Hannah Harrington - Speechless

All I want to do is scream, but I can’t. I can’t. I made a promise to myself. Talking is what led to this mess in the first place. If I hadn’t said anything, no one would have found out Noah is gay, and Warren and Joey wouldn’t have beat him unconscious. If I hadn’t said anything to the cops, they wouldn’t have been expelled and arrested, and I’d still have all my friends. My biggest worry would be the state of my hair at this point in the morning, or what I should use as the topic of my next column in the school paper, not wondering how I will possibly survive the rest of this semester.

I close my eyes and take deep breaths as the door swings open and two girls come in, chatting away about a Spanish grade, unaware of my presence.

“Hey, did you hear about Chelsea Knot?” one of the girls suddenly says. I recognize that voice; it’s Allie Dupree, Derek’s girlfriend. I hold my breath and listen hard.

“No,” the other girl says. “What about her?”

“Derek’s in one of her classes, and I guess she’s refusing to talk. Like, at all,” Allie explains. “She’s like a mute or something now.”

“She probably just thinks she’s too good to speak to anyone,” the other girl says.

“Wow, you really don’t like her.”

“Chelsea Knot is a total bitch.” The words ring a little louder than they normally would, bouncing off the tile floor and walls. “She’s the one who told everyone that time I got my period and stained my jeans. It was mortifying.”

I vaguely recall this incident, but cannot for the life of me remember the name of the girl. My stomach twists and I try to push the feeling down. It’s not my fault the girl made the mistake of wearing white jeans that week. Besides, it was funny. Can’t she take a joke?

“She’s so stuck-up, always acting like she’s better than everyone else in this school,” the girl whose name I don’t remember continues.

“Except for Kristen Courteau,” Allie points out. “Any farther up Kristen’s ass and she’d be able to see her tonsils.”

“Poor Kristen,” the other girl coos. “I can’t believe all that happened at her house.”

They continue talking, but their voices fade as they exit the bathroom, the door swinging closed behind them. I release a long, shuddery breath, willing my heart to stop beating so fast in my chest. Part of me wants to race after them and tell the two of them off, but the larger part of me is rooted to the spot, unable to move, and relieved they didn’t realize I was in here the whole time.

I guess I should get used to this feeling of being invisible. Almost everyone’s acting like I don’t exist at all, and the people who’ve acknowledged me—well, I wish they hadn’t. For once in my life, I wish everyone would just forget about me.

* * *

Ms. Kinsey is totally that cliché free-spirit art teacher you’re always seeing in movies. You know, with the crazy long curly hair and hippie skirts and Birkenstocks, and when it’s warm, she takes us outside to sit on the grass and sketch trees and shit. Last year a rumor went around that she’s a lesbian. I didn’t believe it until this one time Kristen and I went to the dollar theater across town and saw her there, holding hands with this really tall, willowy woman with short hair. Kristen thought it was both hilarious and gross, and spent an entire week cracking lesbian jokes at Ms. Kinsey’s expense.

Ms. Kinsey is a freak show, but she’s not so bad compared to my other teachers. I mean, she’s totally ridiculous and over-the-top, but even though she’s been teaching at Grand Lake for a long time, she’s not jaded and bitter like most of the veterans. And she’s always nice to me, even after I almost started a fire with the kiln last year in Intro to Ceramics. I’m not great with pottery, but I do enjoy drawing; I spend enough time sketching out different outfit ideas in my free time to pull out a halfway decent rendering of a flower vase or a bowl of fruit when necessary. Of course, Ms. Kinsey grades on such a wide curve that my actual skill doesn’t matter anyway. If I could ace Ceramics with my lopsided candle holders, I can no doubt pass General Art Studies. I can tolerate Ms. Kinsey’s obnoxious hippie persona in exchange for an easy grade.

I duck into the art room early, not wanting to linger in the halls and risk running into Kristen or Derek or Lowell or anyone else interested in making my life a living hell. It’s a long list. Going to the cafeteria for lunch was like being behind enemy lines. Everywhere I turned, there was someone glaring or pointing and whispering. I ended up sitting at the table where the Special Ed kids eat, and even they ignored me. Talk about humiliating.

Art is one of my only new classes. Last semester I had Keyboarding, a subject so tedious the only reason I didn’t kill myself to spare me the agony of Mr. Newkirk’s monotone was that I had Kristen to talk to. Thankfully she’s not taking art. No one I am—was—friends with is, as far as I know. At least I hope.

The art room is empty when I get there, save for Ms. Kinsey, who is erasing a chalk depiction of a pineapple off the board. This is the only room in the school equipped with an old-fashioned chalkboard; every other classroom has one of those glossy white dry-erase boards.

“Good afternoon, Chelsea!” she chirps pleasantly. So pleasantly I’m actually startled. “It’s good to see you. How are you doing today?”

Terrible. Horrible. Like I want to crawl under a rock and die.

Ms. Kinsey flashes me one of her full-on, thousand kilowatt sunny smiles. She’s the first person today to look like she’s glad to see me, and I feel a sudden, unexpected surge of gratitude toward her.

I smile a little and shrug, digging through my bag for my note. I can’t find it—though I do come across the detention slip and mentally berate Mrs. Finch for being such an uptight bitch. Finally I walk up to the blackboard and take a piece of chalk.

I can’t talk.

Ms. Kinsey frowns. “Oh, what’s the problem? Are you sick? Is it laryngitis?”

I shake my head and write on the board again.

I’ve taken a vow of silence.

I turn to see her reaction. She reads what I’ve written and then looks at me again, smiling.

“That’s very interesting,” she says, and she sounds like she actually does find it interesting, not like she’s mocking me. “What inspired this?”

I pull the National Geographic article from my pocket and hand it to her. She unfolds it, eyes scanning the wrinkled page, before her face lights up like the Fourth of July.

“Brilliant idea, Chelsea!” she exclaims. “I think it’s great that you’re on this voyage of self-discovery. If more people strove for spiritual enlightenment, the world would be a much better place for it.” She squeezes my shoulder with one chalky hand. Even though she’s totally off base (I’m not exactly sure what “striving for spiritual enlightenment” entails, really), after a day of no one being nice to me, I could just hug her anyway. Which is proof that I am totally losing it.

Other students start filtering into the classroom. I hastily wipe off the board and make a beeline for one of the workstations. The good thing about art class is that it is devoid of jocks and most populars. I’m here only because it’s the easiest elective available, and it sure as hell beats Shop (such a misleading title!) or Personal Finance (my only interest in money is spending it, not budgeting it).

If previous experience is any indication, the art freaks will be too consumed with fostering their existential angst and crafting abstract pieces out of coat hangers, Styrofoam, magazine cutouts and black paint (to symbolize their dark, tortured souls, of course) to heed me any attention. A few weeks ago I was comparing schedules with my friends and lamenting the fact that none of them had this class, but considering my new circumstances, I’m relieved. The tardy bell rings, and I think maybe, just maybe, I’ll finally be able to actually relax.