The Whisper Seekers

Silence

Silence I come home exhausted from our five-hour shopping trip and plop onto my plush, queen-sized bed leaving my shopping bags at my door. Seconds later, I hear heels coming down the hall and then the crinkling of my bags. I turn my head to face my door and catch my mom moving my bags into my closet.

"Hey Ellie, I thought I heard you come in," she says as she plops down on the end of my bed. I watch as she picks a small fuzz off her sleek wrap dress and she crosses her long legs as she leans onto her arm. Her root-free blonde hair lays perfectly on her shoulders and is sprayed with so much hair spray that a hurricane wouldn't get it to move. Any time we travel anywhere people take one look at her big hair and know she's from Texas.

"How'd dress shopping go?" She asks and I roll off my bed to grab the garment bag from the floor. I peel off the plastic and hold the dress up to me.

"What do you think?" I ask as I sway, letting the light reflect off of the glitter.

"Oh Ellie, it is gorgeous! You and Derek will look very cute together." I look in my full-length mirror and imagine the whole outfit put together including the shoes, which I still have yet to find. I picture my dreamy boyfriend and homecoming date, Derek, standing next to me and am excited with what I conjure up. Since we have been dating for a little over a year, we've already gone to a few dances together, so I know how handsome he looks in a tux.

"Yeah, I will have to go with him to pick out his tie but black is easy to match anything with," I say after I'm done letting my imagination run wild. I tuck the dress back into the garment bag before walking into my spacious closet and hanging my dress next to all my other one-occasion dresses. I stride back to my bed and sprawl out next to my mom.

"Harper and Lily both ended up finding dresses too, so now they just need dates," I admit and my mom lightly laughs as she pulls herself off my bed and crosses back to my door.

"I'm sure they'll each find one of the football players to ask them, they always do. Or maybe it would be cute if they were each other's dates?" I roll my eyes at her, knowing Harper thinks "friend dates" are reserved for the pathetic or ugly and I put my arm over my face. "Dinner will be ready in a few, I'll holler at you when it's ready," she tells me before closing the door behind her.

I continue to lie in my bed, staring up at my ceiling, imagining what Derek will wear and wondering what shoes I should pair with my dress. I pinch my nose again and slowly exhale, relieving some of the stress of trying to block out my mother's thoughts.

I always struggle to silence them, but most of the time I just end up with a headache. I don't read my parents' thoughts because I feel like if they knew I could, they'd feel completely vulnerable, which is an emotion I never see from either of them. It's different from my friends and peers because my parents are always so put together and professional. They are both successful in their own way and born from wealthy strict parents who taught them that any kind of failure was never an option. They never let emotions or someone else's opinions come in the way of something they desire, and I know that mentality has rubbed off on me. I feel that if my parents knew of my "talent" they would be beyond disappointed, knowing all my achievements were lies obtained by cheating. Something that is not tolerated in the Adler household.

It was in the fourth grade when I accidentally discovered that I could break into people's thoughts. It was during our annual spelling bee while I was standing in front of the microphone drawing a blank. I could see my mother in the crowd nodding her head with wide eyes, trying to communicate with me with her facial expressions. My word was accessible and I couldn't remember if it was a-s-s or a-c-c. As I was going through my mental filing cabinets of words while stressing out on stage, I heard a whisper say a-c-c. I listened to the whisper, got the word correct and my mother shot up with her hands in the air. After my first success, I continued to listen to the anonymous whisperer until I had a shiny gold Spelling Bee Champion trophy in my hands. In the car on the ride home, I told my mother about someone whispering to me trying to help me with my win. When we came to a stoplight she turned to me and told me no one was helping me on that stage and that if I told anyone else about it, my trophy would be taken away for cheating. My mother had not raised a cheater and would not tolerate cheating of any kind. I clutched the shiny metal and said nothing to my father's beaming face when I walked in holding my prize.