pencil shavings

seventeen: sam

Languages are something we will never fully comprehend. My grandma speaks Chinese, Norwegian, Greek, German, Russian, and Latin, along with English, but she still can't understand anyone because she never stops talking long enough to listen. My mom needs only to exhale a certain way, and I know I need to make her this type of tea with that mug and wait until her left leg stops bouncing nervously before hugging her. I can write a whole page here about all my emotions, but I would be the only one to ever interpret the Times New Roman English properly. And sometimes I don't even know what my own words mean.

I suppose I'm trying to say that language has never revealed all its clockwork nuances to me in the way I feel I deserve, given all the time I spend exploring its literary acrobatics. Then again, as if life owes us anything at all.

As I lounge in the grey morning light with Tom Petty and my laptop, rain pounds on the roof like an angry mob, and ideas buzz like idle flies in my head. I try again to move past the last paragraph - Kai meeting Hercules - but I can't focus anymore. I eventually give up.

Unless I wanted to be snagged in the kitchen by the morning frenzy of spilled coffee and stolen kisses, I would need to escape to Mocha's before Mom and Bryan woke up anyway. In the moment when I pull myself from the desk chair and pry my eyes from the cursor, a groan escapes me. Mom always chidds me for being such a happy person, but in the darkest places in my mind, I must admit that I long to lose myself forever in the fantastical worlds I create. I think that stupid childhood hope is sometimes the only thing I have left when reality is too much to bear rationally.

I sigh and shove my computer into my bag, collecting the first three chapters of our story from the printer and forcing myself to not immediately start editing grammar.

Smoothing out my hair and lacing my Converse, I wonder absently what Dad is thinking right now.

If we even speak the same language anymore.

But I catch Mom's alarm sounding from down the hall, so I dump any last philosophical notions in my doorway and creep into the living-room.

"-come here, God we're not even awake-"

"Bryan stop-"

"Stop what? This is crazy, Kelsey. Come here, and we can talk about this later."

"NO BRYAN WE CAN'T TALK I'M DONE TALKING WITH YOU ALL WE DO IS TALK AND TALK AND KISS AND TALK BUT WE NEVER DO ANYTHING BRYAN WE NEVER. DO. ANYTHING - WE. AREN'T. GOING. ANYWHERE!"

From behind the bedroom door, my mom takes a breath. It comes out like a sob.

Then, in a whisper: "We're done, Bryan. There's nothing to hope for anymore."

A shaky breath.

"We're stuck."

Bryan was lost to silence, and the bed just rustles as my mom must have stood up from the comforters.

"Kelseywaitcomeback."

"No."

Pause.

"Bryan this time I mean it - mean it. I just - God. I need more."

Pause.

The blankets rustle again - just once - and I can picture it again - how it always is with them. My mom laying her head against him, Bryan pulling her hand into his, the world pausing for a moment to acknowledge all the growing pains that consume them on days like this.

I let the front door close behind me.

Mocha's is sporting its modest morning crowd when I walk in, and I gather my coffee mug and banana bread from the laughing barista with a nose-ring. I claim my corner table, sip the coffee with two hands, and look out the window at the morning-grey street.

A little boy is walking with his mother on the far side of the road, hands stuffed deep into the pockets of his puffy blue jacket. With her braided hair flying, a girl around the same age is twirling between the concrete-circled trees just a few feet ahead. When the two moms magnetize together like preschool moms often do, the little girl rushes to grab the boy's hand and pull him between the trees, there they lift their round faces to the intertwining branches above and spin. And spin and spin and spin. Until the girl crashes into the boy in an explosion of giggles, and the boy teeters over and leave them both lying on the mud and concrete, and the first rays of sun brush gold into the leaves protecting them overhead.

I take a sip from the large cup and let the steam warm my cheeks.

And as life often does - just as the day buds with the first petals of hope, my personal raincloud rushes into the coffee shop in the usual sloppy, frazzled manner of Toby Schwartz.

"Hello, Miss, how are you?" he half-yells toward the counter.

Then, before the startled barista can reply, his rambling continues. "Beautiful morning, isn't it? Just gotta love those trees and that sunlight..."

He pauses for a dramatic sigh and, as the barista's mouth opens and closes like a fish, Toby continues, "You know, I think I'll take a small cinnamon bun and a double shot of espresso."

The barista bites her lip and starts typing it into her machine.

"Actually - God, that smoothie looks killer. Let's go with a medium smoothie and an overeasy egg - you do have that here, right? Oh, my aunt makes the best over easy eggs you've ever seen. I should give you the recipe. Of course - maybe you'll make a better one. Anyway, no cheese because Cheddar makes me gassy and extra blueberries because they make me feel healthy and, ha, that's half the way to weight loss anyway!"

The barista opens her mouth again, a mix of disgusted expressions plastered on her face, but Toby's mouth is already light years ahead.

"Nope - yogurt. One yogurt with a chai tea. Now that sounds good. Doesn't it? I feel very British with my tea - wait do British people eat yogurt? I think they would...anyway, thank you, miss, and have an extraordinary day!"

The barista looks at him like he had just single-handedly dragged the life force out of her.

"Ten fifty -"

"Oh! You know I think I'll donate a penny to that fund for the whales."

"Ten fifty-"

"Actually, can't. Going broke, government's failing, times are tough, gotta save every last cent, am I right? Just the yogurt and the tea, then."

The barista slapps the yogurt onto the counter. "Ten. Fifty. Six," she forces out between clenched teeth.
Toby nods and counts out exact change, placing it in her had before her nails viciously clamp shut around it.

As he swaggers to the milk counter next to an older man, my homecoming date winks back at the barista and stage-whispers to the man, "She's totally into me."

The man nods solemnly. "Totally."

I choke on my coffee, slamming my mug on the table as I duck under the table to hide my face.

I am no prophet, but I do know that you don't need to be mute to be completely incapable of verbal communication with fellow humans.