Deadly Silence (complete) Chapter 31

“Hey girl!” A chipper voice broke through Vivian’s thoughts as she closed her locker and stood up.

Turning, Abby’s smiling face was only a foot away, giving the raven-haired girl a start. “Oh. Hi, Abby.”

“Try-outs are next Friday, and I expect you to be there, mm’kay?” The blond giggle, pushing a piece of paper at Vivian before someone else caught her attention. “Hey girlie!” She cried out again, waving a hand before disappearing into the crowd of students, leaving Vivian feeling like a whirlwind had passed by.

“I guess she didn’t see me,” Miriam muttered loud enough for Vivian to hear but no one else.

The paper was a brightly designed advertisement for the cheer team try-outs with date, time and location all noted, along with a few other details on what was expected of those attending.

“Come wearing your best work-out clothes and a smile?” Vivian read out loud, not sure how to feel.

“Appearance is everything,” the auburn-haired girl shrugged a little as she leaned against the lockers. “Well, that and your bank balance.”

“I wonder why she thinks I’m interested in this.”

“Well…” Miriam trailed off a little as they began making their way to next period. “No one really knows who you are, so she’s probably covering her bases if you turn out to be some uber rich chick.”

“You mean the rumour that I’m the Devreaux sister?”

Vivian’s blunt question gave the other girl pause. “Th-that’s not… what I meant. I mean… you could be but…”

“You don’t care if I am or not,” Vivian pointed out as her friend continued to stumble over her words.

“Well… no. I mean, yes. I mean… Look. If you are, then I’d understand if you ditched me, but I don’t want you to think I’m being nice because you might be her.”

“I think you’re forgetting that our backgrounds are a lot more alike than you think.” Watching Miriam closely, Vivian gave the girl a gentle poke. “I wasn’t born with money, and I’m still not some rich kid. I was probably raised in families more like yours than Abby’s.”

The girl had some confidence issues when it came to other people, Vivian noted, wondering just how much of an outcast she was among the students for her to feel that way.

Did everyone here really judge others by the size of their bank account? It was ridiculous.

“Besides, I’m not chipper enough to be on anything with the word ‘cheer’ in the title,” Vivian continued, letting the page slip from her fingers into the nearest trash bin.

“She isn’t gonna like you standing up her invitation…”

“So? People don’t always get what they want in life.”

They rounded a corner in the hall and a sudden force rammed into Vivian, sending her sprawling backwards onto the floor with a thunk.

“Ahh, shit, sorry,” a voice apologized as laughter rang out around them.

Opening her eyes, Vivian stared up into a pair of hazel eyes belonging to a boy. His brown hair was incredibly messy, but his smile was both bright and apologetic.

“You need to watch where you’re going, Theo,” Miriam admonished the boy as she shoved him out of Vivian’s view, replacing him with her worried face. “You alright?”

“Yeah, it just startled me,” Vivian nodded, accepting the offered help in returning to her feet.

“I’m really sorry,” the boy, Theo, said again as he passed Vivian the books she’d dropped when he’d run into her. “I’m in a rush and wasn’t paying attention.”

“It’s fine,” she told him with a wave of a hand. “I’m fine. Don’t worry about it.”

“I’ll make it up to you!” He offered, a grin spreading over his face as he took a step back. “I’ll buy you dessert at lunch today, alright? My treat.”

“What? No, that’s fine. Really. Don’t worry about it.”

“See you at lunch!” He repeated with a wave before dashing off down the hall.

“What just happened?” Vivian wondered out loud.

Miriam let out a sigh. “That was Theo — Theodore McCullough. He’s on the track team with Laurent — the Devreaux boy? — and most of the guys from that table in the cafeteria.”

“He seems… energetic…”

Letting out a laugh, Miriam couldn’t help but agree. “He always seems to be on the move doing something. He’s also a decent guy, gets along with everyone from what I know.”

“Is he actually going to buy me dessert at lunch?”

“Probably,” she shrugged, “I wouldn’t worry about it too much. He’s harmless.”

Vivian kept her mouth tightly shut instead of voicing the thought that went through her head. It’s always the harmless ones you have to worry about the most. The overly nice ones are always hiding something bad.

“Come on, we’re gonna be late!”

They did end up being a minute late to their next period, but the teacher allowed them entrance after giving the girls a stern lecture on punctuality in the real world.

Soon enough it was time for lunch and they found themselves sitting in the same spot as the previous day. Vivian had spent the entire period wondering if Theo would actually keep his word, or if it was just another teen saying what had to be said for forgiveness in the moment.

Miriam chatted away about her mother’s recent attempt at cooking — spoiler alert, they ended up ordering pizza — as Vivian only half listened. It bothered her more than she’d admit, that she’d turned down the offer of dessert only for the boy to double down. If he didn’t show after ignoring what she’d said, what sort of person did that make him? What sort of person did it make her?

Would that mean she’s gullible, because she couldn’t help but expect him to follow through at this point even though lunch was already half over? Why was she so stuck on this?

Letting out a groan, Vivian laid her forehead on the table.

“Uh… Vivian? You alright?”

She let out another groan, unsure how else to convey her current mental state.

“… I don’t speak in onomatopoeia.”

“In what?” She asked, lifting her head enough to look over at Miriam, who was watching with concern.

“It’s, uh, like bam, or boom. Words that are also the sounds things make?”

“Oh.” Vivian put her forehead back on the table. “I don’t know.”

“What’s bothering you? You’ve been kinda zoned out for a while.”

Opening her mouth to explain, Vivian shut it before a single word came out. Whatever she said had to be worded in such a way Miriam would find too dull to share with anyone else. The last thing Vivian wanted to deal with was being the topic of gossip.

Slowly, she raised her head back up and sighed. “It’s nothing. I’m just overthinking my entire life.”

“Are you getting pressure at home to do well in school?”

Not really, Vivian thought to herself before speaking. “I’m expected to do my best, which is a bit too arbitrary a term if you ask me. What does it even mean, ‘do my best’? What if my best is a C? Is that actually acceptable to them, or do I actually need Bs? As?” This worry wasn’t a lie — she had thought about this as she tried to fall asleep the night before. She knew her best, by public school standards, averaged at A-, give or take, but by private school designed for the rich standards? Who knew if she could maintain that average when the curriculum here produced students who were accepted into prestigious universities the world over.

Most of Vivian’s schools prided themselves on students gaining entrance to the local community college — not that there was anything bad about wanting a vocational post secondary education, it just wasn’t seen the same by the people in the world she now found herself part of.

“I get it,” Miriam sighed this time, resting her elbows on the table. “My mom has always demanded I have perfect grades, perfect attendance… I’m supposed to be the perfect student so when I graduate I’ll have my pick of top universities with full ride scholarships to pursue a PhD.”

“Isn’t that… a bit much to expect from a kid?”

“You’re telling me…”

Vivian was glad none of her guardians had demanded such perfection from her, and even Samuel hadn’t said anything to that extent. “What do you want to do when you graduate anyway?”