Silence

Chapter 4 - Spill

After I take a quick shower, I lay here on my bed wondering what I should do. I feel like my head will explode if I don't talk about Carter. I pick up my phone and look at my messages. I click on Lauren's name.

ME: I need 2 talk.

A few seconds later my phone vibrates.

LAUREN: Alright. Txt away.

ME: I mean really TALK.

This time it takes her about a minute to message back: seriously!! Come over NOW.

It's a big deal asking to talk to her. We don't usually do this. What I'm about to tell her definitely has never happened.

I stand up to walk over to her house. I check the time on my phone.

It is 6:43.

I leave my room and walk downstairs. My mom is sitting at the table eating a granola bar and reading her phone. She always says it's something about work. Some research she's doing for a new patient who came in. That newer and better models of this special thing they are developing for kids to be able to hear are coming out soon. Things like that. She's a pediatric audiologist which helps kids with hearing and balance problems. She was just a pediatrician first but started to specialize in that field when I was younger.

I walk past her and go over to Lauren's house. She opens the door as I'm walking up the front steps and she pulls me inside by my arm until we are in her room.

She closes it and locks it then turns to me. Her expression crazy but I can't blame her. She sits on her desk chair and I sit on her bed. We stare at each other and then she says "Are you going to tell me this exciting and important news, or am I supposed to read your mind. Because you did say you wanted to talk. Now I'm not pressuring you. I would never do that but here I am all excited and you're just staring at me like I'm crazy."

Before she goes on and on about it I take a deep breath, clear my head, relax, and ask, "How do you know that it's exciting and important?"

She smiles really big, clearly happy that I'm speaking "Because my best friend NEVER talks. This is the first time in all of the years that I've known you that you text me asking to talk. It has to be the most exciting and important news you have ever had to make you want to tell me about it." she insists.

She's not wrong. I've never texted her and asked to talk. I had conversations with her more than anyone else I know but I've never just told her "let's talk"

"You're right," I say with a grin. I feel a little embarrassed that a boy is the most important news of my life right now but I want to tell her anyway. Who cares it's exciting for me.

She rolls her eyes and has a huge smile on her face. "What are you waiting for? SPILL!" she commands with enthusiasm. She stands and turns the chair so she can be sitting the wrong way and rests her face on her arms on the back of the chair.

I tell her every detail starting with me walking to the front of school to start my run. I didn't start from the bathroom because she doesn't need to hear the rumors those mean girls were spreading about her and, frankly, she most likely doesn't care. She awesome with that. No caring what people think about her.

I can't believe how much I tell her. I feel like this is the most I've said in my life. I tell her how I see the regular people running outside. How I stop at the water fountain. That there is a boy watching me. How he talks to me with ease even though he can tell that I won't talk back to him. How he tells me that he hopes he will see me at school tomorrow. That he tells me that his name is Carter. I tell her how he made me feel when he spoke my name in such an angelic way that it made my heart swell. But the last thing I tell her is that he said I was cute.

She flips out, clearly excited for me. It feels so good to talk to her I just don't get why it's so hard to start doing it. And why I get this weird anxiety feeling before every sentence.

I finish my story feeling completely drained and sprawled across Lauren's bed. I sit up in attempt to tell Lauren the I'm going home but my eyelids droop and I fall back into bed. I look at the time and it's already 9:00. Still pretty early but I'm exhausted.

"Just stay here for the night, I'll text your mom for you," Lauren tells me. As she says this, I'm falling into a deep sleep. But before I'm completely under I manage to say, "thanks." Lauren seems a little amazed as she walks away to the bathroom. But who could blame her? I'm a little amazed myself.