The Silence

Chapter Eight

Julian:

Saint was crazy. He absolutely was. A new phone? I stared at it as I walked up the stairs to my house and gave him a wave when I got to the door, hoping he would leave so I could freak out in peace. He didn't though. The car sat idling in front of our driveway for so long, I sent him a message.

Julian: Go home, Saint. 😏 My neighbors are going to think you're a creep. 😶

Saint: What makes you think I'm not? 😮

I snorted softly and peeked through the curtain, watching his car drive away. He wasn't a creep, but he was definitely weird. What kind of person bought things... expensive things...for someone they barely knew? I had to pay him back. It didn't feel right for me to just accept it. It niggled in my chest like an itch, and I knew it wouldn't go away until I'd evened the score somehow. Paying him back seemed appropriate.

I was still scrolling through the features of my new phone when my mother came back from work.

"Jules, babe...fetch the things ...the car?" She huffed as she dragged a large cardboard box in through to the kitchen. I put the phone down and hurried outside to bring in the groceries. When I brought them back inside, I found her turning the phone over in her hands.

"What's this?" She asked me. I frowned and pinched my lips, shrugging like I did when I couldn't hear her even though I had read her lips very clearly.

"What?" I asked, dumping the bags on the counter. I started unpacking things to give me time to figure out if I should tell her the truth or not.

"This?" She asked when she moved in front of me by the kitchen counter. "What is it?" She waved the phone around in my face. God, I almost laughed. I couldn't believe Saint had taken me seriously when I'd said pink was my favourite colour. It was actually white, but I kind of liked how this pink cover looked on the phone.

"It's a phone." I answered, stalling.

"I can see that." She said slowly. "Where did it come from?"

"A friend." I smiled. That was true. I hadn't known Saint for long, but he seemed determined to spend time actually talking to me. That was a friend, right? "It's an old one. They said they'd let me pay them back." I lied a little and she peered at the phone suspiciously.

"It doesn't look old."

"It's just the cover." I said, laughing awkwardly.

"OK..." I breathed a small sigh of relief and started stacking my new low-sodium soups into the cupboards.

"I'll try to find a part-time job soon." I muttered and my mother waited for me to face her again before she gave me a stern look.

"Julian. I thought we discussed this already. You don't need to work."

"Mom." I whined and she shook her head.

"No, no, you focus on school and let me worry about money."

"It's just a part - "

"No." She said firmly and I could feel the familiar prickle of frustration bloom inside me. Most kids my age had jobs in high school. I just wasn't most kids to my mom. She was adament that I not start working until I was ready, but the longer she made me wait for that moment, the harder it was going to be for me to find a job. My ears weren't exactly getting better, were they? We never spoke about it, but there was going to be one day I would wake up completely deaf, and then what would I do?