No Longer Silent Around You

1

Warnings:
-Bullying
-Ableism

Clay's POV

I was sitting on a chair next to my mother and she was looking in my maths book to help me.

'W-w-what number i-is t-that?' I whispered as I pouted slightly, feeling sad because I didn't know what number it was.

'Okay, let's try to figure it out together,' my mother said as she held her finger under the number. 'What's the first number?'

'A f-f-f-five?'

'Yeah, that's correct. That's a five with two zeros. What does that make?'

I thought about her question for a little, but I didn't seem to process what she said. 'I don't u-understand.'

'That's fine, honey,' she said as she wrote down a five with two zeros. 'Do you understand what I mean?'

I nodded slowly and sighed. 'F-fifty?'

'A five with two zeros is five hundred, sweetie.'

She helped me with the other two numbers behind the five, but I didn't know what number it was.

'It's five hundred and thirty-eight,' she said with a smile.

'I don't u-u-understand w-what t-that means,' I muttered. I got really frustrated and threw my pencil away. 'I'm just t-too d-dumb.'

'Honey, you're not dumb. It takes you a bit longer because you have dyscalculia and dyslexia.'

'I h-h-have a lot of p-p-problems,' I whispered. I got so sad that I started crying and I stood up to walk away from my room.

I was born a few months too early and I didn't have enough oxygen, causing me to be a bit different than others. I stuttered a lot and my brother and classmates made fun of me so often that I developed selective mutism. I only talked to my parents and my favourite teacher.

Next to me stuttering a lot, I also had dyslexia, dyscalculia and a language processing disorder which often caused me to not understand what others told me. I had trouble balancing and I often fell down or accidentally let something fall on the floor.

My parents didn't mind, but it frustrated me a lot and my brother got very mad at me sometimes. He used to scream so much at me and make me so insecure that I was too scared to talk to people who didn't know me very well. It caused me to freeze and shut down, I couldn't say a single word when I was with someone I didn't know.

Next to that, I also really wanted to be someone's friend at school. Because I couldn't talk to unknown people, I got sad that I didn't have much of a chance. That's why I started writing small notes with a compliment on them. I used to put the messages in his bag or locker.

The boy I wanted to be friends with was George. He was in my class and he was really sweet. I wished I was able to talk to him, but because I just shut down, I kept writing the messages. I only just started a few days ago with the messages and Friday after school I put three of them in his locker. I hoped he would see them on Monday.

My favourite teacher did know I wanted to be friends with him, so she helped me and told me to write messages. She also helped me with my homework when I got frustrated and then talked to me about things I liked.

I didn't include my name on the notes, but I told George that I found him very sweet. I also wrote down that I like his smile a lot and that I wanted to be his friend.

Sometimes when I didn't understand the things they told me in class, I started drawing. I drew a smiley face with hair and found it funny so put it in George's locker too. I was almost excited to go to school to see George's reply to it.

After I walked away from my room, I went downstairs to cuddle with my dog. He was sleeping and I cuddled up with him to calm down.

I sat with my dog for minutes until my brother came home from school. I couldn't speak around my brother because he made me so scared and I curled myself up as I closed my eyes, just focusing on my dog.

TW ableism/bullying

'What are you doing here, idiot?' my brother yelled at me. 'Did you get mad again because your stupid maths problems were too difficult? You don't even know what ten plus fifteen is, you're so dumb.'

In my head I started thinking about the maths sum he just gave me to prove I could do it, but he appeared to be right. I had no idea what ten plus fifteen was, I couldn't even imagine how the numbers looked in my head.

My mother apparently heard my brother scream at me and she ran downstairs, glaring at my brother. 'Why are you yelling at Clay?'

'Because he's just dumb.'

'He's not dumb, he just has a few learning disabilities.'

'Yeah and he can't speak. I understand it, though. I wouldn't speak either if I had that stutter he does.'

I pouted and hugged my dog with tears in my eyes. I liked being with my parents, but I didn't like being at home because my brother was always this mean to me.

'You're making Clay upset, can you just shut your mouth now?'

'He's always crying, he's just a baby.'

'To your room,' my mother said as she pointed to the door. 'Clay is really smart, he just needs a bit more care than you do.'

'Yeah, that's obvious. He's in a school for idiots. Oh, I forgot. He's the only idiot in there, no one likes him.'

'Get out of here, go to your room and come back when you want to apologise.'

TW over

My brother walked off and my mother sat down next to me, wiping my tears away. 'Do you want to eat a biscuit with me and then walk outside with the dog?'

I nodded slowly and my mother lifted me up. I smiled shortly, I was glad my parents loved me.

1043 words

Summary:
Clay's brother is an absolute BITCH