Tortured Whispers Read online

  Tortured Whispers

  ©2018 Danielle James.

  All rights reserved. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, place, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  TRIGGER WARNING

  This book contains self-harm and depression.

  This love story is only for the open minded and brave of heart. If you are squeamish or draw a hard line at strong themes, this book may not be for you, and that’s okay.

  Brooklyn…

  The first time I drowned was the scariest time. I’ll never forget the suffocating feeling of helplessness. Like my lungs were useless sacks.

  It was a normal September day and I was starting ninth grade. I went to my classes as usual and got pulled out during math for speech therapy. I used to need it daily in eighth grade, so I was excited that my dad bumped it down to once a week when I got to high school.

  My speech apraxia had gotten much better although I would always talk with what sounded like an accent and some words would never be pronounced properly. I still wanted to keep trying.

  I remembered that therapy session being routine. Nothing stood out. I went back to class and looked around for the teacher. I needed to give him my therapy summary. He wasn’t in the room though.

  Ashley Hartwell, a girl with a short pixie cut and doe eyes, stood to look at me. I remembered her name from roll call in homeroom. I thought she looked nice enough and when she stood the entire class stopped talking to look at her. I wanted to be her friend. She commanded the room. She was strong and probably popular.

  “W-w-where’s M-Mr. Parkew?” I asked her while the class looked on. I hated pronouncing any word that had an R. It automatically turned into a W.

  Heat climbed up my neck and I fought to hold her gaze. I hated the sound of my voice and I hated talking in front of people even more but my dad insisted that I step outside of my comfort zone.

  Ashley tipped her head back and laughed. It sounded wrong. It seemed to fill up the entire classroom. It was a contagious laugh that jumped from kid to kid until the entire room roared with laughter.

  That’s when I felt the water. Normally, the water was only in my head. It made words in my head get jumbled on the way out of my mouth but this time the water was engulfing me. Filling me up from the inside out.

  My cheeks warmed and I looked down at my shoes. They were denim ballet flats with a golden bow on top. “Oh my God,” Ashley said in a high-pitched voice. Everything about her said that she should have been nice. She had big innocent-looking eyes and a soft voice. Nothing about her was innocent or friendly though.

  “You’re a fucking retard,” she mused.

  More water. It sloshed out of my head and into my throat. It ran down my shoulders and arms and wrists and hands and…

  “Is that why you got pulled from class? So they could give you meds?”

  “She probably needed therapy. Fucking mental case.” Another boy looked at Ashley and scoffed his words out. He would have been handsome were it not for the ugly words spewing from his face.

  “Ew. Just what we need in this class. A crazy retard.” She moved closer to me and I wished the teacher would come back. Couldn’t anyone else see I was drowning? Water was swallowing me up. It was pouring out of me and filling up the classroom while everyone watched.

  I was cemented to the floor while Ashley approached with a crooked smile. “Aren’t you going to say anything, retard? Is your stupid tongue tied in a knot? Hmm? God. You can’t even talk. You should kill yourself now. Get it over with.” She shrugged with such ease and walked back to her seat. Everyone laughed, but I drowned.

  I drowned in front of the entire class and nobody helped.

  I was invisible.

  Mr. Parker came back, took my therapy summary, and barely looked twice at me. He dismissed the class and everyone filtered out without helping me. I don’t remember how I moved along from class to class but I remembered feeling weighed down. I remembered feeling like I was walking through water.

  At lunch, the water surrounding me muted the clamor of kids talking and laughing. I couldn’t suck in a full breath to save my life. I sat alone near the front by the door hoping to catch a breeze so I could breathe easier. It seemed the loneliness suffocated me just as much as the water did.

  “I guess this is where trash goes.” I looked up when I heard Ashley’s voice. It was just in time for her tray full of trash to crash down on my head. Chocolate milk soaked my hair and dribbled down my forehead. I hated my life at that moment. It was a stupid life and the universe would be better off without it.

  Teachers and administrators ran her off but she still laughed. The sound pierced the water around me and made it harder for me to breathe.

  Nobody could get me to speak after that. The school nurse called my dad to pick me up because I was consciously nonresponsive. I was scared to open my mouth because I’d either get made fun of or I’d sink all the way to the bottom of the water.

  I’d gone all day barely able to breathe. I’d gone all day feeling like an invisible anchor sinking to the bottom of the sea. I wanted to snap out of it but…I couldn’t. No amount of kind words or pep talks could pull me out of the water.

  Every breath was harder to take. I thought I was going to die. I knew I was going to die sitting there on my bed. I was desperate to feel normal. To feel like I could breathe again. To feel…anything.

  My dad was talking on the phone right outside of my door. I could hear his deep voice. Normally, it would soothe me but nothing could soothe me right then. I was numb. I’d been underwater for too long.

  I looked at my nightstand searching for something to save my life. If I didn’t find something I would be swallowed whole. I could feel the panic setting in. Dread filled my body like immovable boulders.

  A glint of light caught my eye. It was the smallest reflection and I’m not entirely sure where it came from but I grabbed it. My precision point tweezers.

