Mute Songbird (boyxboy) -Complete-

When the parents are away...

Just in case you were wondering, I talked a LOT that first week. Maybe not whole words, and not the words I wanted, but I tried. I really did. It's not like I was raising my hand in class or anything but I vocalized with Mrs. Maldonado and my parents a lot. They were patient as hell, too. It took mom and I about half an hour for me to tell her I wanted spaghetti for dinner, but we got there. I was late for school the morning I was looking for my favorite black t-shirt but we found it.

In fact, every now and then, I DID have the right word. It was new to me, and still sporadic, but it was the only thing that had gotten me through the past week without Dan. I'd actually had the thought, last Thursday or Friday maybe, that I'd be able to talk by the time he got back. That would have been one hell of a surprise. Unfortunately progress was slow as hell.

Tonight, after mom and I had gotten home, I'd really tried to tell her I wanted my phone. I had struggled and tried over and over to get words out. I'd tried all the tricks they'd taught me; I tried saying it a different way, tried putting my thoughts to music, tried focusing on just one word at a time and then on the sentence as a whole. It went something like this: Uhhm u nee aalll.... nnnon ii own for Daaah... you get the idea. It was practically torture, for her and for me.

We'd made progress though, she finally realized that I didn't know when he was coming back and I wanted to talk to him to find out. It wasn't the whole answer, but it was close enough. We'd compromised, sort of. If he wasn't back in school by Friday I would be allowed to text him over the weekend. She thought I'd 'earned' a few texts for working so hard. I wasn't sure I was going to make it to Friday, but I was too tired to argue any more.

After dinner, my parents went out for 'drinks and socializing' with some of dad's colleagues. I spent the first hour writing yet another ridiculously long letter to Dan. That would teach him to leave me alone; I was going to have a term-paper finished for him by the time he got back. After that I went downstairs and wandered aimlessly around the house. I wasn't looking for anything, I was just tired of sitting in my room.

I opened the freezer since I was seriously considering taking mom up on the ice cream offer and spied my dad's bottle of vodka. It had been a staple in our freezer for as long as I could remember and I'd never really been all that curious. Dan's words came back to me though; I could replace it with water. Screw it, why not?

I grabbed the bottle, setting it carefully on the counter. I was supposed to mix this with something, right? I wish I had my phone, I could have looked it up. Suddenly I remembered my mom having it with OJ and I opened the fridge. Score.

How much though? Half and half? Mostly vodka with a little OJ? I decided to try even amounts but only a little of each, so I'd have room in the cup to add whatever. Brilliant, if I do say so myself. After the first sip I poured another two inches of orange juice in. WOW, cause that was nasty. How did people drink this stuff? I finished off my drink and made another one. This one tasted much better but I wasn't sure why.

I turned on some music and started singing and dancing around the house. I was alone and it felt so nice to relax and just chill out. I hesitated making myself another drink but I hadn't drunk more than a few inches of the bottle and I was going to fill it anyway so he wouldn't notice. I decided that I really liked OJ and vodka. I got fancy and put some crushed ice in. Too bad we didn't have those little umbrellas. We did have straws though!

This was amazing. The only thing that would have been better is if Dan were here. I decided to have one for him, then replaced what I had taken from dad's bottle and stowed it back in the freezer. I missed him, I really did. Before I knew it I was talking, well, voicing. I ranted and raved about everything that had been simmering all week. I yelled at my parents, at strokes in general, at moving and then not at moving because I wouldn't have met Dan. I complained about heart attacks and climate change and the lack of good public transportation in the States. At one point I came out to my dad, then started reciting my favorite lines from movies.

Then, smart boy that I am, inspiration struck. My phone was in the house somewhere. I could find it, use it, then put it back. No one would be the wiser. I started in the living room and searched through the hall closet but didn't find it. I was on a chair looking through the cupboard above the fridge when the front door opened.