The Mute

Chapter one: part one

So hey guys. This is my first book on here. I'm really trying. But at first to keep the suspense going.. It's going to be told by Tyler. And then back and forth to Ashley. I hope you enjoy reading this! :)

Tyler's P.O.V.

"I guess this is the last box," said my mom as we unloaded boxes from the U-Haul truck. I took the box from her, and carried it delicately as I walked a few steps toward our new home. As I walked, I felt the surge of extraordinary new possibilities. The new ideas that helped me think, "hey maybe we could be a family here."

Looking up at the new place, I felt like we could be happy living in this little shack. It's a small little tan square house. The paint job on the siding of the house was pristine, and looks recently painted. The window frames are clean crisp white, and are floor to ceiling windows. The roof looks like it needs some work done and its missing shingles. Other than the roof, the house looks in pretty good shape on the outside.

My mom and I had to look online to find a new place out here. We used a realty website that helped us find this little thing that we now call a "home." Just a few simple key strokes that searched, "cheap, two bedroom, one bath," home and now here we are.. West Falls.

I never understood why we had to move from Blakely, and I probably never will.

My mother is a very strong willed person. Whatever she wants, she works towards it and fights for it. Just like the time she didn't get a discount on a pair of shoes and argued her way to get it. There was another time that she went to Africa and started a hospital there, when I was 4. She was gone for two years and I was left with my father and grandparents.

I guess that's one quality I love about her: her ability to be strong and to know exactly what she wants in her life. She knew exactly her goal in life: to help the sick.

Which I thought was very strange was, my mother made the decision to move here in a week. It's the middle of August and she said to me "we need a new start. A new place to be a family again." That's when she picked to move across the state. A little town by the name of West Falls.

Then here I am a week later, unloading boxes to a new home, and starting school next week.

My mom is a pediatrician. Here in town, she's looking to open her own office. So for the rest of the week, I get to unload boxes and settle in the new place. Lucky me.

For a brief moment, I thought about my life before we moved. I had my friends Dominic, Rick, and Heath. I've been friends with them my whole life.

The really saddening thing was, I didn't care to be apart from them. Even with them, I felt like I was alone. I was alone in a room full of people. I saw them every day this summer.. And yet the guys won't notice I left.

Never cared about what was going on with my family. They never even asked if I was doing okay since it's just me and my mom now. They never talked about anything important anyways.

All the guys talked about was chicks and parties. Parties which I never went to cause I was busy with family issues.

My mom walked over to me and put her hand on my shoulder. "Hun, do ya mind if I go run to the grocery store to go get some food for you for the week? And you can unpack some boxes?"

"Yeah I'll do it. See ya later Ma." I walked in the house and set the box on the floor in the kitchen.

Fifteen boxes were in the kitchen. Some were dishes, some were my stuff, my moms, and the rest were pictures and family albums.

I decided to go unpack one of the boxes. A box with all of our picture frames to hang in the house. I pulled open the cardboard flaps and peeled the delicate tissue paper of one of the picture frames. Then placed it on the table in the kitchen. After the fifth frame, I stopped and stared at the faces in the frame.

My eyes pierced at the man who was smiling. He has no reason to smile. His son is dying. His son is hooked to a machine. But somehow my brother was smiling too.

The frame slipped from my hands and cracks appeared as it hit the kitchen floor. My eyes began to water as I stared at Joshua's sick face.

My mom took this picture a few days before my brother died from cancer two years ago.

My father was just smiling with his arm around my brother as he sat in his hospital bed sitting up.

How dare he smile though his son is becoming weaker every minute. How dare he come back to see his son die.. Then leave once again after his funeral.

No. He doesn't deserve the satisfaction of being called my father. He's just a man who left us when we needed him the most.

Now it's up to me to be there for my mother when she needs me most. We will be a family together.

For the rest of the night I sat in my room with all my boxes I still needed to unpack and a small mattress for my bed. I pulled out my guitar and starting strumming chords to take my mind off things.