  My heart thumped slowly even though I was buzzing with anxiety. It had to have been the effects of me drowning. I had to save my life.

  With shaky hands, I dragged the tip of the sharp tweezers against my wrist over and over until a trickle of red slid down my skin. A sharp gasp sliced through the quiet four walls of my room. I found myself looking for the culprit but it was me. I gasped.

  I could breathe again.

  The sting from the cut on my wrist drew my attention away from the feeling of drowning. Now, all I could focus on was the deep, warm burn pushing beneath my skin and into my tendons. I wanted more.

  I needed to be able to feel.

  I sliced across my wrist again and took another deep, calming breath. The water was gone. It wasn’t swallowing me whole anymore.

  It didn’t matter that the only thing I could feel was pain. I felt something.

  Once I could breathe, I dropped the tweezers and watched crimson trickle down into the lines of my palm. Pretty red raindrops racing to my fingertips. I must have cut pretty deep because the pain started to pulse along with my heartbeat.

  It was still better than drowning.

  “Brooklyn, your uncle is on the ph—” My father’s words were cut short once he saw my bloody wrist. “Oh my god, what have you done? Sweetheart…no.” Tears danced in
his dark brown eyes as he sank to the floor beside my bed. I didn’t know how to explain to him that I hadn’t tried to kill myself, though I flirted with the idea. I just needed relief.

  The relief that cutting gave me.

  The relief that made it easier to drown because at least I could pull myself out of it.

  The relief that kept me alive.

  **

  Brooklyn…

  Four years later

  Walking through the doors of Avery Briggs Alternative High School as a senior was totally different than walking through the doors as a freshman. As a senior, I was ready to get the hell out of there for good. It seemed like I was more aware of each second ticking by but only because I wanted them to tick by faster.

  The sooner I left school, the sooner I could take a moment to catch my breath. I could take my college classes online and find a job that required minimal talking and human interaction. I was already on the hunt for work from home jobs.

  I’d taken a few short-lived jobs working in customer service where all I had to do was chat with people and help fix their account problems but the jobs ended when they found out I was only seventeen. Well, I was eighteen now I planned to grab all the jobs I could.

  After that awful experience with Ashley Hartwell in ninth grade, my dad decided to move me to an alternative school. He didn’t fuck around. I loved that about him but during that time it meant the most. He didn’t tell me to toughen up. He didn’t excuse it away and tell me that some kids were just mean.

  He handled it.

  I didn’t speak much around people after that though. Even though my speech apraxia wasn’t severe, I still tripped over my words and couldn’t pronounce things the right way. The anxiety and depression were heavy enough to stop me from talking. It also meant I didn’t make friends but I was okay with that.

  Well, I did befriend a boy here and there. Long enough for them to get what they wanted and for me to realize sex wasn’t at all what everyone made it out to be. In the end, I still found myself searching for friendship. After a while, I knew it was all a fairytale. Girls like me didn’t have friends.

  The last time I wanted to be friends with someone, I got humiliated. It was an incident that was four years old but I still replayed the moment where I wanted to be friends with Ashley and kicked myself every time.

  Sometimes, I cut my arms while I thought about it. Cutting still helped me breathe through the water in my head. I didn’t cut nearly as much as I used to though. I used to do it seven or more times a day but now I only cut once or twice a day.

  I slid my books in my locker and caught a glimpse of one of the many silvery lines peeking from under my long sleeved shirt. I tugged the cotton down over the heel of my hand, popped my thumb through the hole in my sleeve, and slammed the locker closed before heading to homeroom.

  If I couldn’t find sleeves that came with thumb-holes then I usually cut them into my shirts so I could shield my scars from view. I hated the looks I got from people. Nobody ever said a word but their eyes always said enough.

  Fuck them.

  They didn’t understand the relief it brought me to cut. Cutting helped me breathe again. Maybe it was wrong but it soothed me the same way a pacifier calmed a baby.

  “Miss Powers, good morning,” Mr. Fontroy my homeroom teacher smiled at me and I smiled back. “Ah, ah. I’m not letting you walk into this classroom your senior year without speaking.”

  “Hi, Mr. Fontwoy,” I whispered and tucked away wisps of my hair that had fallen from my ponytail. My books slipped from my grasp a little because my palms were slick. I hated speaking and I hated when I mispronounced something so simple.

  I could say it in my head a million times.

  Mr. Fontroy.

  Mr. Fontroy.

  Mr. Fontroy.

  It sounded fine but the minute I opened my mouth to speak, it was like talking underwater. My lips and tongue betrayed me every damn time.

  “Very good, Miss Powers. Take your seat.” He gestured to the front of the class but I went straight for the back. Being in the back meant you were less likely to get called on to speak or read out loud.

  Once, in tenth grade, my teacher made me read an entire chapter out loud and I stumbled the whole way through. I cut for a week straight after that because each time I replayed the incident my lungs got tight and I felt water swallowing me.

