Screaming in Silence [FIN]

She nestled into his side contentedly as he put his arm around her and lead her towards the lunch room. She was a little pink, but as soon as he said something about her eyes her face was more scarlet than ever. She adverted her gaze from him shyly. She felt rather insecure without the makeup she was so used to. She spent two hours every morning making sure her face, hair and clothes looked and smelled absolutely perfect. Every morning. This was the first time she had been out and about without makeup in about a year. She felt rather naked, and her current favorite-boy-in-the-world was next to her.

For a moment she spent her time admiring her shoes before she looked up at him to answer him, smiling sheepishly. “Ye-yeah I like ribs.” She smiled before quickly dropping her head again. She felt silly but it was just so weird to be without the makeup and the longer she went without it the more weird she felt about it. Soon they were in the lunch room and her mind was focused on dealing with the book bag situation. She looked up from her shoes and looked over at where she had been sitting with Josh and his friends. It didn’t take long for them to look back at her, and seeing that she had returned with someone else, give her death glares. They immediately started whispering to each other.

Someone from the table kicked her book bag under the table and they all started using it as a soccer ball, laughing at her and murmuring “slut” and “cake face” to each other. She didn’t want Lochlann to go over there with her, just in case he’d be mad at her for having lunch with the boy he just punched in the face for whatever reason. She couldn’t really think of a reason why he might be, but that doesn’t mean that he wouldn’t be right? She took a deep breath and suddenly tore away from Lochlann. “I-I’ll meet you in l-line…” She was forcing a smile but looked quite nervous. She turned quickly and ran to attempt to get her bag from the potential bullies.

Upon approaching them, no one would speak directly to her, but instead there were jeers of “Look who came to get her ugly pink bag back” and “Oh Little Miss Cake-face come to screw around with another boy, huh?”, “That’s that man-whore with her, you see that?” and many other nasty things that would be against the rules to type. Her red face couldn’t have reached a deeper shade, but she said nothing through her embarrassment. She bent down to try and grab her bag and the boy closest to her flipped up her skirt, causing her to squeak and reveal her pink panda panties again to the area. A roar of laughter erupted from the surrounding tables. “They really DO have pandas on them!” “What is she, like 12?”.

She took a deep breath and snatched up her bag, sitting on the floor and trying not to cry. This was the first time that SHE wasn’t the one doing the bullying. For the first time SHE wasn’t popular. She took a deep breath, stood, and ran back to Lochlann, stone-faced. She refused to cry, but her fists were clenched and she was biting her lip as she dragged her dirty foot-print covered bag back to where Lochlann was.

She giddiness was beaten down once again with anxiety and self-pity. She thought she would like this school, but maybe she wasn’t ready for highschool after all. Lochlann’s arm around her shoulder did little to comfort her at this point, the sadness and stress was building up inside of her and it made her heart hurt. She missed her parents, she missed her pet dog and her pet horses, she missed her mansion. She wanted to go home though she knew she never would be able to. All of her assets had been sold and put into a bank account for her when she turned 18. She would be FILTHY rich, but she would still have nothing and no one. It was a fact that she desperately struggled to shove into the back of her mind every day, though some nights she would lie awake crying in silence.

She probably knew better than most how little ‘I’m sorry for your loss’ really helped. Usually it just made her feel worse, more frustrated and un-scabbed wounds reminding her to be sad. The sounds around her sounded blurry and distorted as her mind shut down a little to cope with the anxiety, though Lochlann’s words still cut through the haze, she didn’t answer him or look up at him. She looked straight ahead with her dark-tear filled eyes, marching along without a single tear escaping. The apple thrown snapped her out of the daze for just a moment as she recoiled into Lochlann’s side, then looked up in amazement when the fruit didn’t collide with her head.

