Obliterated Beginnings

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EVA

"What if he's mute?"

The conversation drifted to me. I had not been paying attention for the most part of it—mainly because my thoughts were all over the place—and Laura being Laura, didn't necessarily require an audience for her to speak. She could very well speak to herself, so the fact that we were there was a plus for her.

"I doubt that he is." Abi said and her speaking, coupled with the 'he' in the sentence, piqued my interest enough for me to forget about my issues at the moment and listen to them talk.

I really really wanted to know who that he was.

Laura shrugged. "Well, I've never heard him speak."

"Just because you've never heard him speak doesn't mean that he cannot speak."

Laura rolled her eyes so hard, I thought they were going to fall off her head. "I get that you don't go to parties, so you wouldn't know, but Abi, he has never uttered a single word. Not one. Who knows? Maybe that's why he doesn't even let girls near him. And I totally feel him because that would be so hard to explain." She suddenly turned in her seat to face her best friend, giving us the full force of her incredibly beautiful face—and her pink lips that were currently twisted to the side as she shot Abi an accusing look. "Why are you suddenly so interested anyway?"

Somehow, I knew that this person they were taking about had to be one of the four most popular guys at school. It was either Axel, Henri, Alexander or Vaughn. The first two talked a whole lot. In fact, they had trouble keeping their mouths shut. The last two, however, barely spoke. Although between the both of them, the former spoke more than the latter. Which meant that there was a high possibility they were talking about Vaughn.

I wanted to speak, but I decided to remain silent until I was sure.

"Interested?" Abi's face twisted in genuine confusion—at least it looked that way—as she unzipped her bag, rummaging through it. "I'm just saying that the fact that you haven't heard a person speak before, doesn't mean that they can't."

"Not 'a person'," Laura smirked evilly, her bows dancing. "Vaughn."

So, they were actually talking about Vaughn.

Honestly, I couldn't blame Laura for thinking that he was mute. I probably would have thought the same thing too if I didn't know better. But I did. It was so easy to assume the worst of people or to assume that people were a certain way simply because of how they behaved in the presence of other people.

I wasn't saying this simply because he had talked to me that day, but from experience.

People had gone around calling me a freak without second thoughts, judging me simply because of a feature I possessed. My eyes were a part of me, but they didn't define me. Although they had ruled my emotions for a long period of time, not anymore.

I might have digressed a bit, but the point was that it was so easy for people to assume the worst about a person, not caring that they might be far off the mark. He probably had a reason for refraining from speaking in public. Or maybe he just didn't like it.

Wasn't enough for him to be called mute.

A sudden feeling of protectiveness surged in me, which, I was positive, was what had me rising to his defense. "He's not mute."

Two pairs of eyes swung in my direction. Two were surprised, the other two, narrowed. The first to speak was Laura.

"He's not?"

"No." Suddenly, with the full focus of their eyes on me, I found myself fidgeting. It wasn't merely their attention that had me uncomfortable, rather, it was the fact that the driver was right there. He might not be paying actively paying attention to us, but he was sitting directly in front of me anyway. He had to be hearing us even though he didn't want to.