Amy Hardesty

In the Silence

It was starting to get dark; the kind of dark that gradually transitioned between oranges, blue and deep violets before connecting with the clouds above. The medley of colors reflecting on the pond reminded Tilly of the watercolors that once adorned the walls of her mother’s bedroom.

As Tilly plucked scab after scab of paint off of the reclaimed hardwood dock that had probably only been painted two years ago, she reflected on the past year. She thought about her presumed inadequacy throughout her senior year of high school. It was like she passed through this town invisibly, leaving her mark on nothing and on no one. Even her teachers were blissfully unaware of her existence. None of them bothered to remember her name after she transferred to this town. Tilly moved in with her new foster family on the first of September. It was the third anniversary of her mom’s accident so the date just stuck with her.

Tilly sat there on the dock with her toes flirting with the water until it reflected like black glass. The warm air had become entangled with the cool air that was rising from the water and left a mist suspended over the pond like the schmutz that has been collecting on her bedroom window.

The thought reminded her that she needed to get back to the house. Tilly put her ragged, black Converses on and began trudging through the small strip of wood dividing the pond and the dirt path where she had left her bike. As she straddled it and started pedaling towards the diner where she worked on the weekends, the wheels made a creaking noise that both startled her and filled her with pride. This bike was hers. She worked to save up and pay for it. It was something that was all her own. With each creak she was filled with more pride.

All of the bumps and holes in the dirt path were impossible to see in the pitch-black shadows. “Great night to choose to head into the middle of nowhere,” Tilly thought to herself. She should have known better, but she needed to get out of that house. The silence that hung in the air was stifling, however, that wasn’t the case by the water. It was a peaceful silence that she never had the desire to scream at the top of her lungs to break.

As she stretched her twig like limbs to pedal, Tilly counted the days until she could leave this wretched town. Ten days until she turned eighteen, and she never planned on looking back. Since Tilly was going to be a ward of the state when she turned eighteen, she was fortunate enough to receive a tuition waiver for college. Why she was going, Tilly didn’t really know. It’s not that she hated school; it just wasn’t her favorite thing in the whole wide world, but she knew that in the long run it would be benefit her.

Before she knew it Tilly had reached the stretch of road that ran through town. It was like the back roads barely enough for two cars to drive on with no center-line until you got about a mile outside of town. The townsfolk had dubbed it “Wrecking Road.” It was no surprise. There had been about two accidents a month and a few fatalities on this short stretch of road since Tilly moved to town. Sometimes she wished that someone would hit her and put her out of her misery.

“No one cares about me, so why should I care about myself?” she asked herself for the thousandth time that day. As the last words lingered on her lips, a pair of headlights came around the bend and nearly blinded her. A few quick seconds of trying to adjust left Tilly teetering on the edge of the road before she slid into the embankment. The driver must have noticed because Tilly heard the screech of tires braking and the glow of red brake lights cast unto the oak trees. She heard the pattering of footsteps rushing in her direction as she tried to free herself from her bike, but her leg was stinging with cuts and asphalt burns, and her head throbbed as if she hit the pavement when she fell.

“I’m so sorry. Are you okay? Do you need a hand?” he said in a gentle, Southern voice. It was more Southern then Tilly had grown used to.

Tilly replied with, “I’m okay,” in a way that seemed more spiteful than true.

“Let me give you ride to town. It’s the least I could do.”

“Seriously dude? I said I was okay, so why don’t you just leave me alone?” It was the first time she had snapped at a stranger in awhile.

“Look I’m sorry. I didn’t see ya and just figured you might need a lift.” Tilly pushed the bike off of her left leg and tried to stand. Her leg was stinging and the skin was pulling open her cuts to the brink of bleeding. She could feel the warm blood starting to travel down her leg. She resisted the urge to inspect her wounds, but he didn’t.

“Let me get you something to clean that up. I have a first aid kit in the back of my cab,” he said.

“Okay, fine,” she said.

He turned away from her and started walking back to his truck, and she couldn’t help but notice the way he carried himself. There was an ease in the way that he walked, as if the troubles of the world had no bearing on him. Tilly vaguely remembered her dad having the same air about him. She missed him and yearned to have that feeling of ease in her life again. Tilly saw him searching through his cab and made up her mind that she would take him up on his offer to drive her back to town.

He came strolling back to where she was standing with the first aid kit and a water bottle in hand. He flashed a smile that made her green eyes twinkle. “Sit down and I’ll get you cleaned up,” he said as he knelt to the ground and popped the lock on the box. He pulled on a pair of blue latex gloves with the snap of rubber against his skin that sent particles of cornstarch into the air.

Tilly sat with her right leg tucked under her knee. “So?”

“So what?”

“I guess it would be nice to know your name.”

“My name is Tucker but everyone calls me Tuck.”

“Well it’s nice to meet you Tuck. I’m Tilly, short for nothing. Thanks for cleaning me up and…”

“And what?”

“I think I will accept that ride to town. My leg is kind of burning.”

He replied, “I’d be honored. Like I said it’s the least that I can do.”

“Well, I appreciate it.” Tilly’s words just seemed to float in the air as Tuck fell into a rhythm of pouring water over her wounds, applying pressure, and sticking Band-Aids on her leg in a haphazard fashion. Tilly just watched him as he took care of her. It was the first time that someone had done that since her mom had passed. As Tuck started to pick up his mess of bandage wrappers and throw them into a bag before shedding his gloves to offer her a hand up, Tilly noticed the birthmark on the inside of his left wrist. It was nearly the perfect representation of a child’s drawing of a seagull. The oddity of it intrigued her.

Tilly was reaching for her bike when Tuck told her to go ahead and head to the truck. He’d load it into the truck bed for her. She winced as she stepped towards the green pickup that was still playing music as she neared it. Wait, she recognized that song, but she couldn’t place where she had heard it. Tilly grabbed the cold, metal handle, swung the door open, and climbed into the cab that had a faint smell of vanilla tip cigars and dirt. She heard him heave her bike into the back with the sound of metal on metal echoing several times before disintegrating into nothingness. Tuck hopped into the cab with her and turned over the engine.

They sat in silence for a couple of minutes, not an awkward silence but a stillness of minds that needed no words to connect the two. Tilly watched as the oak trees started to dwindle and the road started to become wider. While they drew closer to town, Tilly gazed at Tuck as the lights shifted across the planes of his face. The light brought a definition to his cheeks and his jawbone that were both rigid and delicate at the same time. As if someone had molded them with their own hands.

She could see the neon sign for Eli’s Diner still aglow down the street.

“You can drop me off right up here,” she said.

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah.”

He pulled up to the curb and put the truck in park. They both cracked their doors open before retracting back towards each other. For the first time, they could actually see each other clearly. No darkness, no shadows. Two faces lit with a promise of hope.

“You know I work here on the weekends. Why don’t you stop by tomorrow?”

“Oh thank God. I wanted to ask, but the words just wouldn’t put themselves into sentences. They just stayed stagnant in the back of my throat,” Tuck replied.

“Say 6’ish?”

“Sounds perfect.”

“Great.” With that Tilly grabbed her bike from the truck bed, with a smile across her face and more energy than she knew she had. She stuck her head inside the window and said, “I’ll see you tomorrow then.”

“Tomorrow,” he said with the smile that made her eyes twinkle again. Somehow Tilly knew that tomorrow was going to be the day that she was going to leave her mark because now there was someone she could leave it on. The thought that someone wanted to actually know her comforted her in a way that nothing ever had before.