Chapter 1 - Idle words causes idle friendships.

After oversleeping on the bus and missing his stop by a few hours, a mysterious young man allows a desperate Jonothann Jackson to stay in his house for the night.

Some Things Words Can't Say - Chapter 1 ~ Idle words cause idle friendships.

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Somehow, I always seemed to attract feelings of animosity whenever I rode the bus. I'm not sure why. I suppose that's how it's been for most of my life. People seemed to be irritated by my presence. Maybe I just gave off this vibe, I wasn't sure. Or maybe this city just generally wasn't a good place to live, so everyone was always in a bad mood. Yeah, that must've been it. Chalking it all up to coincidence was the only logical conclusion. These thoughts continued to float around in my mind more and more often, as I slowly came closer to not believing that, myself.

I boarded the bus, slowly dragging my scrawny frame step-by-step to the last row on the right-hand side, where I had come to expect a usual residence. Empty again, as always. I dropped my bag in the seat next to me and stretched my arms, folding them behind my head. My eyes wavered to the world passing by outside my window, carefully observing every detail, painting vibrant pictures in my mind. Mother Nature had apparently been sharing my pain, as the weather had lately been nothing but cloudy with the semi-frequent rainstorms the most variety we ever got from it.

I didn't want to admit it, but it had been getting worse lately. My outlook of things, I mean, not the weather. Though the weather was rather accurately mirroring it.

I wasn't one of those people that required the company of another to be mentally stable or anything, but I was still a pretty sociable guy. I loved talking to people. About anything. It didn't matter if it had any relevance to anything at all, I just loved sharing everything I could with people. It made me feel somewhat uneasy when I had no-one to talk to; when I had to bundle up all my feelings inside of me; when all my thoughts ran rampantly in my head because they didn't have anywhere else to go. Memories began to surface, memories that departed leaving me unable to do anything but laugh bitterly at myself. I remembered as a child, how my mother would always defend my overly-talkative and outgoing behavior on my age, but as I grew older, that justification stretched thinner and thinner. With the wonderful curse of adulthood, it felt almost like you were expected to keep everything to yourself, unless instructed otherwise. At that point, why did we as people even bother with thoughts and feelings when we were practically expected to keep everything bottled up inside us?

Okay, I admit it. Even in my own mind, I talk too much.

As much as I tried to deny it, my mouth more-often-then-not was the cause of most peoples' disdain for me. I could ramble on for hours and hours about anything, and it seemed as though everyone I came into contact with despised me for it. I'm surprised I was able to hold down a job, as almost all of my co-workers had reported me to the boss at one point another for never shutting the hell up.

I sighed, closing my eyes as my head began to hurt from all the thoughts pounding incessantly inside it. 

I need someone to talk to before I explo-

Just then, a sleek young man stepped onto the bus. An unfamiliar face. Not all that odd, but a little jarring nonetheless considering that I knew the names of about half the people on here alone from attempting to make small-talk with them. He was thin, even thinner than I was. He also looked shorter, which was rather impressive, as I was only 5'6, so it made some degree of sense that he would have a smaller physique than me. His chocolatey-brown hair fell over a decent portion of his eyes. It didn't help that they were an almost-exact same shade of brown, so they were camouflaged beautifully behind his thick locks. He had a thin face as well, I couldn't see any ribs or cheek-bones or anything, but it still appeared as if he under-ate. He was wearing a sleek, form-fitting coat, which also bore a very similar shade to his chocolatey eyes and hair, but was considerably more dull, like dark coffee. It was a stark contrast to his vanilla-white dress-shirt.

Funny, he took the time to put on a dress-shirt, but he didn't bother putting on a tie?

Regardless, he did look a little confused. He seemed pretty young, no younger than eighteen, but no older than twenty-one or twenty-two. Maybe this was his first time riding the bus. It would explain why I hadn't seen him on here before.

