Fighting Silence (21 page)

Late one night, I heard a loud commotion upstairs. I assumed that it was Flint and Quarry arguing or Till wrestling with them. Any other day, I would have been up there before the first shout. But at that point, I had lost them all.

“Quarry, stop!” Till yelled before the door slammed.

Feet pounded down the stairs, and the wall shook with the sound of glass shattering.

I glanced out my window for long enough to see Quarry sprinting away. He stopped at the end of the sidewalk as if it were the edge of the Earth. He looked to the left, then the right, and then crumbled to the ground.

I raced outside after him, completely unsure what the hell was going on but still positive I needed to help.

“Quarry!” I called, rushing toward him. “What’s going on? Are you okay?” I squatted down and scanned his body for any possible injury. But only his tear-stained cheeks seemed to be worse for wear.

He didn’t say a word as he turned and threw his arms around my neck. He was nearly the same size I was, and I struggled to remain my upright. It was pure force of will that I didn’t topple over.

“What’s wrong?” I turned to gain better traction, but if the shake of my knees the moment I met Till’s devastated eyes were any indication, the ground had fallen away completely.

He stood on the upstairs breezeway staring down at us, his hand furiously rolling his bottom lip.

“What?” I mouthed up at him while holding Quarry tight in my arms.

It was such a simple gesture that it should have confused me, but my heart dropped to my stomach the second he lifted a finger and tapped his ear.

Oh, God. Quarry was going deaf too.

I helplessly watched her holding him. I wasn’t sure if Quarry was crying, but I knew with absolute certainty that salty tears were flowing from Eliza’s eyes. Right then, as they were wrapped comfortingly in each other’s arms, I wasn’t sure which of them I was more jealous of. I made my way down the stairs, stopping just before I reached them. What the hell would I even say? So, like a coward, I backed against the wall out of sight.

“Hey. You want to go somewhere with me?” Eliza asked Quarry.

“Where?” he replied brokenly.

“Just come on.”

I wanted the best vantage point to see how she was going to handle this. I had failed earlier as I’d tried to work the results of the genetic testing into a casual conversation. I hadn’t known what else to do though. Eliza usually would have helped me with something like that. She would have known exactly how to tell Quarry that he going to go deaf and warmly assure Flint that he wasn’t.

I quickly jogged back up the stairs, fully expecting her to take him back to her apartment, but Eliza surprised me as she guided him around the side of the building.

I leaned over the railing and watched her stop at the edge of the flowerbed.

“Welcome to purgatory.”

“Um. Purga-what?”

“Purgatory. You know . . . the suffering point halfway between heaven”—she pointed to her window then out into the space in front of them—“and hell.”

“Till made this up, didn’t he?”

Eliza laughed. “What gave it away?”

“No one else is weird enough to consider your window heaven.”

“This is true,” she softly giggled.

I bit my lip and shook my head to keep from joining her.

“Come on. Sit down,” she told him. “In purgatory, you can cuss as much as you want.”

I lost them as they sat, and their voices became muffled from my position in the breezeway. I quietly snuck down the stairs and settled on the cold concrete beside Eliza’s front door—only a corner divided me from joining them.

“I don’t want to know that I’m not going to be able to hear one day. It’s not fucking fair! Why did he have to tell me? He’s such a dick!” Quarry shouted.

“So, you’re pissed at Till for telling you?”

“Damn right!”

“Q, he didn’t have a choice. You’re going to have doctor’s appointments and treatments and all that stuff. Was he supposed to lie you? This is kinda need-to-know information.”

“No! I don’t know. Maybe.”

“He’s not going to lie to you. And I know for a fact you wouldn’t want that.”

“You don’t fucking know what I want!” he yelled, but then they fell silent. A few seconds later, his voice returned on a whine. “Eliza, I don’t want to go deaf.”

It broke me. I didn’t want that either. I should have been the only one. I’d gladly bear that burden alone.

“I know. It
fucking
blows!” She exaggerated the curse for his benefit.

I was sure his eyes lit and hers watered.

“But it’s not Till’s fault. He loves you, Q. I know the old ‘misery loves company’ saying, but I can guarantee that he would way rather face this on his own.”

Fucking mind reader.

God, I
missed
her.

God, I
loved
her.

“A couple of weeks ago, I sat right here in purgatory with Till. He was a mess, freaking out when he found out that it might be genetic.”

“I wasn’t freaking out,” I mumbled to myself.

