Silence

Chapter Nine - Choking on the Truth

"No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear." – C. S. Lewis

Chapter Nine – Choking on the Truth

Jaron was great a liar. He had never been much of an actor per se, but constructing convincing arguments somehow came naturally to him. However, a lie big enough to cover up his absence, that would actually convince Kira and hold his friendship together, would need to be at least the size of a football field to have any chance. She was smart, but more importantly, she knew Jaron too well.

The pair walked back to his house mostly in silence. There were a few feeble attempts at conversation from Jaron, which were met with a slight shake of the head from Kira.

Jaron grabbed a few washcloths from the bathroom, which he dampened at the sink. He also pulled a tube of antiseptic from a drawer before meeting Kira in his bedroom.

The pair sat in silence, dabbing at the numerous cuts and scratches over their bodies.

"What happened to you?" Kira suddenly queried, making Jaron jump. He let out a deep breath, shuffling on his bed to face Kira. Their eyes met for a fleeting moment, and it was only then Jaron realised that the truth was his only option.

"Firstly, can you promise me that you won't say a word to anyone?"

Kira nodded uncertainly.

"Okay. Now can you promise that you won't think I'm crazy or anything, because I'm having a lot of trouble convincing myself and I don't need someone else to do it for me."

"Jaron, what is this about?" Kira's tone was low, cautious almost.

"Can you promise me that or not, otherwise I won't even bother."

"Yes."

Jaron's moves were quick and panicky as he contemplated his explanation. His hands shook. His teeth slid over his lips over and over. He rubbed his knees, sucking in a deep breath.

"Okay, um..."

"Start at the beginning, maybe?"

"I don't know where the beginning is."

"Well how does that work?" said Kira, shuffling closer.

"I don't know." He shouted, jumping up from the bed. "I don't know anything about what's happening, to me or to my life or anything. I can't describe it, and I'm just terrified."

Kira and Jaron stared at each other for a good few seconds. Jaron could slowly start to feel the beating of her heart and the rhythm of her breath pounding in his ears. He tried to shake out of it, too scared to fall into the hyperaware state again, but her blinks thundered across him like ocean waves.

"Jaron...?" Kira's voice was faint, like trying to remember a dream. His name floated somewhere behind him, out of reach, meaningless 

Jaron tumbled to his knees, barely aware of the sharp pain that shot through his bones. He gasped for air in a long shuddering breath, arching his back and falling forward.

Someone calling out, he had forgotten her name, was at the back of his mind, a whisper on his neck. But he couldn't worry about that now, he had to focus on breathing. Breathing. Breath. Breathe. In. Out. In. Out. His throat felt constricted. And it yet didn't. Choked on thoughts. Choking on experience. Experiences he had never and would never feel. Other things, other beings were screaming in his face and he had no means to block them out 

Two hands cupped his face pulling him out of the storm. His vision focused on Kira's face, inches from his own.

In a low tone she said "Jaron, are you okay?" Her voice chimed inside his head like church bells, deafening him.

His whole mouth shook as he parted his lips. "What's happening to me?"

The cold sting of Kira's skin pressed against his temples soothed his mind, coaxing him back into reality. Jaron's gasps subsided 

She heaved Jaron up onto the bed, holding him up by his shoulder.

"You okay?" Kira whispered tenderly.

Through a breath he replied, "Overall, I don't know. But right now? Well I think so."

"Do you think you'll be able to explain what just happened, to me?"

He ran a hand through the locks of spikey black hair on his head, pushing them out of his eyes.

"Kira, I hardly know what's going myself, and I have had barely enough time to process any of it.."

"Are you saying what I think you're saying?" Kira's hand dropped off of Jaron's shoulder. "Because whether you like it or not, you have dragged me into this. And maybe that wasn't your fault, but what happened this morning is something I need to know about. If you were in my position and you had just witnessed your best friend collapse for some unknown reason, surely you would want to make sure that they're going to be okay. And then you run off and disappear for the day, which is not like you at all. This isn't for my gain. This is to help you. I've got to know if you're alright." 

"I don't know what to tell you Kira. So much stuff has been crammed into the space of, what, three weeks?! Its not that I don't want to tell you.... or it might be, I'm not sure, my head has been doing some crazy things lately. But the point is, I don't know how to tell you and I'm so unbelievably scared of..." Jaron quit his rambling for a moment, his words crashing in to one another on his tongue, like a pile-up in traffic.

There was such a strong feeling of fear inside him. It was a virus, riding throughout his body in his veins, infecting every inch of flesh. Fear could be useful. It was like a sixth sense. Fear acted without your consent, a subconscious action telling you to run or fight. Fear can transform you, make you stronger, faster or smarter, but on the flipside, fear can paralyse you as well. It can grip you by the throat and squeeze the air out of your lungs and wring the sweat from your skin.

Fear can keep you alive for those few precious seconds that preserve your life, but fear can drain you, until you forget what you were scared of. But by then it doesn't really matter.

"Of what?" Kira inquired after a few moments of quiet. 

"Of myself." Kira stared at him, with a sort of pity in her eyes. Somehow she knew this wasn't a normal teenage issue. So she sat quietly and listened to Jaron's explanation of the few weeks proceeding. Kira didn't interrupt; she didn't butt in and tell him it wasn't possible, she just watched the words fall from his mouth in a dribble of emotion and anxiety. 

"Before you say it," Kira whispered after his story was brought up to the present, as if she didn't want to disturb the mood that Jaron had brought upon them, "I believe you."

Jaron could have wept with happiness and a small smile crept up his face, but the tiny euphoria was short-lived as heavy footsteps coming up the stairs marked the homecoming of Jaron's parents.

Up until that moment, Jaron had sort of forgotten that he had skipped school.

 ***

So, uh, hi!

It's been a while.

A WHOLE LIKE 2-3 MOnTHs!!!111!!!

Yeah... I don't really have a good excuse, but hopefully by now you should know I'm extremely lazy.

So there's that. Did everybody have a good Easter?

Good, good.

Please don't hate me :D

I'll try extra hard this week to write this chapter as fast as possible. I'm not dead, I'm just an expert on procrastination and self-doubt. So see you next week...ish.