her severely. “Oh come now, don’t be shy now!” Emma snapped just as Phil stood up from his seat to intervene.

“Alright you two, that-“

“He got drunk again, April! Your son, who should have been there for me was out getting drunk and passed out on his best friend’s grave.” Emma yelled, managing to jab her finger against his chest before he roughly grabbed her wrist in a vice-like grip and shoved her away from him and into the counter.

“You better not fucking say his name again!!” Bam growled, his eyes looking almost black even in the kitchen light.

“Alright, you two enough!” Phil shouted, coming between the two, “you two need to calm the fuck down!”

“Fuck this, I’m out of here!” Bam growled, slamming the back door on his way out. He was so pissed off that he knew if he hadn’t left the kitchen, he’d have done something he would have regret.