“You
were
freaking out,” she replied, making my eyes go wide.

“What?” Quarry questioned.

“I mean, um, earlier,” she said, covering up our conversation. “You were freaking out . . . just like your brother. You know, you and Till have a lot in common. Maybe, instead of being pissed at him, you should talk to him. There’s no magical solution for this, but it can’t hurt to have your big brother beside you on this journey.” She spoke the truth. She always did. Even when I was too stupid to recognize it.

Since I had been busted, there was no use hiding anymore. I walked around the corner of the building to find Quarry facing away from me. His head was resting in her lap, his hands awkwardly holding the sketchpad I had left on her window. It was a position I had perfected years earlier.

She was drawing long, fast strokes I immediately recognized as eyelashes. She didn’t look up as she lifted the hand that was buried in his hair and waved me away. I stood still for a second, reliving the moment when I first found out about my diagnosis. Eliza was the only thing that had held me together then too—and honestly, every day after that. It was only the promise of Eliza that kept the world from falling apart when, every single day, I was faced with overwhelming adversity.

I can’t lose that.

I knew what she wanted, because it was the exact same thing I’d have killed to have with her. But there are few things in life that trump the fear of losing your soul mate. I wouldn’t allow the desire to consume her to be one of them.

We were good at friends. We could leave it at that.

We
had
to.

I sulked back around the corner and listened to the two of them talk some more. As the intensity of the conversation decreased, so did the volume of their voices until I eventually lost purchase on their words.

I was content with the knowledge that she was still with him though. If there were one person in the world who could mend Quarry’s wounds, it was
her.

Always her.

It must have been at least an hour later when they rounded that corner. I immediately found my feet. Quarry was startled to see me, and while Eliza sucked in a deep breath, it wasn’t from surprise.

“Hey.” I dusted off my jeans.

“What are you doing?” he asked, drying his red eyes.

“I was waiting for you.” My mouth told Quarry, but my words were for Eliza.

She rolled her eyes and looked away, but not before I saw the moisture glisten from behind her lashes.

“Sorry. For you know . . .” Quarry trailed off weakly, snapping my attention back to him.

“Don’t worry about that. We’re good.” I grabbed the back of his neck and pulled him against my chest. He was far too much of a man to hug me back, but he didn’t fight me either. “I swear to God I’ll make this okay for you. I can’t fix it, Q. But I
will
make it okay.” I felt his shoulders softly quake, and it was all I could do to keep mine from joining him.

“I’m going to bed,” he announced, quickly walking away.

I stared at Eliza while we listened to his footsteps as he made his way upstairs.

Just before the door to my apartment shut, he called out, “Thanks, Eliza.”

“Anytime, Q,” she replied, holding my gaze.

“Can we talk?” I asked her.

“I don’t know. Can we?” She smacked the sketchpad against my chest.

“I miss you. I really need you right now, Doodle.” I took a step toward her, but she stepped out of reach.

“Well, you know where I’m at, Till.” She shoved her door open and backed into her apartment. “You want to come inside?” She tilted her head.

We both knew what it would mean if I crossed that threshold. Even above my ridiculous superstitions, it would mean forever.

“Doodle, please.”

“That’s what I thought.” With the flip of her wrist, she swung the door shut—once again.

“Shit.” I fisted my hair.

I dragged myself back to my room. As soon as I crashed into bed, I opened the sketchpad. I knew what I would find, but I would have given anything for it to be her softly curved eyes inside instead of my own.

But I was wrong on both accounts.

Quarry’s were the first to meet me, followed by Flint’s a few inches below. It was pages upon pages of the boys’ eyes with a few of my own scattered throughout.

It sucked for me to not have her, but I’d completely forgotten that she was all alone.

“You can see them any time you want, you know. Even if you don’t want to see me. You don’t have to ask,” I said out loud, knowing she could hear me. “How about tomorrow? You can pick them up from the gym and I’ll make an excuse why I have to stay later so you can just hang out for a few hours.”

She didn’t reply.

“Not me. Just them.”

Her emotion-filled voice broke the silence. “Okay.”

It was a single word, but it cut me to the bone. I was losing her faster than I could figure out how to make it right, and it was terrifying.

“I love you,” I choked out, but she remained agonizingly quiet.

“I love you too,” I whispered inaudibly to the ceiling with tears streaming from my eyes. “I love you too.”

“YOU STUPID SON OF A bitch!” Flint yelled as he charged through the front door.