MUTED
Every life, every soul, and every person each receive their own share of hardships. Some can rise above them, conquering life without fear. Others fall beneath the weight, crushed under their own uncertainties and self-depreciation. Most people believe that someone can only follow one of these two paths, that we can only pass or fail. But I know better. It is said that among the strong and weak, a few exist that stand in silence, neither rising nor falling, instead choosing to bear the weight of life and carry it with a quiet strength and wise heart. They are formed by one major hardship early on in their lives, and then spend the rest of it locked inside their own worlds. I am one of these people. We are the muted.
"Bella! Come on and hurry up, you're gonna be late again!" Renee calls up to me just as I finish brushing my teeth. I stomp twice so she knows I heard her before running a brush through my snarled locks and knot it into a bun as I rush down the stairs.
I wave goodbye and throw her an "I love you" sign before rushing out the door and jumping into my car. A quick look in the rearview as I buckle up shows a properly plain girl with dark brown hair, brown eyes, and contrastingly pale skin. A double check of my black t-shirt, black hoodie, dark jeans, and dirty converse eases my fear of standing out too much so I throw the car into reverse and head down the highway to school.
You see, here in the town of Forks, tucked away in rainy Washington state, it's never good to stand out. When living in a small town where everyone knows everyone, anything different that happens like a girl moving to town, turns into big deal. Then you throw being flashy or otherwise overly noticeable and bam, you're the center of attention. Maybe for some that's nirvana, but that's not for me. So I blend, as best I can anyway being new and mute, or mute by choice as my doctors say.
That's right, shit happened a long time ago; and I decided if no one's gonna listen then I'm not wasting my breath. Two years ago it seemed like a brilliant plan, now not so much. The problem, you ask? I can't remember how to talk. Sure, I've seen speech therapists and psychoanalyst freaks, but all they've done is talk down to me and say I'm just being childish and immature. Thankfully Renee found me, otherwise I'd still have to be poked and prodded like some alien science project.
Renee's my foster mom, number 9 to be exact, though I did have two moms in one home. Tanya and Irina were pretty cool, if only Irina was straight vegetarian instead of falling for a meat head like Laurent. I mean sure he was French and kinda hot, but still. At one point I also had multiple female caregivers in an orphaned girls' home. Anyway, Renee turned out to be the best of all of them, telling the doctors to take a vacation in hell and just let me figure everything out for myself.
So now here I am, in a tiny town under gloomy clouds and the closest to happy I've been in 9 years. Too bad fate decided it's time to deal me a new hand, and this one's not so easy to solve: Love.