Silence In The Trees

Chapter 7

The common person will romanize anything they can. Death, the inevitable, is often the easiest chosen victim of our romanticizations.

We will come up with things talking about how death is meant to happen and how it's just a way for our souls to move on from this world.

Maybe I've been to church on Sunday, and I've read the Bible, but as much as I wanted to believe, I couldn't shake the feeling that all these assumptions we'd come up with are just forms of wheelchairs or crutches for the reality of it all.

Once your dead, your dead. We don't know for sure what happens after that. And that's what scares people the most isn't it?

Humans are scared of the things we don't know, we're scared of the things we don't and can't understand.

Death isn't meant to be understood. Death is meant to happen, for each of us different reasons.

Death is no devil, death is meant to come and take something from you. And your meant to grow and learn from it. Death is meant to take people and change them.

Death will hurt, but in the end, there will come a day when you finally understand it all.

I awoke, laying horizontal across my bed. Some of my pillows had been thrown around on the floor in my sleep and I was still wearing my clothes.

I stood up and looked around, trying to regain my orientation. My vision was somewhat blurry and I had a fuzzy feeling in my head.

I decided a hot shower would help. I walked over to my bathroom as best I could and stripped down, letting the heat of the water rush over my cold back. I sighed happily. It did make me feel a lot better.

I ran to my room, a towel wrapped around myself in an attempt to find something warm to wear. I was freezing, realizing my window had been open all the night and the cold air had completely filled my room. I danced around, trying to find a big flannel that I used to wear all the time. It went down past my mid thighs and it was pretty baggy on me. I used to wear it when I painted, so it was covered with multicolored paint streaks and splatters.

I finally found a pair of ripped up jeans to slip into, and eventually dug out my flannel.

"Hey sunshine, well this is unexpected. I didn't think you where the type to run around without clothes."

"Mother of hell fucker WILL? WHAT IN GODS NAME ARE YOU DOING IN MY ROOM? GET OUT!"

I grasped around the towel tightly. I feel like I should have seen this coming. But really? I'm practically naked minus the towel.

He leaned against my door frame, he had on jeans, boots, a white T-shirt and the same leather jacket. I could smell the old leather and the familiar scent of oranges.

I almost wanted to smile, here stood the most popular, most attractive, most annoying boy in my school, standing in my room.

While I was wearing only a towel. Shit.

I kept a tight hold on the towel and grabbed my clothes, walking to my bathroom. I had already pulled my wet hair up into a ratty ball on my head.

"What happened to your back?" I turned to look at him. I didn't even think about the massive scar on my back, about and two inches under my neck.

He hadn't said it in his normal calm or laid back voice. He said it seriously, I thought I could almost hear a ping of anger on the edge of his words.

"Nothing." I mumbled it quietly, not really wanting to think about it. Let alone talk about it. I wasn't ready to tell anyone what happened, and I constantly tried to push it out of my mind. I didn't want to remember.