Levi reared back until his face hovered above mine. He stared down at me, gave me a gentle kiss, then said, “You make it easy to only see the good.”

“Levi,” I whispered and he moved to lie beside me. As I lay beside him, warm in his arms, I knew I needed to be braver. I needed to give him more like he gave me. I needed to be the girlfriend he deserved, proud on his arm, not the one he had to lock away, hiding her voice from the world.

I ran my hand up and down Levi’s arms, and said, “Levi?”

“Mmm?” he murmured sleepily.

“That football dinner?”

“Yeah?” he replied, his voice more alert.

“Do you want me to go with you?”

I held my breath waiting for his answer. Levi lifted onto his elbow and searched my face. His eyebrows were pulled down. “You wanna come?”

I swallowed. “If you want me there… if you want me by your side, I’ll be there.”

He sucked in a breath, then I lost mine when a huge smile lit up his face. “Yeah,” he nodded, leaning down to press three kisses up and down my cheek, “I want you there,” he said and I could hear the happiness in his voice. “I really want you there.”

I blushed, ducking my eyes. “Then I’ll be there.”

Levi nuzzled his face into my neck and pulled me to spoon against him. I closed my eyes, and felt some of the weight that always held me down, lift.

I’d told him half of my story, but not it all. Clara’s face came to mind and I knew I’d be at the center as much as I could.

Maybe, I thought, just maybe, by helping her through, I might finally find the strength—find my strength—to tell it all.

Entirely.

Unbarred.

Without it killing me inside.

Maybe.

* * * * *

A week and a half passed. The days I didn’t spend with Levi, I came to the center and sat with Clara. Each time I lost more and more hope. If there was a living embodiment of a soul destroyed, it was Clara. She would sit at the window, staring out at the river, and I would sit beside her. She would make small talk, she would occasionally smile, but I was convinced it was all contrived.

Nothing I said or did seemed to lift her from her depression. It began to destroy me that I couldn’t give her hope. Lexi and Celesha told me not to be disheartened, not to give up, but to keep trying. I was at a loss; it seemed like her inner light was fading with every passing day.

The rain came down hard as I walked into the sunroom, the heavy drops ricocheting off the glass roof. I clutched my old notepad to my chest, and took my usual seat beside Clara.

“Hello, Elsie,” she signed, without looking my way. Her eyes were back on the river, watching it rush by, the current strong, swollen by the heavy rain.

I placed my notepad on the table beside us, and moved into her line of sight. “How are you today?” I signed.

Clara lifted her hands and signed, “Okay.”

I sighed. It was the same answer she gave every day. It was the answer she gave to most enquiries, ‘okay’. It was as frustrating as ‘nice’ or ‘fine’.

My nerves built as I stared at the notepad sitting on the table. I hadn’t spoken to Clara about my time in the group home; I hadn’t spoken to anyone. I hadn’t spoken to anyone, had not disclosed my personal horror and shame. Though I’d definitely opened my heart and poured out my soul to something—that notepad.

After days of being unable to explain or help, or to tell her it would be okay—because I wasn’t sure it would be, I wasn’t sure that it’d ever be—I knew I had to try something different. I had no words for her to hear, my sign language was too rusty to express what I wanted her to know—that I understood. Everything. I understood it all.

The words from my heart were my best shot at helping her, at saving her from the gathering dark.

I looked to Clara whose head was resting back on the chair, and I waved to get her attention. Her sad, lifeless eyes rolled to me. I lifted my hands. “I know you have probably heard it a million times, but I want to tell you that I do understand.” Clara didn’t react, but she continued to watch me. This was progress.

I tapped my finger on the notepad and signed, “I was fourteen when I was taken into care. And I was sixteen when the bullying began.” Clara shuffled forward an inch. That solitary inch gave me the hope to spur on.  “Like you, I didn’t talk, but I wrote. I wrote all of my feelings in prose, in poems.” I paused. “I had to, or I wouldn’t have been able to cope for as long as I did.”

Clara frowned. I pointed to the notebook again. “Read it,” I signed. “These are the poems from my darkest times. How I felt when I was alone, when I had no one to turn to, and nowhere to go. When I felt like I couldn’t go on.”

Clara’s eyes dropped to the notepad, then flicked back to me as I rose from my seat. “I’m going to take a walk, then I’m going to come back. Please read this if you want to. Then perhaps we can talk, if you want to.”

I walked off, feeling like I was leaving a large part of my soul behind. But I kept one foot moving in front of the other, praying to God that something in that book would help her. Something, about the hell I went through, would show her she wasn’t alone.

I walked and I walked; I couldn’t stop. I walked through the busy rooms, waving at the teens who were seeking help and healing their hearts. I walked out to the covered gazebo in the yard and I sat down. I sat for as long as I possibly could. I stared at the river rushing by, cradling my hands around my waist as the wind whipped through my hair.  I wondered what made it so fascinating to Clara. I wondered if it would fascinate me too, if I’d never be gifted sound. Would I spend hours wondering what it sounded like? Would I too become lost in its rhythm?

My leg started bouncing, and I couldn’t sit here anymore. Getting to my feet, guessing that a good ninety minutes had passed, I headed back into the sunroom to see Clara’s brown hair leaning back against the chair.

I approached slowly and cautiously, more out of fear of her having read my poems than how she would be. Then I heard a soft sniff. I turned to face Clara sitting on her chair, and my heart broke in two when I saw her cheeks were wet and her eyes were red.

My book was clutched to her chest, open on a page.

“Clara?” I signed. “Are you okay?”

She watched my hands, and then nodded her head. I sat down before her and she lowered the notepad, resting it on her lap.

“This one,” she signed, then patted her hand over her heart, “It is me,” she added, a tear falling from her puffy eyes. “This poem is me.”

I flicked my gaze down to the poem, and I stilled. It was the one I used to read most. The one that tore me apart. The one I’d written at the worst of Annabelle’s taunts. The one I wrote just before I succumbed to their cruelty.

“Clawed Heart,” I mouthed on seeing the scribbled title of the poem. Clara nodded her head and I watched as she started reading from the first line:

“Spears from mouths, they fire at will,

Malicious and sharp, with poison they fill.

The venom is fast, destroying the vein,

Melting the flesh, racking with pain.

Invading heat, like rivers it flows,

Eyes firmly set, the place it hurts most.