Others

Sometimes bravery is as simple as a few words. And sometimes those we love make cowards of us.

The sound of the slap echoed around the room. That was how it would be described in a novel, if this was a novel. If Laura had been able to do it. Instead she sank further into her chair and pretended she wasn’t in the room.

All that meant was that the world kept spinning, and the words kept coming. The potato and leek soup thickened as it cooled, specks of chives or leek or tarragon or some kind of herby thing floating to the top of the pale liquid. Laura’s spoon dipped into the bowl, scooped up a spoonful. Lifted halfway to her mouth, then back into the bowl. Stirred. Putative herbs disappeared beneath a wave of starchy, creamy soup, swamped by the slow roil of the steadily cooling dish.

“None of them should be allowed out; it’s disgusting. This is what happens when you give those kinds of people free reign.”

Half her bread roll was gone; it had been tasty, at the time. Now it tasted like drywall plaster, the last few crumbs clinging to the roof of her mouth. The rest of the drywall roll was scattered over the bleached-bone-white china plate. Crumbs, crumbs, crumbs.

“Of course, now they’ll start to see what we’ve known all along.”

Not me, Laura wanted to say. I didn’t. But she stuffed her mouth with a piece of bread, stuffed the words back down and choked the whole dead, dry bolus of carbs and concern and a certain sick feeling down, swallowing hard.

So many people hadn’t, Laura knew. Didn’t. But it was so much harder to say those words when you knew no-one would listen. They’d hear, of course. No way to stop them hearing, and no way to stop herself hearing what they’d say in return, even when they hadn’t said it yet. The walls would come down, unleashing a slow burning flow of lava that would eat her away and burn below her skin, and no-one would see or know or care. Because they were just saying the same things they’d always said, and she was listening for what felt like the first time, and—

Ripples scattered on the surface of her potato soup.

“You feeling okay, Laura?”

She nodded, splashing tears from the tip of her chin onto the tablecloth, where they left small dark stains.

“Too…” Her voice caught, hiccupped and tripped over its own feet. Lies, lies, lies, the whole table filled with lies and her just adding to the pile, her cowardice shrinking away to hide beneath a safe blanket of untruths. “Too much pepper.”

“Silly sausage,” was the kindly reply, and then it turned away from her, back to the table at large, and seemed to become an entirely different voice, though it still issued from the same lips. “They’ll learn their proper place soon enough.”

And everyone was smiling and nodding, assured that they themselves were in the right place, in this warm home with the bright lights and comfortable chairs and the potato and leek soup stone cold and almost forgotten on the table before Laura.

She took a deep breath.

Opened her mouth.

“I’m going to bed.”

And she crept up the stairs, leaving behind the silent echoes of a fight that hadn’t happened, hating herself for not saying anything, thinking that it wouldn’t have changed anything she wanted it to. Wishing it would have. Wishing she’d had enough courage to find out for sure, to say the right words.

With an aching pain in her chest, her stomach threatening to reject the little dinner she’d been able to eat, Laura buried her face in her pillow until sleep claimed her at last. It didn’t seem fair that her family could be so wrong. It seemed even more awful that she still loved them anyway.