Silence (8 page)

“I’ll kick your arse at air hockey.”

We spent a couple of hours in the arcades, wasting money on slot machines and riding the mechanical motorbikes. Cole won me a fluffy grey teddy bear, and it only took him fourteen tries and three pounds.

“You getting hungry?” he asked, wrapping his arms around me. I leant into him and nodded. It was almost nine at night, so I was definitely ready to eat. “Okay. We need to go back to the car to get the picnic basket, then beach?”

Nodding eagerly, I pulled out of his arms and dragged him towards the door by his hand.

On the beach, I sat down beside him and opened the basket. We sat under the pier on a blanket and ate Jenna’s famous lemon cake. I looked out to sea and smiled as the water gently lapped at the shore. The wind had died down, so it was calmer out, much more peaceful. After eating, I snuggled closer to his side and laid my head on his shoulder, wishing we could stay at the beach forever.

“You having a good time?” he questioned. I nodded against him.
The best time.

Eventually, we had to leave as it was almost an hour’s drive back and I didn’t have long before I had to be home.

“We’ll come again soon,” he reassured me.

I hoped so. As we pulled up outside my house, my heart sank. Dad would probably be waiting up for me again. I kissed Cole’s cheek and opened the car door.

“You’re welcome,” he said in response to my thank you kiss.  “Glad you had a good night.”

A good night?
Understatement of the century!

Chapter Eight

Oakley

The rest of the week passed in a haze of Cole, Cole, and more Cole. We spent practically every minute together just hanging out and messing around. Our relationship, or whatever it was, was getting stronger, and I could feel myself falling hard. It both scared and excited me at the same time. I just kept thinking repeatedly,
something will go wrong
.

On Thursday morning, I sat on my bed, panicking about the stupid doctor’s appointment. I had no idea how to get out of it. Mum still hadn’t told me, so I assumed she was just going to spring it on me while we were shopping
; if we were even going shopping at all.

As I gazed out of the window anxiously, my phone beeped, making me jump. It was a text message from Cole.

“Good luck today. Let me know if you want me to come. X”

Cole was the last person I wanted there. The sentiment made me smiled though.

“Oakley, are you ready to go?” Mum called up the stairs. My eyes narrowed at the sound of her voice, and I instantly felt a little guilty. She shouldn’t lie to me, but she was just worried after all.

Summoning up the courage, I got off the bed and walked downstairs slowly. Dad sat in front of the TV, watching some construction show. He owned a building company, but it wasn’t as big as he wanted anyway. That always bothered him, and he was forever stressing over how to become more successful. I didn’t measure success by money and possessions. To me success was all about family. To me, Dad failed to become successful a long time ago.

“Okay, honey,” Mum started, blowing out a deep breath. “I need to tell you something, and I need you to know that I’m only doing it because I love you so much.”

I nodded for her to continue, knowing exactly what she was about to say.

“We’re going to a doctor’s appointment, and before you get angry, please remember I’m just trying to do what’s best for you.”

Her eyes welled up with tears, making me feel sick. I hated when she was upset.

“Please, please, will you just go in there with me?” she begged, swiping away a tear that rolled down her cheek.

Do it for her, Oakley, you’re disappointing her in every other way.
  I kept my eyes firmly fixed on the floor and nodded. “Thank you,” she whispered, and ushered me to the car.

As we pulled up in a parking space outside the doctor’s surgery, my stomach turned. I followed Mum to the front desk where she gave the nurse my name.

“Okay, if you’d like to take a seat, the doctor will be with you shortly,” the greying woman behind the reception desk told us.

Mum smiled. “Thank you.”

This wasn’t our normal doctor’s surgery; it was on the same complex but in a completely different building. This one was overly white and smelt too clinical. I knew we were seeing a specialist and not just an ordinary doctor.

“Oakley Farrell?” a deep, gruff voice called.

I gulped and looked up. A plump man wearing black trousers and a smart black-and-white stripe shirt looked around the group of patients waiting in the seating area. Mum stood up first and caught his attention. He gave her a smile and gestured for us to follow him.

My palms started to sweat as we walked along the short corridor and into a small room. Mum shook his hand and sat down in one of the blue fabric chairs.

