Savior

The Boy with the Gift

The silence is deafening.

As soon as the door shuts behind Harry and my friends I am engulfed in quiet. But, I can hear the blood pumping through my ears and the steady brag of my heart and I swear I can even hear the neurons firing in my brain.

Because this silence is much too loud.

My whole life I favored the serene quiet that was so rare to me at the orphanage with all the children running around and screaming, at my foster homes with the loud arguing, with Him and His shouting...

The quiet I so rarely received was cherished and managed to calm the rattling in my bones and the aches in my body. I could think clearly and breathe easier because it would mean I was safe.

For however long that meant.

But, now... With my friends gone and myself left alone in this cold apartment the peace seems uncomfortable. It unnerves me.

The laughter, the jokes, the storytelling, I think I must have gotten used to it: the kind of noise that warms my heart instead of sending it on a marathon.

I got so used to the good noise that now the silence makes me expect the bad.

I almost want to run back outside and have Harry or Eliza or someone to come back over and just sit with me for a bit so the quiet doesn't seem so crushing.

But, I don't.

I don't because it's midnight and everyone is probably tired. I don't because Harry and I still seem like we are skating on thin ice and every time he looks at me I can see the pain in his eyes from the rejection I caused and because I feel overwhelmed.

Because the wall I had so carefully cemented in place has been picked away at these last few months I've lived here and tonight; with Harry's hurtful, but true, words I could feel a crack forming and for the first time in a long time; light started to shine through.

Hope made its way through my cement wall in the way that flowers grow through blankets of fallen snow.

And I don't know whether to be relieved or terrified of what's to come but, I know that I have been terrified for so long that I'm exhausted.

And I just want to move on. Really move on .

But, despite the carefree evening and the happiness that swelled inside of me from being surrounded by my friends and hearing about the incident and being so normal with Harry again, the dread in the bottom of my stomach refuses to go away.

My eyes flit over to the cause of such anxiety, and cautiously, as if the statue may come to life and pounce on me –I approach the lucky frog.

I pick it up once more, the golden frog feeling heavy in my hands for more reasons than one.

As soon as I saw it's red, beady eyes staring up at me inside its box, panic began to squeeze its familiar claws around my throat. And even the note from Betsy could do little to quell this feeling.

I don't know whether it's because anything –from a man with blue eyes, to hearing footsteps behind me- will set off my paranoia or because this is actual valid intuition and this frog is somehow an omen to His return.

But, either way, the ominous feeling in my gut stirs.

Because a lucky frog, just like the one in my hands was given to me by Him when I was taking my GED. He said if I rubbed the frog's head every day before I studied that I would pass with flying colors.

And even though I knew this frog was primarily for bringing luck in fortune, I did it anyway. Because He gave it to me, because He told me to, because I wanted to make Him happy.

And I ended up passing, which He credited to the gold statue, and not to my extensive note card collection.

So, the golden frog with ruby eyes became a staple item on our mantle -always watching over us.

Although, a part of me –a fairly large part of me- would like nothing more than to toss this statue in the trash, I refrain. I won't let Him taint everything for me, I won't let the fear of Him make me paranoid like this.