Listen Before You Speak

Chapter 1

This chapter is dedicated to my best friend and beta-reader Sasha. Thanks for forcing me to remove the word "yummy"!

"Elijah!"

The sound vibrated through my skull and into my brain, splitting it open and letting it fall into shards of broken glass, missing with my shattered heart and soul.

"What?!" I shouted back in my mind, but still trying my best to block the irritating sound of her voice out of my mind.

"You're going to be late!" The irritating voice shrieked back, and I could not help to cringe and pull the covers up higher, hoping that they would offer some more protection against the terrible noise that was my mother's voice.

"I'm coming!" my mind repeated but still not a single sound escaped my mouth.

"I'm serious Elijah! Get up! We are going to be late! Do not make me come in there and get you!"

"Urgh," I groaned. She wouldn't leave. Experience has taught me that many times before.

"Hurry!" she shouted once more.

Getting out of bed is probably the most difficult challenge of my day. I love sleeping. It's like they say; sleep is just like death, but without the commitment. I've never been big on commitment, but death seems more than right to me at this moment in time. This is part of the reason why I fall out of bed and don't climb out.

Getting dressed is challenge number two for the day. What do you wear when you have a closet full of clothing and nothing to wear? Surely not the blue sweater I got for Christmas, or the green hoodie that made its way over to me on my birthday. In the end I pick the same I wear every day. The outfit that has become my uniform and disguise so that the world would not recognize me. A black skinny jean, a grey shirt, and a band hoodie sporting the words "the Black Parade is Dead!" on it.

I look at myself in the mirror, drawing my fingers through my hair, which is also challenge number three for the day. The regrowth is getting too much, probably an inch already. Some children get snow days. Why can I not get a dye day and stay home from school to dye my hair? But then again, why would I be so lucky? It's not like I have been lucky before in my life. Maybe this is just the way things work.

Straightening my hair doesn't take that long anymore. I can actually attempt to do my fringe until it covers my eyes without even actually looking in the mirror. But I still look. I like seeing how I disappear and become invisible with every stroke of hair falling in front of my eyes. Covering up the green until only a slight grey tinge comes through, making them all see that I have eyes, but that I do not really see with them. I like it this way. Nobody notices somebody if they do not have a soul, and this is the only way I know to hide my soul from the rest of the world.

Just before I head out of the room, I look back to the mirror. Picking up the black liner from the floor where I dropped it last night, I put the finishing touches on the look I have had since when I care to remember. A black cross covering my lips, showing the fact that I will not speak. I will not talk about what happened, and I will never say what I feel. Because that just fucks everything up in the end. To listen is just a way better approach.

The drive to school is the same as always. I hide in the back seat of the car, slowly nibbling on my toasted waffle, hoping that 'she' won't notice that I'm still there, somewhere in the back, but sometimes every single time that I think this particular thought she seems to sense me on the back seat.

"Did you have enough to eat?" she asks and I see her worried eyes flash towards me in the mirror.

I nod.