He slowly crept from isle to isle, observing as every seat was taken by either a passenger or their belongings. I could tell that he was disappointed, even though his sad gaze never once faltered from its initial appearance. He shuffled further and further down the isle, without a single free seat in sight. After reaching the back of the bus, he awkwardly stood against the middle of the wall, inbetween my row and that of a large, elderly woman taking the opposite row, and raised his arm up slowly to the rail hanging above. He was only a yard away from me, so I could tell from looking closely at his eyes that he was uncomfortable, though it seemed more that he was perturbed by being on the bus itself rather than the lack of available seats. I did feel pretty responsible, as at least half these people were deliberately covering the unused portion of their seat to keep me from commandeering it, so I reached over to my bag and shoved it below my seat, patting the remaining space next to me to usher him over. He looked at me, his dismayed face very briefly switching to a more confused-but-pleasantly-surprised face, before his original expression set back in. He nodded his head, as if acknowledging my good deed, and sat down next to me.

It only felt natural to greet him.

"Hi, I'm Jon. Jonothann Jackson. Great to meet you."

Nothing.

"No, really. The pleasure's mine. How've you been?"

Still, nothing.

"Ah, I see. The strong silent type. I can understand that."

I really couldn't understand it, but I didn't want to upset the poor boy even more than he visibly already was.

"Phew-ee! It's been raining cats and dogs lately! At this point I feel like it may never let up! Don't get me wrong, I love the rain and all! It's just that it does make it pretty annoying to travel, and with my job and stuff I'm constantly traveling. Oh, I'm a real estate agent, I probably should've mentioned that before. Don't worry, I'm not gonna try and sell you anything! Besides, sales haven't been all that great lately. I mean, I haven't been going hungry or anything, but I'd be happy if a few more people could be interested in this area, if you know what I'm sayin'."

At this point, somewhere in my rambling I had drawn my gaze away from the boy, and up to the roof of the bus. I dropped it back to him, only to notice that his gaze was very, very slightly squinted. It looked like he was internally pleading for me to shut up. I obliged, once again feeling defeated.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to annoy you. You don't seem to be in a very good mood, and I just thought that maybe you needed someone to take your mind off it."

His eyes widened a bit, and he looked back to me. He still didn't say anything, but it was nice to see that he had another expression besides scowling, even if it was just surprised gawking. He nodded again, as if acknowledging that it was okay. I get the feeling that he did that a lot.

"So, enough about me. Where are you from?"

He stared at the opposite side of the room, once again ignoring my attempts to converse with him.

"Hey, uh, you're not, like, deaf, are you?"

He briefly turned back to me, and shook his head.

Okay, he obviously understands what I'm saying. So he must just be the really, really strong silent type.

I sighed, and brought my palm up to my cheek, my right arm resting against the edge of the window.

"Well, I know you don't wanna talk about it, but I'm all ears if you need me."

Truthfully, I was much, much better at talking than listening. Usually my attempts at listening ended up with me interjecting every time they would bring up a different topic. But by this point, I'd be willing to make due with any conversation, even if they were the one doing all the talking. My head slumped against the palm of my hand and I closed my eyes. Before I knew it, I was being woken up by the feeling of the boy next to me standing up, and starting to walk up the isle to the doors. I looked back out the window to see that the sun had already set. It was much darker than it should've been. Panickedly, I put my hand on the shoulder of the woman sitting infront of me and asked,

"Excuse me, what time is it?"
"9:40." The woman replied in a gruff, annoyed tone.
"What?! I've been sleeping on this bus for four hours?!"
"I guess so." She replied, disinterestedly.
"How far away are we from Lichtonville?"
"We passed that a good few hours ago."

Without saying another word, probably much to the appreciation of the woman, I grabbed my things and ran off the bus as quickly as I could. I knew I hadn't been getting much sleep lately, but to oversleep my stop? And by this much? It shouldn't have been possible. I took out my cell phone and tried to call one of the very few co-workers I'd actually been able to befriend - Steve Richards - but he wasn't picking up. Makes sense. Steve could sleep through a f*****g locomotive racing towards him at three-million miles an hour, much less a phonecall at 9:40 in the evening. I considered staying in a hotel for the night, but I didn't bring nearly enough money in my wallet to afford a hotel room, as I didn't expect to have to pay for anything today besides lunch. I realized that there was only one option.

