Speechless (Harry Styles AU)

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Four

There is a beauty in being mute. A beauty of silence. It was a not a trap when it was accepted. It’s a safe haven, a loving caress in the midst of a storm. I was not expected to speak by anyone. So when I chose to stop signing it wasn’t much of a shock. There was no need to speak anymore, no one worth communicating with.

My mother had to work overtime and I had no one to speak with even when I wanted to. People would come to our door with meals to say how sorry they were but when they saw me they would smile, nod and just walk away without saying a single word.

Yet, even in its simplicity there was nothing I could comprehend fully about the last few days. They had released me out of the hospital with strict rules for my mother and a long term plan for my psychological rehabilitation, or so that’s what my shrink had told me.

 Harry had broken contact completely just like he had said not even considering calling when I got home or returning a single hopeless text that I sent him.

Logan and Ryan had been arrested in the middle of the lunch room after the detective who took my story found solid evidence that it was them. I’d heard from the rumor mill that they had gone out kicking and screaming obscenities at both the police officers and at me.

I had to video chat with my father after my mother foolishly informed him of my run in with the misfit boys, he was just as cold and disconnected as he had been the last time I saw him. His new children running in the background while his tired mistress, now wife chased after them miserably.

It was a blur of a week and now it was coming to a halt with the pain and tortures all coming together in a disastrous finale. I was now faced with the horrors of school.

It was clearly against my will but there was no way my mother was allowing me to miss more than I already had. It would be a miracle if I could catch up on all of the homework I had missed over the last three weeks.

Principal Taylor had been in close contact with my mother and I planning how I would go about returning to school. Even with all the offers to keep a body guard with me at all times I knew that there was no way I could make it through a day without becoming completely hopeless.

I wanted nothing more than the curl up in my bed and resurface only when these days had passed.

Resurface when the world had all of its crap figured out, when I was no longer and outcast for my disability.

Resurface when there was no pain or heartbreak.

Resurface when I was not a shattered mess of a human being.

Resurface when I was whole once more.

“Gene, it’s time to go,” my mother spoke softly her hand caressing my back as I sat with my face down staring lifelessly into an uneaten bowl of cereal.

My mother was required to drive me to school because of the coma I had been in and the fact could only fully use one of my arms. Pushing my chair back slowly I rose to my feet resisting the screaming of my muscles to sit back down.

I could see the drained look on my mother’s face as I brushed past her. It was a clear reflection of what my own hopeless face looked like, little to no life in her eyes, wiry and fizzy hair that seemed to be untamable. She was as much of a shell of a human being as I was. Together we were a lifeless pair.

“I know you don’t want to go Gene,” My mother sighed as she shut herself into the car beside me, “but it’s best for you to get back to life as usual. You know what Dr. Greg said.”