Chapter 1
Sixty seconds
Before opening their nightstand and taking out the paring knife they had used many times before, Silence left a note on the kitchen table made of mahogany. The table was the sort of table that only the wealthiest and most obnoxious people would ever buy. And the letter was a final pointless fuck you to the people who let Silence down time after time. But it was not meant for the one that did love them, and they hoped the boy, their brother, would forgive them.
Now, they sit before the floor-length mirror with gold trim in their bedroom, stripped of their clothing and denuded of their pride, pretending they cannot hear the boy banging on their bedroom door, and demanding they come and read the Rainbow Fish, to him.
They stare at their naked reflection. Once again, they are wretched. Their face does not feel like their face, and the body now belongs to someone else. And the Silence in the mirror, who looks back at them, who whispers terrible things and encourages them to commit abominable acts, is the only part of them that seems left untouched.
They were tired and weary of adults- almost all seemed convinced that children were liars and they had spent too long trying to find the place in the world where their 15-year-old self-fit. It was exhausting.
Yes, they had cut their flesh open before and painted their thighs with the blood, but this time was different because there was no longer an internal voice that would beg, caution, and remind them that they were of value.
Now, there was only one that rampaged and prayed for vengeance. It wasn't like they had not tried to speak. Silence had. But they'd been told to go away and that someone like them had most certainly encouraged it. Their friends knew, but what could they do? The students they went to school with learned of it. Because no one gossiped more than a high school student and no one pricked their ears up more than a teacher zeroing in on a suspicious conversation, the teachers also knew, but they had drawn their conclusions about what must have really happened.
The boy is still knocking on the door demanding they play with him, and Silence cannot help but smile at his persistence. But the smile falls from their lips as they consider what his life will be like- after.
Silence rises from the floor hesitant. If they do not go out to play with their brother, he will climb the fridge to fetch the master key to their bedroom. It is because they have each other that they can distinguish between pure adoration and distilled hatred, but the sotto voce is still there, reminding them that no one believed them and it would be best if everything stopped.
In sixty seconds, they will make their decision.