I had to follow that guy. 

No-one else got off at this stop except him, and he got on relatively close to where I was supposed to get off, so he had to have known something. At least enough to point me in the direction of another bus.

Luckily, his all-brown mentality had made him somewhat easy to identify from most other people, even in the thick, shadowy coat of the night. He hadn't gotten very far, so after a minute of jogging I managed to catch up to him.

"H-hey," I panted. "I... really need... your help." 

He stopped, looking at me with a puzzled expression. It was pretty refreshing to see anything besides that frown he carried around so dedicatedly. I bent over to catch my breath, my hands resting on my kneecaps.

"Y'see... I fell asleep on the bus, and I overslept... a lot... my apartment is about three hours back, and you're the only person that got off here... I know this is a lot to swallow, but do you think you could put me up for the night? At least until I can call my co-worker to come pick me up? Or even just point me to the nearest bus heading back my way? I promise, I'll make it up to you. Anything you want. I don't have a LOT of money, I mean, I have enough to live, don't get me wrong, but not enough to hire someone to clean the apartment or fan me with hundred-dollar bills if you catch my drift, so I-"

He brought his soft, silky pointer finger to my lip, and shushed me. My mouth fell slightly open. I was surprised - I mean, I had been shut up before, but no-one had ever been so... patient about it. He sighed, a barely audible and almost unnoticeable sigh, but a sigh nonetheless. I think that was the most amount of emotion I'd gotten out of him since I'd met him. He nodded his head, and turned around, walking visibly slower, as if signalling me to follow him. I thanked him several times, but he still ignored me, stoically as ever.

After about twelve more minutes of walking, we made it to a decently-sized house. I couldn't pinpoint it, but something about this house seemed a little different than the rest of the houses in this neighborhood. It felt a little more... quaint. A little older in design, too. But maybe that was just me overanalyzing things. He rang the doorbell, and was greeted by an aging, moderately-wrinkled woman. She looked to be somewhere in her early fifties, so I could only assume she was his mother. I didn't judge, after all, he still looked incredibly young himself, so living with his mother at this age was nothing abnormal. 

"Oh, sweetie, how did the interview g-"
  
The woman stopped mid-sentence, her attention now entirely focused on me.

"Oh, is this a new friend?"

"No, I mean, well, maybe, I, um..." I attempted to answer for him.

I sighed, trying desperately to collect my thoughts.

"I was sitting next to him on the bus. I overslept my stop, by a long-shot... I can't walk that far, and the only person I can call is sleeping, and his cell phone's off. So I asked him if it'd be okay to put me up for the night... I had no idea he wasn't living alone. I'm sorry, I promise I wont cause any disturbance. If you'll allow me to stay, that is."

The woman looked flabbergasted. She dropped her gaze back to the boy, and asked him in an astounded voice,

"You... said this was okay, Trevor?"

I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a little hurt by that. It wasn't unreasonable that she'd be hesitant to put up a guest so suddenly, especially one she didn't know, so I couldn't help from feeling like I was intruding. She apparently noticed my disappointment, because she immediately corrected her tone.

"Oh, no, no, I'm sorry. I didn't mean it like that, it's just, well... this isn't normally the sort of thing Trevor would do. You're more than welcome to stay with us for the night."

This was the second time she had mentioned his name, but somehow, I had been deep enough in my thoughts for it to slip my mind the first time.

"Trevor, ey? Well, seriously, man. Thank you so much for putting me up - and you too, ma'am." My attention fell back to Trevor, hoping to repay at least some of my gratitude to him. "Is there anything I can do for you?"
The middle-aged woman sighed. It was a tired sigh, as if she was about to say something that she'd had to say many, many times in her life, something that never got any easier to say.

"Hun, Trevor is mute..."