Anthem, Silent

Ivy

I sat on the closed toilet lid with the stall door still open since I couldn’t act fast enough to give myself some privacy, as I tried to stop my tears. I hadn’t stopped shaking since I saw Tyson last night. I would be vomiting if I hadn’t already emptied the contents in my stomach. Kwanele, Lorna’s boyfriend, had walked around the home checking to make sure that whoever had killed Tyson was gone, and the coast was clear. The boys and Lorna were highly emotional about their dog, and even I couldn’t help but be as hysterical and devastated as they were, even though I’m sure the dog hated me. However, what really pulled at my heart strings was seeing how the family of three wrapping their arms around each other as they cried about their pet that had become a part of their little family. 

“Hey, are you okay?” I looked up at the voice and found a dark haired lady in a suit standing before me. She wore a two piece skirt suit that was a navy blue with a black corset underneath, and her dark hair loose and in perfect waves. She wore mascara that had clumped her lashes together and pink lipstick that had been applied over her lips. She had tanned skin and her brown eyes regarded me with concern. 

I was still shaking as I sighed, looking at her with teary eyes. “Sorry, it’s been a long night.” I chose to say, clearing my throat and suddenly unable to stop myself from saying, “someone broke into my yard last night and killed our dog,” I chose to explain, knowing that if I went into detail that it wasn’t really my yard and was my landlady’s with her two sons and her boyfriend of five years, and how the dog hated me but I had somehow gotten used to him in the two days that I was there, and that he was found hung with his own intestines, and there were bloody boot prints that led to the back of my apartment, right by the bathroom window– would be too much of a whirlwind, so that seemed to do. 

She gasped, her expression becoming one of horror and sympathy, “oh no!” she rushed to my side and gave me a tight hug, wrapping her arms around my shoulder, “I’m so sorry!” I breathed in her scent of Chanel perfume as she hugged me and then she pulled back. She took a step back and leaned against the stall door, looking down at me as she handed me a tissue and I blew my nose, thanking her. 

“Sorry. I didn’t think that I’d be in the bathroom crying, on my literal second day at work,” I mumbled sheepishly, feeling more than just a ‘little’ embarrassed. What would she think of me? What if she was one of those office big mouths who’d tell everyone that I was crying like a little girl and then I’d become the laughing stock around these parts? Oh god, I can already imagine them turning me into some kind of pathetic joke or verb– I can imagine it all now, the office jerks saying ‘Don’t go all Ivy on us now’ when someone wants to cry, or those mean girls saying ‘OMG I’m feeling so Ivy right now’ whenever I’m around or if they’re feeling blue on a random Tuesday, or ‘I’m this close to pulling an Ivy’ which would be innocently stated by some accounting dude who gets frustrated because the numbers aren’t matching or whatever accounting talk is, and the whole office would erupt in laughter murmuring ‘same, same’. That would honestly be my worst nightmare. 

She shrugged, “oh, there’s nothing to be worried about. I come by the bathroom and cry sometimes when work gets a bit too much. It happens to the best of us. The other time– when I just started working here right out of Uni– I didn’t know how to use the printer. So I had to ask the boss, and when I did, he yelled at me and told me how stupid, and useless, and pathetic I was and ‘how dare I interrupt his very important schedule’ to ask him something as silly as how to use a printer. I, literally, cried in front of everyone. And not just ‘cried’, but as in downright sobbed,” she let out a giggle and I joined her. “It was so embarrassing. And I couldn’t stop crying, but I didn’t care. In that moment I really just missed my mum, and I wanted to be home, and this job felt a little too hard and I couldn’t take that I didn’t know how to use the printer, and my makeup hadn’t turned out right– so there was a lot going wrong. Anyways, it still happens and I’ve been working here for five years, so don’t be embarrassed,” I couldn’t help but smile at her, feeling myself calm down a bit. Even though my hands still trembled from fear.