Mute (M.C.)

e i g h t

After about 10 minutes I didn't hear Harry's moms car start so I walked outside. Harry sat on the edge of the porch with his head down. He was the best friend I could ask for at the age of 4 with no idea how to talk. He never forced me to talk or to sign my feelings to him when he learned sign language. He protected me through grade school and even in our last year he still protected me. 

"You know I just don't want you to get hurt." His head lifted and glanced back at me. "She is going to hurt you, Michael. I wish you would see it so clearly like I do."

I sat next to him and signed. You can not protect me forever.

"I will take you to her house. Just... be careful, Clifford." He nudged my shoulder and hopped off the porch.

. 

After an hour we drove ten minutes from town to a small neighborhood that looked like a utopia of same doll house families. We pulled up to the fifth house after entering the gates of Conformity. The house was made of the same brown bricks with four windows at the front and a side gate unlike the others. The house looked as if no one was home and abandoned at the same time. 

"I will wait out here. I will be here for a few but then I am gone... text me to come get you, okay?" Harry clicked his tongue and made a finger gun. "go get her, tiger."

I rolled my eyes and exited his car making my way up to the gate. I pushed against it and the gate gave in so easily making a loud creaking sound as I entered. The side of the house looked just as abandoned as the front. The grass was dead and lifeless and the back yard looked vacant. I wondered if the joke was on me to think this was her house. No one looked to live here in months, maybe even years. 

"You made it." I heard from up above. I swung around and looked up near the roof. Leslie sat on a window pane looking down on me. "Use the back door and don't touch anything." 

I nodded and walked up the steps to the porch opening the back door. Inside the house looked really spick span clean and un homely, if that was a word. I rounded the stairs and looked at the pictures lining the wall. There were some of Leslie and some of what looked to be her older siblings and one that looked to be her younger sibling. I heard the soft playing of music drifting from the first room and I nudged the door open. 

Leslie sat at a desk in a pink striped shirt that looked like a crop on her and she wore black joggers. Her hair was in her half up-do and her short bangs fell forward as she wrote. She looked amazing. 

"I am finishing up homework so I hope you like sitting in silence for a few minutes." She mumbled as she wrote more. I nodded even though she couldn't see me and made my way over to a corner of her room. The music came from her ipod plugged up to an old speaker. The song playing was Hurts by LANY. I filed the name in the back of my head listening to the song closely. The melody was pop vibe and the singer didn't sound terrible. "The more you love, the more it hurts" song title right there I guess. 

I looked over at Leslie and she was still buried in her writing. I sat on the window pane and looked over the view.