No Volume

Chapter 6

As soon as I entered my house I ran upstairs to decide what I was going to wear for the dinner, it was smart but casual which already ruled out half my clothes.

After an hour of trying clothes on I found a perfect outfit. A strapless black knee length dress with pink butterflies all around it with a black cardigan and black heels. I curled my hair and put on light make-up.

"Honey, are you ready?" My mum shouted, in an excited voice.

"Yeah. I'll be down in a minute." I grabbed my purse then headed down stairs.

I saw her dressed in black pants and a white blouse, you could tell that she took ages to prepare. She wanted to make a good impression on her new friends. My dad, who wore black pants and a pale blue dress shirt, shooed us into the car informing us that we were already late.

When we got there everyone welcomed us, well almost everyone.

"I'm so sorry were late." My mum said to Dawn.

"Its quite alright, the lamb isn't ready yet anyway." Dawn replied.

I saw my dad walk up to Dawn's husband and start a conversation. I heard someone shout my name. I looked up to see Ellie's head out of her bedroom window, the strong wind blowing her blonde curls everywhere, making her look like medusa.

"Dinner's not ready yet so come up here for a bit." She shouted. I just nodded and made my way up there.

I stopped when I reached Connor's room. I stared at the 'KEEP OUT' sign for a few minutes before the door opened and I jumped back in surprise. Connor looked as surprised as I did.

His dark hair was wet, making it even darker, I came to the conclusion that he had just had a shower. I nearly fainted when I saw that he wasn't wearing a shirt. My breath hitched as I stared at his well defined muscles on his naked torso.

My widened eyes met his forever cold ones, I then realised that he saw me check him out and immediately blushed.

I looked away from his eyes making sure not to meet them again.

"I...should...erm..." I pointed in the direction of Ellie's room. "Yeah...bye..."

I power-walked to Ellie's room and shut the door behind me. I leaned on the door and closed my eyes, breathing heavily.

"You ok?" She asked, bringing me over to sit down on her bed. "You look a little flushed."

"Yeah, I'm fine." Ellie looked like she didn't believe me but let it slip.

"Hmm, alrighty then. Wow, you look fabulous." She complimented as she admired my dress.

"Thanks. You look amazing too." I replied. She twirled around and flipped her hair. Obviously already knowing that she looked great.

She wore a dress similar to mine except hers was a very pale pink, almost white and it had thin straps, no butterflies.

Ellie started talking to me about something, but yet again my mind was diverted elsewhere. I wondered if Connor thought that I looked nice. Did he think I was pretty?

"Holly, are you ready?" Ellie asked patiently.

"What?" I asked absently.

"Dinner's ready now." Ellie said like I couldn't hear properly.

"Oh, ok." I followed her to the dining room. Everyone looked at us when we entered and I felt very self-conscious.

There were two seats vacant around the table, Ellie sat down in one and I was left with the chair directly opposite Connor. I inwardly sighed and sat down. Everyone then looked away and picked up their conversation's. However, I felt a pair of eyes still on me. I looked up to see it was, of course, Connor's.

We all got handed our dinner by Dawn.

"Thank you, it smells delicious." I said, truthfully.

"Your sweet, dear." She replied, with a smile.

I couldn't help but notice that Connor hardly ate anything. He just picked at little things. I felt terrible eating the whole plate of food so quickly I didn't even chew properly and he didn't even eat half of his.

"Honey, eat your food." Dawn whispered to Connor.

Connor just looked at Dawn for a split second before he looked back down at his untouched food and moved it around the plate with his fork.

"Connor, we have guests round. Please just behave and eat your food." She whispered sternly.

Connor stood up abruptly, knocking his chair on the floor. He picked up his plate of food and threw it at the wall behind me.

"CONNOR!" Dawn screamed. It was very strange, seeing her angry. She was usually a kind, pleasant, happy woman who always had a smile on her face. But at the moment, a smile was most certainly not what she had on her face.

Connor ran upstairs and into his room, making sure to slam the door. The next minute you could hear heavy metal music blasting from upstairs.

Dawn sat down on her chair and sighed loudly.

"I must say sorry on his behalf. I wanted to have a nice, peaceful dinner." She said, sadly. "And now its ruined."

"Don't worry about it. It's fine. We must go anyway. Thank you for such a lovely evening." My mum said before kissing Dawn on the cheek. She turned to me. "Be good sweetie."

I said goodbye to my parents then Ellie grabbed me and pulled me back to her room.

"Sorry about what happened back there. He always gets in moods over nothing. But you get used to it."

"Its okay, I was just a little surprised."

"Mum says that its part of his mutism. I think its just him being a typical teenager."

I smiled slightly and leaned back onto her bed and closed my eyes. Then I remembered a question that I wanted to ask her.

"Hey Ellie, whose Josh?"

"Oh...erm...nobody." It was blatantly obvious that she was lying.

"Ellie..."

"Fine. Basically he's the reason why Connors a mute."

I didn't say anything because I wanted her to elaborate. And she did.

"Let me start from the beginning. Connor and Josh were best friends. They were inseparable, you wouldn't see Connor without seeing Josh. It was quite annoying actually. Anyway, Connor was labelled as the 'bad one', the one who pulled pranks on everyone and who always ended up in fights. Josh was the 'good one' who told Connor to ease up, told him when he was going to far and to calm down."

I sat there listening quietly, anxiously waiting for her to continue with her story.

"He became more restless when he started drinking at parties. Josh was the one who stuck to coke and had to make sure Connor made it home ok. It wasn't fair on Josh, he couldn't have fun because he had to look after Connor. But that changed one night when Josh decided that he was young and shouldn't have to take care of his best friend, so he drank too."

I had a slight idea about what was going to happen and waited impatiently to see if my guess was correct.

"The party was at least three miles away from our house and they didn't want to walk home, they were beyond drunk. So, they must have stolen a car or something. Remember that they were only fifteen so they couldn't drive. Connor decided that he should drive because he was more sober than Josh, which was a total lie. They made it about half a mile before...before..."

Her eyes became watery. I gave her hand a gentle squeeze.

"You don't have to talk about it if you don't want to." I said, sympathetically.

"No, I want to."

"Ok, if your sure."

"Anyway, they made it half a mile before they hit a truck, head on. Josh went straight through the window and died almost instantly. Connor was left with only a broken collar bone and bruised ribs. As soon as Connor realised that Josh was dead he stopped talking. He blames himself for Josh's death. He turned depressed and tried to kill himself that week. He used dad's razor to cut his wrists. I found him just in time. The image still haunts me. I think he hates me for keeping him alive."

Tears poured out of Ellie's eyes.

"Oh Ellie." I gave her a hug and soothed her hair. "Its alright to be upset."

"No, I have to be brave. I hear mum crying at night sometimes. She just wants him to talk and to not be so blocked off."

I was still in utter shock from what I had just been told. I couldn't process it.

I fell asleep with Ellie sobbing quietly in my arms.

A/N: I know I have taken ages to update and I'm sorry. I struggled with this chapter. I wasn't quite sure how to word things so I hope I did alright. I'm not sure when I'll next update. I will probably update Concealed Truth before I do this story again. Sorry for any grammatical errors. Remember to REVIEW!

Thanks to:

redblackkittycat

bobbychu

Simplyerikah

GrannyP

MelGrl

Leela Shaw

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