“Well, what can we do for you then, Oakley?” I stared at him blankly. Was he expecting me to answer?

Mum squeezed my hand and started explaining. “Oakley stopped talking when she was just five years old. At first we thought it was a joke. And then we thought it was because she had choked on some food, and maybe she’d damaged her throat somehow... Or maybe she was afraid it would hurt too much if she spoke…”

As Mum reeled off a list of their theories, I found myself gradually shutting out her voice. I wanted to vanish. Suddenly I felt my hand being squeezed.

“I don’t know what to do any more.” Mum sniffed and pressed my hand again.

The doctor nodded. “Hmm, I see. Well fear of talking due to previous injury is possible. However, this has been going on for years, so that seems unlikely.”

He leant forwards, resting his forearms on his mahogany desk.

“Oakley, would it be okay with you if I examined your throat?”

My heart stopped. I could feel the panic rising. I tried to breathe, but my lungs felt like they were being crushed in a vice.
No, no, no!
I didn’t want any examinations. If they rule out anything medical, they’ll know it’s not because I can’t talk. I couldn’t have Mum turning all her attention at why I
wouldn’t
talk.

“What kind of examination? What would that involve doing?” Mum questioned.

“Nothing too bad, I can assure you,” he said lightly. “I’ll literally just look down her throat and see if I can see anything, scarring for instance. If there is nothing visibly wrong, and I suspect there won’t be, I’d like to perform a laryngoscopy. The procedure is usually performed under local anaesthetic, but we can do general if needed,” he explained, looking at me.

“We’ll pass the laryngoscope down her throat which will send pictures to a monitor. The procedure itself will take around twenty to thirty minutes.”

My whole body slowly turned cold, and my muscles seized up. Bile rose in my throat, and I swallowed hard. There was no way I was letting him even look inside my mouth let alone stick a camera down my throat. I started breathing heavily as my eyes prickled with tears.

“Sweetheart,” Mum said soothingly. Shaking my head, I jumped up and ran out of the room, sprinting to the surgery’s exit.

I slumped to the floor beside the car and leant against the door for support. Tears rolled down my cheeks, soaking my knees.

“Oakley,” Mum shouted frantically. Within seconds, she was crouching down in front of me. “Honey, please don’t cry. It won’t hurt. Please let him do the procedure, please?”

She sobbed and stroked my hair. I could barely breathe; I was so worked up, I was just gasping raggedly.

“Calm down, it’s okay. It doesn’t have to be today. You get in the car, and I’ll go speak to the doctor quickly. We can look into the procedure a little more and then decide, okay?”

That was the best I was going to get so I nodded, even though I had no intention of ever going back.

“Okay, here.” She handed me the car keys and helped me up. With shaking hands, I managed to unlock the car and stumble in. By the time Mum came back, I had calmed down a lot more, knowing that it was over for now.

“Home?” she asked softly. I nodded, staring out of the window and hugging my legs to my chest protectively.

“Hey?” Cole greeted me, a questioning look on his face, and stepped aside so I could walk in his front door. “I’d ask how it went, but I think I can guess.”

He nodded towards the stairs, gesturing for me to follow him up to his room.

“So,” he prompted as I crawled onto his bed.

Shaking my head, I felt tears sting me eyes.
Stop all the damn crying!
I screamed silently at myself.

“That bad?” he said, soothingly, then climbed over and pulled me into his arms. As he stroked my hair, I let the tears flow. Why couldn’t everyone just leave it? I was trying to forget and
move on, but it was impossible to do that when they were constantly asking what was wrong, or making stupid appointments.

Cole held me until I calmed down. I pulled my head away from his chest and smiled at him apologetically.

“You okay now?”

I shook my head and sat up, wiping my face with my sleeve.

“Did you go in?”

I nodded slowly, and looked up to see his reaction – which was unsurprisingly one of surprise. Last time Mum had tried to get me to go to see a doctor about my ‘condition’, I didn’t even make it out of our front door.

“Did he examine you?”

I shook my head.

“But you got into the room.”

He smiled, looking hopeful. I could tell what he was thinking. I made it into the room so maybe next I would allow them to do an examination.

“Are you supposed to go back?”

I nodded, grimacing. I could feel myself start to sweat at the possibility of having to go through that again.

