The Silent Silhouettes

By Sarah Jessica Curtis

A 15 year-old boy named Alexander Rore moves into a house that is home to a lot of unwanted secrets.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: May 21, 2016
• ISBN: 9781483571539

Book preview

Curtis

There are some things in life that just make you feel like you are going to have a mental breakdown. You know, like that can the Bus of Misery please just run me over now? kind of feeling.

For example, maybe your annoying little brother is just copying every single word and action you say or do and, for whatever reason, he won't stop. Then if you yell at him and tell him to knock it off, he has a big temper tantrum. Then their his hissy-fit annoys you even more because he is screaming bloody murder, and/or bawling his eyes out.

Or maybe someone you thought was the love of your life, someone you would give anything for, unexpectedly breaks up with you, over a text message. They didn't even have the decency to tell you in person. That's rough, really rough, and a little inconsiderate if you will. There are so many beautiful distractions out there to drive you insane, but I feel like what recently happened to me is a chart-topper.

Sometimes I feel like my parents are two-faced. When they're around me they put on this, Oh, look at us! We are just one big happy family! Everything is perfect mask, but I can see behind their disguise. The reality is Oh, this family is falling apart. We're hanging together by one thread that's giving away, and you better believe that thread snapped. We are literally the opposite of the perfect family. My mother is like the staple of the house, holding us all together even though we're ready to break. I never knew what she was holding on to. If I were her, I would've dumped my father faster than you could say cheater.

My mother and father (I prefer to use the name Nathaniel because he sure is not a father, or not a good one at least) used to fight like crazy. They wouldn't shut up. You see, the fighting was just a sprinkle to an ice cream cone compared to all the things they did to annoy me. I don't really want to get into detail but my dad (Nathan) used to call me Alexis or Lexi in front of everyone. Everyone! Yeah, if I was a girl I wouldn't care, but I'm a fifteen year-old boy. A boy. A male. A man. Not a girl. Like what the hell? Do I look like a girl to you Nathan? I mean I don't even know if he did it for spite or for fun, but for real?

It's funny how he found the time to do this because he really was never around. I was sometimes tempted to file a Missing-Person's report because he was always disappearing. When I was younger, I used to think he was a magician; one second he was here and then, abracadabra, he was gone. Magical!

Let me give you a sample of what this man I call my father is really like, if you didn't already get a taste of his true colors. This actually might be harder than I thought. You see, this man, he’s been in my life since I was born, but I don’t know him. He doesn’t know me. Sure, I know what he looks like—unfortunately—but I don’t know him. He's never around. I guess I'll just have to tell you my interpretation of him.

Nathan, in my opinion, is just outright ugly. I'm speaking about his personality and his looks. Okay, to be honest, he’s not that bad-looking, but I just had to say that. I mean, he sort of looks like me, so lucky for him, but his atrocious character makes me want to puke. His actual looks are like a beautiful, brand-new shirt, and his personality is that obnoxious stain that destroys it. The stain ruins the shirt; his personality soils his looks. Nathan looked like a nice guy, but looks can be deceiving.

One thing he could count as a blessing were his eyes. They’re my eyes. Big brown eyes that you could simply look into and get lost. They tell a story of their own. They’re a bottomless pit that you can fall into and never come out. I'm describing my eyes of course because his dirty little sockets he calls eyes make me want to jump off a cliff. I can't stand their hidden lies.

He had nice tan skin, like me, and a smile that could make you melt. I had that too. He was an average weight, muscular, but not ripped, and his hair—oh, his hair—was his most prized possession. Nathan loved his hair more than anything or anyone he knew, even more than my mother and me. (Ha. We were probably on the bottom of the list of things he loved, if we were even on there). He always wore it combed to the side, perfectly gelled, never a strand of hair out of place. A speck of hair not perfectly tucked away would be considered, to him, a bad hair day. Oh, and his attire…let me just tell you, he looked like a model straight out of a magazine. He only wore name brand apparel. Even his shoelaces were designer.

He distastefully always chose to wear tight clothes. Clothes that were too tight, way too tight, and it was horrendous. I knew he was cruel, but I didn't think he was evil enough to blind every human being in his sight. I sometimes had nightmares of his tight skinny-jeans tugging on his chicken-legs. I don't know who he was trying to impress because I'm sure ninety-five percent of the people who saw him croaked over before falling head over heels for him. I sometimes wanted to write apology notes for all of the poor, innocent people in his presence. I guess he was trying to show off what he didn't have.

Nathan was also known as Mr. Moneybags. I mean I for one called him that. He was rich, filthy rich, but he didn’t share the wealth. My mother and I had to fend for ourselves. He just paid for the roof over our heads because it wasn't our house; it was his house. We were just living in it. It wasn’t our car; it was his car. It wasn't our money; it was his money.

