Fighting Silence (2 page)

Those same six months of living in the real world had destroyed me.

I needed the fantasy only she could provide.

But no matter what I dreamed, I knew she wouldn’t be there.

Fuck it. Pride aside. I’d go to her.

With a sharp U-turn over the median, I finally gave in to the pull that threatened to overtake me on a daily basis. I knew where she lived. I knew where she laid her head every night. But above all of that . . . I knew where I belonged.

With Eliza.

Five years earlier . . .

WHEN I WAS THIRTEEN YEARS old, I met Till Page in a condemned apartment one building over from my own. I immediately recognized him from school. It had been hard not to—he’d been gorgeous even as a boy. It was long before he found the gym or his tattered clothing came back in style. Back then, he was just a scrawny kid with shaggy hair and a wicked grin.

I didn’t know what kind of life Till had, but I knew it was probably better than my own. My parents were decent people; they just didn’t have time for me. Or, probably more accurately, any desire to make time for me. I was always a burden on them. Most nights, I hid away in my room, listening to them fight over money—or their lack thereof. I loved sneaking away to that run-down apartment. It was my own private fortress of solitude—until Till showed up one afternoon.

He scared me to death when he came crawling in that window. His eyes were red and his cheeks were notably stained with tears.

“Who the hell are you?” he asked, dusting off his already filthy pants.

I jumped to my feet, spilling my sketchpad and the few colored pencils I had managed to smuggle out of art class all over the peeling linoleum floor.

“Crap!” I yelled, rushing to pick them up. When I finished collecting my prize possessions, I glanced up to find him drying his eyes on the backs of his sleeves.

“You tell anyone I was crying and I’ll tell everyone you tried to kiss me.”

“I didn’t try to kiss you!” I shouted, appalled at the very idea—and maybe a little interested too.

“Then keep quiet or the whole school will think you did.”

My mouth must have gaped open at his attempted blackmail because he quickly finished with, “You might want to close your mouth before that spider on your shoulder takes it as an invitation.”

At the mere mention of a spider, I began screaming and flailing around the dingy room. I tore my shirt over my head, only vaguely aware that his roar of laughter had been silenced.

“Uh . . .” he stuttered when I finally stilled.

It didn’t take but a second for me to realize that I was standing in my bra.

“Oh, God!” I squeaked as I turned away, covering my chest with my arms.

“Here.” He tossed my shirt, which hit me in the back and sent me into another fit of spider hysteria all over again.

“The spider could still be on there!” I screamed at the wall.

“Or it could be in your hair.”

It was then that I decided to give up on covering my barely-there breasts and started ruffling my hair, shaking free any possible unwelcome insect.

He howled with laughter.

“Stop laughing!” I hissed.

He once again picked my shirt up, but this time, he thoroughly inspected it before tossing it back at me. “Spider-free. Till Page guaranteed.”

I gave him a side eye but finally replied, “Thanks,” as I pulled it back over my head, wishing I could set it on fire instead.

“No problem. At least, now if you decide to run your mouth, I won’t have to lie when I tell the whole school you flashed me your bra.”

“You wouldn’t.” I shot him an evil glare that made him smile.

“Try me,” he said with a staggering confidence I’d never seen in a boy my age. Not that I had any plans of telling anyone anyway, but with one look, he solidified that even further.

“Whatever.” I walked back to my small, makeshift storage cabinet and began emptying the contents.

“What are you doing?” he asked curiously while I stacked all of my old sketchbooks and barely there stumps of leftover pencils.

“I’m taking my stuff so you don’t steal it.”

“I won’t steal your crap. I’m not a thief,” he responded, and there was something in his voice that made me feel guilty for having suggested otherwise.

“Right. Well. I’m not chancing it. I didn’t know anyone else came here.” I looked around the room for something to carry the little pile I had accumulated, but as I turned, everything went rolling to the floor. “Ugh,” I groaned, immediately diving after them.

“You don’t have to take your stuff. I won’t mess with it.” He squatted down and began helping me collect them. “Besides, I don’t have much use for a centimeter-long, pink pencil.” He lifted the remnant off the ground and held it out for me. His eyes were warm, completely unlike the ones that had been teasing me only minutes before.

“Thanks,” I replied, eyeing him suspiciously. However, without anywhere else to store my drawings, I was forced to take his word for it.

My mother hated that I spent so much time poring over my art. Every chance she got, she threw my supplies away. I thought it had less to do with me drawing and more to do with my father being an out-of-work artist who refused to get a job doing anything else.