She took a shaky breath and continued to let him lead her along, trying to keep her breathing steady. She refused to cry. She’d really rather die right now than cry in front of Lochlann and all of these people jeering her and from the pain in her chest and her hazy vision and hearing she thought she just might. He spoke again, hesitating then motioning to the patio. She still didn’t say any thing. She was over stimulated and had been shown how weak she really was, not to mention very dark memories were beginning to swirl around in her brain. She just needed the quiet, she needed to sit down and right now she really needed Lochlann. She was aware of how lucky she was that he had been around, though she wasn’t aware of how unlucky she might be in the future. She barely managed to get a nod out in response to him.

Though unknown to her, she was fighting against a catatonic episode with all of her might.

After what felt like a million years, they had finally reached the patio and she practically fell in the nearest seat, letting her hands fall in her lap and her bag fall next to her, two fifty dollar bills falling out along with the makeup case they had been tucked into the side of. She stared down at her hands, trying to breathe. After a long moment she looked up and gave a smile to Lochlann, realizing that she might be disturbing him with her episode, though she truly hadn’t meant to. She looked back down and bit her lip, trying to bring herself back to reality. A drop of blood touched her tongue as she started to come back to reality.

She took the little bag from his silently, opening it and stuffing the two fifties inside without a second thought. “Thanks,” she spoke, then shoved the makeup baggie inside of her backpack. She was sure everything inside of it was probably broken from being kicked around. She’d have to buy an all new kit. Whatever.

She pulled herself together enough to sort of lean on the table. She was still in a bit of a daze but she was greatly less so. She sucked on her lip quietly for a long moment before taking a piece of corn bread and picking it apart slowly, watching Lochlann with a sort of amused face. “I haven’t had corn bread since…” she paused “awhile” Finishing in a quiet, disjointed way. Her eyes were now looking at the cornbread, a bead of blood had pooled between her lips as she sat with her mouth closed, refraining from eating for a moment while she got lost in her own thoughts.

She half-smiled at lochlann. “You call that barbeque sauce? I’ll have to make you some real barbeque sauce sometime” Her smile grew into a proud one as she snatched up a rib and took a vicious bite mocking him and smearing the barbeque sauce all over her face in the process. She laughed at him a little, wrinkling her nose at him with the rib still shoved in her mouth. She nudged about half of her food over to his side of the plate. “Eat you skinny thing before you fall through the cracks in the floor!” she teased him in a perfect southern accent before sticking a second rib in her mouth.

She paused in her teasing and munchery to think for a moment. Her heart still hurt thinking about these things, but she tried to push her feelings down no matter how suffocating it was. “Um… two weeks or something. Something happened and I had to transfer short notice, I was supposed to be going to a private school in Texas.” The only sign she showed of her true feelings about the situation was the fact she was no longer able to make eye contact, though it was hard to take her seriously with barbecue all over her face.

She found herself truly liking Lochlann more and more every second. With her very limited view of the world a boy who was willing to stand up for her, protect her and spend time with her was really all she could want or ask for. It hadn’t occurred to her that he might be hanging around for reasons other than genuine interest in her.


OOC: Munchery is now a word.

She laughed with him, most of the tension leaving her chest as she did. She let out a ltitle snort in her laughter, paused in embarrassment and then laughed even harder. She listened to him defend himself as she worked on her last rib, shoving the plate at him. She smiled at him in a good-humored mocking way. “If you think you ain’t skinny you ain’t never been to Texas.” She stuck her tongue out at him, letting her southern accent show through more than usual again. “But I think I like lean.” She winked at him, wrinkling her nose and smiling again.

She found herself looking at the rib bone in her hand. She had a habit of sucking on the marrow to get the sauce out, but she thought it might be misinterpreted so she refrained. The sauce was sort of pathetic anyway. She sighed. “Michigan huh? I haven’t really been there, I’ve been to New York though.” She paused, thinking. “So you’re from the states too huh? What’d you do to get sent here, bad boy?” She teased, not thinking much of it though she probably wouldn’t like it if someone had asked her the same question.

“Ugh I know how you feel!” she exclaimed dropping her rib bone to emphasize her point. “That’s exactly what I was starting to think. Like…” She sighed. “no matter what I can’t go back to Texas but like… if I leave here I doubt there will anywhere else for me to go. So really I cant leave.” It was hard to take her seriously with the reddish brown sauce smeared around her mouth.