Nathan had all the things a man could dream for. He had it all. Although one thing he didn’t have was a personality. Well I guess he had one, but it sucked. It sucked real bad, so it didn’t count. If personalities were grapes, his would be a raisin—a dry, shriveled-up, sour, menace of a grape. Not to hate on raisins, I’m depicting his personality. Nathan—and I cannot stress this enough—is a no-good, despicable, naughty, pitiful little…imbecile. I could say worse, and I do, but that’s just my nicest ensemble of words to describe him.

Why is he such a fool, you ask? Well, first of all, he honestly didn't care about me whatsoever (even though my mom went out on a limb to explain how much he did love me, I could always see the clear picture, so I don't know why she liked to waste her time), so he probably never looked at me or spent enough time with me to realize that I was his son, not his daughter, backtracking to the whole Lexi/Alexis scenario.

You see, I started to become suspicious of him when I was around nine years old. I always wondered why my daddy couldn't show up to my baseball games. I always felt like the outsider, seeing all the other boys’ fathers so proud of their little shining stars when my dad was nowhere to be found. It wasn't just baseball games either. He missed every single chorus concert I ever had, he never went to parent meetings at the school, he didn't show up for my fifth and eighth grade graduation, he didn't even show up at the table for dinner, and that really hurt me. I was also one of those little boys who always had to go into the girls bathroom because I wasn't big enough to use the men's room all by myself, and my father never was around to take me in there himself. He was literally never around.

So, like I said, I was curious, and being the little curious kid I was, I went looking for answers. One day when I was ten, my mom was out at her office, working, and I was at my friend’s house. I knew this was a good time to try and figure out what my dad did when he was all alone. I figured that maybe if my dad was never there when I was around, maybe he would be there when I was gone.

Being the smart and mischievous boy I also was, I asked my friends mom if she could drive me home because I didn't feel good, and after assuring her that Nathan was home, she agreed. I was then hoping to catch my father doing something sneaky around the house when he thought nobody was home, but when I walked into my living room, I was disappointed to see that he wasn’t there.

Then I just remember going into the kitchen to get a snack when I heard the doorknob wobbling. I ran and stood in the kitchen entrance which gave me a full view of the door. When the door opened I saw it was my father and some blonde lady. It seemed like he was sucking the life out of her. I had never seen him kiss my mother that way. I remember thinking, Yuck, just get a room all ready.

To interrupt the awkward scene I was witnessing I screeched, What are you doing? The way they were smooching really scared me to be honest. It was disturbing, and it still haunts me till this day.

I could recall his exact response to me as if he spoke those words a minute ago. Um, uh, the cheater had stumbled. What are you doing home kid? Busting you, you jerk, I remember thinking. This isn't what it looks like, I promise! I mean it looks like you're having an affair. Is your mother home? Why? Are you afraid she'll catch you cheating? Unless he was actually trying to suck the evil demon out of that discreditable lady, I'm pretty sure the only thing happening there was an affair. What. A. Jerk. I couldn't wait to hear the excuse he was gonna come up for that…encounter.

Then he did something that still ticks me off today. He whispered to her, a little too loudly, Babe, I'll see you later, and she left giving him those over-passionate goo-goo eyes. Ew. Then he winked at her. Nathan, don't you dare wink at people that are not my mother. Like hello? Do you think I'm deaf or blind or something? Okay, I know you never notice me at all, but please tell me you aren't blinded by your little friend that much. She’s wearing those goo-goo eyes, but can you open yours? You do realize I'm standing right here, right? Can you at least tell me you’re not that idiotic?

Hey, Nathan, just heard you were gonna meet up with her again. Oh boy, more cheating! Sounds fun. At least if you were gonna cheat, can you make sure I didn't just hear you say you were? Um, can you not, Nathan? Can you not?

He seemed more and more idiotic to me every day. Who the hell cheats at their own home where their wife lives? And their son? Sometimes I just wanted to take his big airhead and shake it all around just to hear his pea-sized brain crashing against his thick skull. Ha, seeing the way he acted, I wouldn't be surprised if his brain was smaller than that. Maybe his skinny jeans were stopping his blood flow and he wasn't getting a good circulation accumulating near his brain.

You would think that after I caught him, he would try to stick around more to make it less obvious that he was cheating, but in fact he did the opposite. Now, he was home less frequently, always saying he had to stay late at work. There was even this one time where I hadn't seen him for an entire week, and my mother’s excuse for his absence was that he left early for work and got home from work late when I was sleeping. I knew it was a lie though because I used to stay up waiting for him to come home and after it hit 3:00 A.M. one night, I gave up and went to bed.