“So, do you come here a lot?” Till asked, pulling off a beanie and running a hand through his dark, unkempt hair.

“Well, I did.” I rolled my eyes, but he narrowed his and remained silently staring at me from a few feet away. It was the most awkward standoff of my adolescent life, but he didn’t budge, and neither did I.

Suddenly, a woman’s angry shrill vibrated against the windows, scaring us both.

“Till, get your ass back home right now!”

He quickly grabbed my hand and dragged me flat against the back wall, hiding us from view.

With a finger over his mouth, he urged, “Shhh.” He leaned away only long enough to peer out the corner of the window. “Get down,” he ordered then pulled me to the floor beside him.

After a few seconds, we heard her voice moving farther away and he let out a relieved sigh.

“Was that your mom? She sounded mad. You should probably get going.”

“She always sounds like that, which is exactly why I’m not heading home. She just wants me to watch my brothers so she can follow my dad around and make sure he’s not seeing Mrs. Cassidy anymore.”

“Mrs. Cassidy? Isn’t she married?”

“Yep,” he answered nonchalantly.

“As in your girlfriend, Lynn Cassidy? Her mom?”

“Yep,” Till repeated, not reacting in the least to my disgusted tone. “Hey. How do you know Lynn’s my girlfriend?”

“Because we’ve been going to school together since kindergarten.” I gave him yet another disgusted look and rolled my eyes.

“I knew it! I thought you went to East Side too!”

I knew everything about Till Page, yet he
thought
we went to school together.
How flattering.

“What’s your name?” he asked as I sat down against the wall, pulling my pad and pencils into my lap.

“Cindy Lou,” I responded, not looking back up and desperately wishing he would leave.

“No, it’s not.”

“Daphne?”

“Not it, either.”

“Ivy?” I smarted one last time, pretending to be busy by doodling lightning bolts.

“Nope,” he responded but didn’t inquire any further. “So, you mind if I hang out for a little while?”

“It’s a free world, Till. I don’t exactly own the place,” I said, disinterested—even though, on the inside, I was anything but.

“Okay.” He sank down against the opposite wall.

For thirty minutes, he sat there staring at me. It was unnerving, but I tried not to let him see that. I did my absolute best to ignore him, but as my pencil moved over the paper, his eyes began to form within the lines.

Eventually, he got up and headed back to the window.

“See you tomorrow,” he called over his shoulder.

At school the next day, Till didn’t acknowledge me at all. It wasn’t like I’d expected him to come sit with me at lunch or anything. We weren’t friends, but it still stung when he walked right past me, not even bothering to spare a glance in my direction. Maybe it was for the best, though, after the fool I’d made of myself the day before.

That night, as per usual, I made my way to the abandoned apartment as soon as my parents started arguing about the power bill. When I walked in, I saw a small, plastic bag on the ground. On a torn-out piece of notebook paper was a handwritten note.

I opened the bag to find a set of tinted charcoals. They weren’t top-of-the-line, but they were far better than anything I’d have been able to afford. It boggled my mind how Till had afforded them—or, better yet, why he would have spent his limited money on me. That was if he had paid for them at all. I didn’t dwell on those thoughts long as I ripped the box open and began drawing.

“Doodle, you any good at math?” Till asked as he climbed through the window an hour or so later.

“What?” I asked, confused by his sudden appearance and the second use of what I guessed was my new nickname.

“Math. Mr. Sparks is about to fail me. If I fail, I can’t play football.” He walked over and sat on the floor next to me. “Oh, awesome. You brought food. I’m starving.” He shoved a hand in the bag of chips I’d snagged from home as dinner.

“Uh . . . I brought myself food.” I snatched the bag away, but not before he stole a handful.

“Hey, you like those pencils?” he asked, crushing the chips into his mouth.

He had given me pencils.
Right.

I passed him the rest of the chips. “They’re amazing. Thank you.”

“No prob.” He shrugged and tossed me a closed-mouth grin. “So. Math?”

“No, I’m serious, Till. They’re really nice. I’m sure they were expensive.”

“Nah. It’s no big deal.” He jumped to his feet and wandered over to the lamp in the corner. “How do you have electricity in here?” He flipped it off and on again.

“I guess the power company never turned it off. It’s nice because I bring a little heater in the winter, so I don’t freeze.”

“No shit? I should move in here,” he mumbled to himself. I only understood because it was the same thought I’d had at least a dozen times.

“Can I pay you back for the charcoals?”