  The interaction with Mr. Fontroy wasn’t that bad though. I could deal with that. I steadied my breathing and went on about my day.

  At lunch, I sat at a table near the back door. I stared down at my phone with the heel of my hand resting on my mouth while I tugged on the fabric of my sleeve with my lips. “Hey, Brooklyn,” Pia McClain sat in front of me like she always did. I don’t know when she attached herself to my side at lunch but she’d been coming to sit with me for at least two years.

  Every day was the same. She said hi and sat down, then she talked to me off and on the entire lunch period about stuff she found on her phone. I spoke very little and she seemed fine with it. Pia was the closest thing to a friend I had.

  “Hey, you seen this new challenge? It’s called Live Stream the Loser. It’s some stupid shit where extremely beautiful and popular people prank losers. God. We’re like sitting ducks,” she scoffed.

  I shook my head and pulled my sleeve from between my lips to glance at her phone. I was glad we were seniors and we’d be graduating soon. Kids were getting stupider by the minute. Everything was a goddamn challenge.

  I was born in the wrong era, I swear.

  I hated mumble rap, trap music, and shitty pop songs. I lived for the days of Hall and Oates and Phil Collins. I’d choose sitting my room, on the floor with a stack of cassette tapes and a boombox any day over overpriced headphones and Apple Music.

  Sure, the quality was amazing but sometimes perfection isn’t perfect. The hiss, crack and pop that came from forty-fives and cassette tapes gave me goosebumps. They were raw and flawed.

  They were like me.

  After school, I went home and pulled out my vintage Sony boombox. I’d found it in a thrift store underneath some toasters and VCR’s and only paid six bucks for it. It worked like a charm. I pulled out my tape box and sat cross-legged on the floor, letting my knees fall to the side.

  I stared at the box decorated with music notes and vinyl records then pulled the top off. Inside were rows and rows of tapes. I pulled out Big Bam Boom by Hall and Oates. I shut my eyes and put the tape in, letting the familiar clicks ease my anxious mind.

  School always made me anxious and jittery once I got home. My head filled with water and in order to stop myself from cutting, I needed to hear music.

  Music cut through the water in my head.

  It sliced through the liquid.

  Cut.

  Slice.

  Before the first song got started good I was rummaging through my nightstand drawer looking for a razor. I checked between the pages of my blank journal and didn’t see it in my usual hiding spot. I moved to the top of my nightstand and tipped my lamp over on its side.

  Fuck.

  That one was gone too.

  The water was filling up my head quickly.

  Think, Brooklyn…

  What’s making you so anxious? What’s really choking you?

  The entire day.

  Mispronouncing Mr. Fontroy’s name.

  Being a senior.

  Being alive…

  My throat grew tight and I tried to let Hall and Oates calm my beating heart but it wasn’t working. I didn’t realize how worked up I was. I found the bottom of my sleeve with my lips and nibbled on the fabric while I tore my room apart trying to find a razor.

  “Hey, Brooklyn.” I jerked my eyes up and looked at my father. He stood in my doorway, his gaze scanning the mess on my bed. I’d dumped out all sorts of little boxes and hiding places. Jewelry, paperclips, coins and other knick-knacks littered my comforter.

  We stood there staring at each other while an upbeat g
uitar played in the background over the boombox speakers. “I took them, Brooklyn,” he said, letting his head hang. He always looked so defeated. I did that to him. I drained my father. He didn’t need to tell me for me to know it.

  I drained everyone that tried to help and he’d tried the longest.

  Tears welled in my eyes and burned on their way down my cheeks. Shame was hotter than hell. It was hotter than any volcano eruption. It burned slowly from the inside out and made every skin cell on my body itch.

  “I knew you’d be like this today. I couldn’t bear to see the blood soaking your sleeves or caking beneath your nails.” His voice was quiet and he avoided my eyes. I’d avoid them too if I were him.

  I was broken and wicked.

  Sure, he told me all the time that I wasn’t but I knew better. Only someone broken and wicked would hurt themselves and pray for death instead of the strength to push forward another day.

  I sniffled and pushed strands of my black hair back. My ponytail was loose and hair spilled out everywhere. “I love you, Brooklyn. You know that right, sweetie?” Dad took one step into my room. He stood in front of me and I hugged myself, looking down at my bare feet. I hated that he knew how broken I was.

  “I know, Dad,” I said quietly.

  “Come downstairs to the kitchen. Your aunt Erica sent over some banana bread.” He smiled at me and the fine lines around his eyes fanned out making his smile look even deeper.

  I could still feel the scorch of shame burning me though. “I’ll be down in a minute,” I whispered, retreating further in my room and sitting on the floor beside my boombox. Dad nodded and left without a word.

  The thought of my aunt’s banana bread had my stomach rumbling. I loved to heat it up in the microwave and let it get soft. Aunt Erica always sent over a loaf on my first day of school.

  She started after my mother died because it was my mom’s favorite thing to bake. It was her way of keeping her sister’s memory alive. I usually appreciated it too.

  After my first drowning experience freshman year, that banana bread was the only thing I would eat.