But anyways, at this point when he did come home, he was around for what seemed like seconds and the little time he spent with us he was a grouch. He was nasty and rude, and I couldn't stand him. He was a mean one, Mr. Grouch. I seriously, as of this day still wonder why my mom tried to put up with him. I built up a lot of courage to tell her about the cheating and all that, but she didn't believe me.

I cannot stand when people do that. Why would I be lying to you about my father cheating? I was trying to protect her before she found out on her own, but she took the hard way out. She had to pay the price of seeing the jerk fooling around with another woman…in our own house…again. Imbecile. After that, she was able to see the light and divorced my lousy father.

She was an emotional train-wreck. She pulled out her wedding dress and started talking to it and cried for what seemed like an eternity. She probably shed enough tears to fill an ocean. She most certainly was having a mental breakdown, and I bet you that she was waiting for that misery bus to come and run her over.

Although she was overly-oblivious, I did feel bad for my mother. Honestly, I felt really bad for her. Fifteen years. At least fifteen years actually. For at least fifteen years that rotten man used her, and finally she opened her eyes and divorced him. For fifteen years, maybe even a longer period than that, he never truly loved her, and he probably was always with other people. There is no word on the planet that I can use to tell you how much I hate him. He's truly a dunce.

I wish I knew what that man was thinking when he went cheating on her because he could've had it all if he stayed faithful. My mom was a pretty person; I'd rank her above average. It's weird to admit that but I had to get my charming looks from someone else besides Mr. Cheater. She had wavy, golden-blonde hair that she almost always wore down, and she surrounded her emerald eyes with a load of makeup. My mom loved vintage clothes, vintage furniture, vintage anything. She adored it, and her name just reminded me of her out-of-date style even more. Addalyn Holloway. It just screamed vintage. Addalyn reminded me of an old, toy doll—a vintage style, but a perfect face.

Her wardrobe was mainly purchased from thrift stores or stores that sold vintage clothing. My mom also loved going to estate sales and purchasing prehistoric apparel from there. She was as sweet as honey and generous beyond belief. She always would give the world to someone if she could, and never ask for anything in return. She was also the most supportive person I met, and she always did the right thing.

The most rebellious act I've ever seen her execute was eating with her elbows on the table. Addalyn was all about table manners since she grew up in a very strict household. I know what you must be thinking, what a rebel. Even though she had a great personality, she was extremely myopic; she was oblivious to most situations that surrounded her which could get really annoying. My mom also was not prepared to be a mother. I was born a few months after she graduated from her second and final year of college, so she was still all too young to be a mom. I was kind of a bump in the road in their path of life since I wasn't planned, but my parents seemed to work around this mishap.

After proposing to my mother, my dad got a medical degree as I was growing up and became a doctor. My mom became a secretary for a magazine corporation. She didn't make nearly as much as my father did, but she was gone just as much as him. She spent long hours working in the office, and I spent long hours with a babysitter. Under those circumstances, I grew to become a very solitary person. My ex-family tried to do things together when they had the time, but it just didn't feel right. I preferred to be alone.

Nathan and Addalyn used to get mad at me for this reason, which you can add to the list of things that they did to annoy me. It wasn't fair how they chose whether or not to be in my life, and I didn't have a say. It just goes to show you that they weren't prepared to be parents. I didn't even like spending time with them either because as I grew older I noticed that every time they were in each other's presence, they were arguing. They fought over the stupidest of things, and they honestly reminded me of an over-dramatic soap opera.

Every time they disputed I would just sit in my room, listening to the nonsense that drove me insane. I sensed the dying relationship, and I fretted the day my family would fall apart. I always wondered how they even ended up together in the first place because in my whole life, I never saw one sign of attraction between the two. However, now I believe that everything happens for a reason. The only reason I'm happy my father cheated was so our faux family could fall apart. Living a life that was on the verge of being broken was all too much for me. I'm relieved it's over. There was no relationship between my father and me; I despised him more than I ever liked him so, looking back, I guess it was okay to break away.

After the divorce, the jerk ended up taking most of her money, (like he needed it), so now we were almost broke. Nathan was so cold-hearted. I can guarantee you that he took my mom's money just to see us struggle. He's evil, but you already know that. He left us with nothing except for an eviction date to leave his mansion. We got to take a couch too, and the buffoon was so proud of his donation. Oh gee, thanks. I can do a lot with a couch. You're too generous. Thank you. Thank you too many times.

I thought that we didn't even have a place to put the couch at the moment, but apparently my mom took care of that. I understood she was heartbroken, but she took things a little too far.