This story is not all in one piece, not is there sex in the beginning- so if that is what you are looking for, look elsewhere. I am still very new at writing, but want to get better so any feedback is welcome! I hope you enjoy.
*
Soul was born silent. The doctors were worried when he refused to scream when they first blew in his face, then slapped his tiny bottom. He simply watched everything with wide, bright green eyes, and didn't utter a sound until he was nearly five. He was considered to be a bit slow, but he could read, he devoured books and wrote with a steady hand from the moment he could get his hand on a pen. His drawings were as haunting as they were beautiful. Soul didn't speak consistently until he met Michelle and David, twins who moved in across the street. He was fourteen years old.
When Soul began high school it was only with Michelle and David at his side that he made it through the day. If one or the other were not at school for the day, he could immediately leave and go home. Soul was fairly intelligent, both book smart and possessing common sense, but school and social interactions couldn't hold his interest. Teachers often realized that their time was better spent ignoring the odd, quiet boy. He slipped though the seams, but never far enough for it to make a difference. He sat in the back of classes and drew, never raising a hand or speaking, but somehow passing each test.
David and Michelle together were Soul's rock. They were inseparable, the three stooges. It was an odd group, none of them particularly outgoing, or into similar things, but none seeming to be able to function without the others. It was because of this that it had ever occurred to Soul that when high should come to an end, they would not go to the same university. Michelle sang, and David played piano, and Soul drew, he assumed they would all be going to the Art Institute, but when April first came along the news dropped like a bomb.
"I got into Cornell! I'm going to study genetics, see how we can fix so may of these diseases, I don't understand how I got in but I'm definitely going to go!" David was so excited. He had almost gotten hit by a car on his way across the street to share the news. Soul didn't say a word.
"Hey, don't use up all the air," Michelle shoved her twin, "David isn't the only ivy bound Greene, I am going Cornell too! We both got in, maybe because we are twins and they want to do experiments on us, but still I can't wait" Soul was stunned. Devastated. How was he going to survive without them?
"Well say something." Michelle was the more perspective of the two, and realized that Soul's silence was more than his more than his usual quietness.
"You aren't going to the Institute?" Soul's voice was hardly audible. They had never discussed this but he had always assumed. Always he had assumed they would be together.
"Well no- You are so good at drawing, I've had nightmares about what you draw, I just play what other people compose, it isn't some great talent, dude, like I can't make a living. I thought you knew I wanted to go to Cornell." David took a step toward Soul; maybe to give him a hug, Soul took a step back. He felt a lump of graphite begin to compress in his heart. A little more heat, a little more time, pressure and maybe I would have a diamond. He though. Maybe he could sell it, sell his heart, he wasn't really using it. Then he couldn't lose it; it couldn't be broken.
"Oh Soul, you didn't really think that we would be here with you forever did you?" Michelle ignored Soul's body language and wrapped her arms around him. "You had to know that one day we would all get married, all have families and move away from here. All end up in different places. We will come visit."
"But you will be together. Both of you at Cornell. I won't know anyone here." Soul hadn't used to mind being alone. He used to crave it. But ever since four years ago when the moving van had opened and the almost identical boy and girl had run across the street to look at Soul's chalk on the sidewalk he hadn't wanted to go back to that completely silent world.
"You'll meet people, you just have to say something, most people like to hear themselves so it won't take much to get them going." David indicated his sister, who in turn elbowed him in the ribs. But by this time Soul was ignoring them. If they weren't going to be there with him later, he might as well get used to them being gone now.
"Hey, don't be mad now." Michelle tightened her hold, Soul leaned his head on her shoulder, but in his head he had already begun his life without the twins.
The rest of senior year passed in a blur, without his rock Soul floated even more than he had before meeting the twins. His notebooks contained next to no words, only sketches of empty landscapes, abstract swirls that almost looked like watching eyes and flourishing scrawls of the alphabet, repeated until each letter blended into the next, losing all meaning.
"You will be fine Sweetie, I know you will." Soul's mother kissed him on the cheek after she finished making the bed in the tiny dorm. His roommate still hadn't arrived and Soul couldn't help but hope he would never arrive.
"Please stay," he whispered.
"What was that Sweetie?" Soul shook his head. He couldn't make his mother stay with him. He had gotten used to being alone. Or he told himself so. Michelle and David had left earlier in the month for orientation. Soul sat on what would be his new bed for the next year at least, it was hard, and lumpy, and laid out his new sketchbook. He couldn't think what to draw. Finally he was somewhere where drawing was what was expected of him and he had nothing to draw from, no muse, no imagination. Flopping on his back Soul watched other new and returning students find their rooms and lug their stuff through the un-air-conditioned halls, laughing with each other and calling out to old friends. It looked so easy for them. He didn't see anyone who looked nearly as lost as he felt.
"Hey! I guess you're my roomie, I'm Jon." The door banged open and a tall gangly boy with a shock of orange and yellow hair stood in the door pulling two huge suitcases behind him. Soul looked at him silently. "I'm a theatre major, I hope you don't mind musicals, I really love the music from a lot of them, though I really hate dancing, so I haven't really auditioned for any recently. What do you think you are going to major in? Oh drawing maybe, or are you just planning, so painting? Do you like acrylics or oils better, I like the look of oil paints, but even if I could draw, I mean paint, I would have to use acrylic cause I'm so clumsy I would get it all over me-" the boy had to pause to take a breath. "Sorry, I keep talking, I'm just really nervous. I've never been on my own before." This was nervous? Soul wondered if he had ever spoken so many words.
"I'm Soul, I like drawing, and I hate paints." Even that was a pretty long sentence for someone he didn't know.
