Words Spoken Softly (Please review :))-revised

Chapter I

The fish bowl slips from my hands and explodes against the industrial floors. Instinctively I rushed over to the flopping fish and scooped them up in my hands, quickly dumping them into the guppy tank. This was the third time this week.

But I am distracted.

That wasn’t a good excuse anymore, though. I’ve been distracted for the entire summer. School was going to start once the weekend was up and I was still thinking about what happened.

As I sopped up the water I looked at the glass. A million of me frowned back. I looked tired. Hearing the footsteps, I quickly swept the glass into the trash can and stood up.

My dad looked tired too. But he was slowly getting better. I wasn’t. I’m still stuck. I’ve been playing the same game over and over, not able to level up.

“Helena, are the fish okay,” My dad asks.

I nod and walk over to the front desk.

I haven’t spoken since the accident. There’s no reason for me to speak. I have no one. Except my dad, but we never spoke much anyway.

“I need to go pick up the new fish,” my dad says. He’s putting on his rain coat. It rains a lot in August, especially in Florida. “Lock up when it’s time. Order some pizza or Chinese, okay?”

I just look at him. I don’t smile or anything, I just look at him. He doesn’t see me look at him, he never does. Even if I tried speaking to me my words would flow in one ear and out the other without making him pause. I know he wanted another son. That’s what my brother always told me anyway. But I also think he blames me for what happened.

I blame me.

My dad leaves after I don’t say anything. You would’ve thought he’d know by now. I guess he’s distracted too. It’s hard to manage a business alone. I try to help, but obviously I can’t even manage the fish bowls.

I work at my parent’s fish shop on Fridays. That was the only day that was open. A teenager working on a Friday night. Luckily the store closes at five.

Gathering my rucksack and the store keys I head out for the night.  Stale night air fills my lungs as I ride my bike home. I don’t have a car. I don’t want a car. I’m afraid of them.

The bike bounces over the driveway to the house and I clamp on the breaks. They scream at me for a moment before my bike completely stops and I get off.

I hate that bike.

I unlock the front door of my house. It instantly gets hard to breath. It always does when I enter the house.

I drop my bag by the front door and amble over to the pictures in the living. They are all still face down, all the ones with my brother and mom in them. I pick one up and my heart sinks into my lungs.

I wasn’t paying attention when the drunk driver hit us.  I was too busy yelling at my older brother for tickling my ear. My mom said to stop.

I should’ve listened.

My house is my own prison. More like a parasite actually. It’s stuck to me- it haunts me like a ghost, because all that remains is the skeleton of a family. I just want to squish it and leave it behind.

Sometimes I don’t think I should’ve survived.

I put the picture of my mom face down again and go to my room at the back of the house. The house is definitely a Floridian’s house, chock full of cheesy beach mementos and Tommy Bahama stuff. Every room in the house there’s either a palm tree or a flamingo with sunglasses.

My room is the only room that’s not like that. Cheesy anyway.

Instead of my former, baby intoxicated room it’s now a little grown up. I kick my flip-flops off and glide over to my bed and slide underneath its sea foam covers.

This summer I had asked my mom to redo my room. We did it together. I even help painted the big sea turtle mural on the side of my wall.

            Sea turtles are lucky. They’re always moving, always riding the waves of life in bliss.

            I wish I was a sea turtle. I want bliss.

            I suddenly remember that dinner’s on me tonight. Rushing to the kitchen to find the menus, I snatch the phone from its dock. Do I want Chinese or pizza? I can’t find the Chinese menu, it’s lost among the thousands of pizza places and Get Better cards.

            Pizza it is.

            I dial the number and wait.  “Hello, Santino’s Pizza Delivery Service, how may I help you.”

            “Two cheese-”

            “What?”

            I wince. I hate repeating myself.

            “Two cheese pizzas,” I say a little louder.

            “Will that be all?”

            Yes.

            “Hello?”

            “Yes.”

            It doesn’t take long for the pizza to get here. I live right on the waterfront. Tuttle beach is down a ways, but it’s still biking distance and manageable with a surfboard.

            I pay the pizza guy. I think he’s a guy in my grade. He doesn’t seem to recognize me though.  

            “Here’s your change,” Pizza guy says. “Hey aren’t you Helena…Helena?”

            Never mind. He knows me.

            I nod my head. Yes, I’m Helena. Pizza guy leans in a little. I back up.

            “Aren’t you the one who-”

            Killed her family? Yes.

            “- painted the Caverdough High School mascot?”

            Oh. Good. Nobody knows what I did…yet.

            I nod, however. I had painted the mascot with my mom two summers ago when they remodeled the high school.

            “That’s pretty cool,” Pizza guys says. “Well I guess I’ll see you around at school then.”

            Yeah, I guess.

            I smile feebly at him and he turns around and leaves just as my dad pulls up in his jeep.

            If you’ve ever eaten with us you’ll probably dub it your worst experience ever. It’s like eating with two Hindu priests, not one word spoken except “Can you pass a Coke?” Even then it’s usually just hand motions. You’ll also say we look like two starving vultures.

            We are. A fish store, as it turns out, it’s not enough to support even two people.

            So as we eat in our loud silence, I think of what I’m going to wear on the first day to school. Apparently my dad’s been thinking about school too.

            “So do you have everything you need for school, Lena?”

            Yes.

            “Do you have a ride?”

            I have my bike.

            “For Christssake, Helena! Say somethin’.”

            No.

            I get up from the table and go to my brother’s room, slamming the door so my dad knows I’m angry.

            When I’m angry or sad, I go to my brother’s room. He always comforted me.

            As I lay staring up at the three surfboards that hang low from his ceiling, I wonder who I’ll be sitting with tomorrow at lunch. Who my lab partner will be.  What kind of teachers I will have.

            I roll over, taking my brother’s covers with me. I wrap myself in them. A caterpillar forever stuck in her cocoon.