She looked at him, slightly confused for a moment. “You mean… like this semester?” Oh man. Oh no. She couldn’t let him know how old she really was yet. She was sure he’d bail on her and refuse to hang out with her. That’s what all her old friends did. “I uh.. Hm. I am just really taking core classes this semester cause my aunt and uncle signed me up for them since I got a late start in the year and I wasn’t really around at the time to pick anything interesting.” She suddenly became very distracted by the sauce on her hands and mouth. She looked around for something to wipe her face before deciding to use part of the bag it come in to try and get some of it off.

It was something wonderful for her to be able to talk to him like this, talking back and forth and doing the awkward dance of teenage romance. She had almost forgotten about the fact that she wasn’t wearing any makeup and how stressful the day had been up until this point. Almost.

She felt really bad for asking. She sighed, looking a little sad. “My mom and dad died like two months ago,” She stated briefly, thinking to herself for a moment. “I suppose people dying brought a lot of people here.” She didn’t seem like she was going to break down. Perhaps she felt sort of numb at this point in the day, or more likely she was still partly in denial about the situation. She rested her chin on the table in a sad face for a moment before pushing the conversation forward.


“You know what we should do.” She slid her chair closer and closer to him with a mischievous look on her face. “You. Know. What. We. Should. Do. Lochlann.” Her face was turning red trying to hold back the laughter. She bit her lip trying to hold back the laughter. She leaned really close to him and whispered. “Let’s go be pirates.”

She could probably do it in all actuality. When she turned 18 she’d have more money than most people make in their entire lives four or five times over. Even if she just paid people to hide stashes of gold for them to plunder legally, she could do it. Why not? She literally had nothing else to live for with her… condition. She had no friends or family. Why the fuck not.

She grinned. “I’ll buy a ship and then we can plunder the Caribbean like in that one movie.” She grinned, her tongue sticking out between her teeth. She sat back in her chair, biting her lip, proud of herself. She gave him a slightly confused look as he snorted. “I guess you’re right. This is probably just a place to stick people with… whatever… so that people don’t have to deal with us for awhile.” She blinked as a thought occurred to her. “I wonder if like… um… Cause… You know how parents are like.. legally responsible for us till we’re 18 or whatever. What if they put us here so that someone else would be responsible for us till we’re 18 and then we’re just like… on our own?” she seemed like she was questioning herself more than stating it, looking up at the sky with furrowed brows. “I don’t know. This place is weird. Maybe they’re just gathering our DNA for experiments or doing experiments on us or something. I mean there has to be a reason why they even allow us to be here. I feel like it would be more of a liability than… like… having anything good come out of it, you know?” she gave him a questioning look, obviously seeking his opinion. “I dunno. Maybe I’m just dumb. This school is just super weird.”

She nodded. “I guess so yeah. I did gymnastics and stuff. Horseback riding for awhile and uh… some volleyball. Mostly gymnastics though. My mom had this crazy idea that I should learn to do like.. blanace beam stuff on top of my dad’s horses” She squinted at Lochlann as if to attempt to express her confusion, “But… That is more like circus performer stuff. I mean… It would be possible I guess if the horse was really steady.” She held her arm up, flat, moving it in front of her face. “But I am not sure that’s such a good idea. My mom always wanted to do stuff flashy like that. Like at one of my dad’s shows she lit the horse jumps on fire and dressed up the horse like a cowboy. Oh it was hideous. Oh man. One time.” Suddenly the story changed, her arm fell and she was grinning again instead of looking confused. “She had my dad’s motorcycle painted this neon green as a surprise for his birthday and had these weird lights put on under neither of it but he was sooo pissed.” She realized now that she had gone off on a weird, weird little tangent and fell silent, letting her words trail off sort of laughing awkwardly.

She cleared her throat after a minute and smiled sheepishly. "What about you?? I mean... do you do sport.. stuff?"