“I could come with you if you want?” he offered, speaking gently. How important was this to him? Did our being together properly depend upon me talking again?

I wrapped my arms around myself. The thought of losing Cole felt like someone was stabbing me in the chest.

“Don’t do that.” He pulled my arms apart and kept hold of my hands. “Oakley, it doesn’t matter to me if you never speak again. I’ve told you that a million times so please believe me. I know you better than anyone else does. I know what every little facial expression means and how you’ll react to a situation before it’s even happened. All I want is for you to be happy.”

My eyes filled with tears again, but happy tears.
See, you idiot.

“I mean it. If you’re happy as you are then that’s all that matters to me. Are you happy?”

Happy
, I repeated in my head, testing the word. No, not happy, not with myself anyway. Scared, confused, broken, dirty, and lost – they all seemed to fit better.  I nodded, telling him the biggest lie I had ever told.

He smiled. Wow, he bought it. Was I getting better at lying or did he just want to believe I was happy so much that he missed it?

“Okay, I’ll help you tell your mum to back off then.”

That was it? I had just basically told him there was no chance I would ever talk again, and he just breezed past it like I’d just said I wanted to trim my hair.

Someone knocked on Cole’s door. I wiped my eyes again even though they were dry now and smiled.

“Yeah?” Cole called and flicked the TV on with the remote.

Jenna pushed the door open and walked in, with a worried smile on her face. Mum had obviously told her about the doctor’s, then.

“Do you want to stay for dinner, sweetie? We’re having tacos,” she offered, brushing her blonde hair behind her ear. I nodded eagerly. Mexican night at Cole’s was the best. There wouldn’t just be tacos; there would be wedges, salad, tortilla chips, salsa dips, and nachos too. There was also the chilli challenge between Cole and his dad. They would both try to eat the most and see
who ‘pussied’ out first.

“Great. Chris is coming too,” she said and frowned. Jenna wasn’t a fan of Chris either.
What are you doing, Mia?
I hoped that one day she would realise she could do so much better than him. Cole mumbled something under his breath. I couldn’t quite make it out, but I could pretty much guess what it was.

“You,” she pointed to Cole, “had better be on your best behaviour, for your sister’s sake.”

“I would be if he wasn’t such a fuc–” I jabbed my elbow into his side before he finished his sentence. “Why’d I get hit for that one? It’s true!” he exclaimed, frowning at me.

Jenna looked like she was trying not to laugh. “So,” she said with a wide smile and sat on the end of the bed. “You two okay?”

I looked at Cole uncomfortably, and he just rolled his eyes at his mum.

“Not really. I just can’t get rid of her,” he said sarcastically, tensing his body as if he was waiting to be slapped. I decided not to as he was expecting it; instead I shrugged and stood up to leave. He grabbed my wrist and pulled me back on the bed, making me fall onto the mattress.

“I’m joking!”

Jenna made
an ‘aww’ sound, which made me want to run away. It was so embarrassing.

“So are you two... you know?”

“Mum!” Cole groaned and pointed to the door.

Jenna giggled like a teenage girl and got up to leave.

“I’m going, I’m going. I think it’s great though. Not that we couldn’t all see it coming or anything.”

“Mum!” Cole snapped again. Jenna closed the door. Her laughter rang through his room even though she was on the other side of the wall.

I looked at the wall, praying that my face hadn’t turned too pink. It would be though, of course. Cole chuckled and brushed his fingers across my cheek.

“Just ignore her,” he said and flopped down on his back. “Let me know when to stop,” he instructed as he flicked through the TV channels.

We laid on his bed all afternoon just watching television, messing around, and kissing each other. Lots of kissing each other, actually. It felt more natural with each time.

“Wanna go swimming tomorrow?” Cole asked casually, breaking the long, comfortable silence. I nodded my head and pressed my back into his chest, so I was even closer to him. His fingers brushed over my
hip bone. Everywhere he touched felt as if it was on fire.

Half an hour later, Jenna called us down for dinner. As we walked downstairs, I wondered if my parents had been invited too. I hoped not. Holding my breath, I peered into the kitchen to see. Only David and Jenna were there. I blew out a sigh of relief and sat down in my usual seat.