Page 74 of Echoes of a Silent Song

I guess that meant another day had arrived.

Time to start thinking up more reasons why I needed to stay home from school and in bed like I had every day for the past week.

Had it even been a week?I wasn’t sure.Time meant nothing anymore.All that had meaning were my pillow and my blankets and the nauseating pink floral patterns everywhere in my room.

Lying here, surrounded by all those pink flowers, made me feel like I was at my own funeral.

Or at the very least, the funeral for my dreams.

Every time I closed my eyes, the crisp white paper loomed large.

Competitive candidate ...

Regret to inform you ...

Wish you the best ...

It was supposed to be another acceptance letter.Victor and I were supposed to be celebrating together.Planning our future as composers together.Victor Nelson and Iris Nelson.That was supposed to be the marquee.

My not getting in?That wasn’t part of the plan.

I grieved it for a while, but grief had faded to numbness.It was likeall the life force had bled out of me.I had no energy.No enthusiasm.No will to face the endless march of monotonous days.

As promised, I’d called Victor with the news, about an hour after I’d received the letter.

“I didn’t get in, Victor.”

“What’s that, Iris?I can’t hear you.My parents are fighting again.Mom thinks Whitehall is great news, but the old man is drunk again.I can’t wait to get out of here.I guess I can start counting the days now, can’t I?”

“You can.But I can’t.Victor ...I didn’t get in.”

“You didn’t?”

“Nope.”

“Oh.I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Me too.”

“Hey, listen, Iris, I gotta go.The fighting just got louder.I don’t know how much more of this I can take ...”

I’d walked away from the phone.I wasn’t even sure I’d hung it up.I’d just gone upstairs to bed, and that was the last time I’d been downstairs.

I spent the whole next day in bed.Told Mother I didn’t feel well.She was a germaphobe, especially when she had some important social function coming up, which was pretty much always.As expected, she’d barely even come into the room.

Flora had taken care of me.Brought me soup.Set it on a tray next to my bed, and then did that mom thing where she felt my forehead.I could tell by her skeptical expression and gentle clicking of her tongue that she didn’t buy I was sick.

“Please don’t tell anyone.I can’t face the world.Not yet.”

“I get it, Miss Iris.I know the darkness.This too shall pass.Soon you’ll be free from all this.”

But it hadn’t passed.And I wasn’t free.The cloud had descended.Spinning and dark and whirling until I wanted to scream.But screaming wouldn’t help.It’d just make it worse, and it’d worry my parents.If they were even capable of worrying about me as a person and not just something to prop them up and make them look good.

The second day, I begged off school for cramps.Not a lie—I did havethem.But they weren’t as debilitating as I’d made them seem.Mother had just sighed and walked away.She apparently didn’t have the time or energy to deal with me.

I lost track after that.There was a weekend in there somewhere, I think, but without the anchor of church, Sunday came and went unnoticed.I had no idea what time or day it was.My life was just an endless, infinite loop of bad.That was all it had ever been.Bad and bad and nothing but bad, and on the rare occasion something good happened, it was only a matter of time until it too turned bad.

Victor hadn’t come to see me.Not that I really wanted to see him.I didn’t want to look him in the face, to know that his dreams were coming true and mine had crumbled to dust.He might have called a couple of times, but Mother wouldn’t let me talk to him.“If you’re too sick to go to school, then you’re too sick to talk to your friends on the phone.”Which was fine.What on earth would I have said to him?