3. Chapter Three
Chapter Three
Jackie
I realize too late that my instinctive scream was a terrible reaction, because now the intruder is wide awake. He bolts upright.
“WHAT IN THE FUCK!!!” He yells, scrambling backwards on his hands, scuttling like a stunned crab until his back hits the window.
My heart is racing a thousand beats a second, because it suddenly dawns on me: I’ve been driving for the past four hours with this guy passed out just a few feet behind my seat.
I pat my pockets and glance around frantically for my phone.
Where the heck did I put my phone?
When I don’t see it, I start backing up toward the door.
“Wait!” The guy calls. “Just… Wait.” He sounds impatient. And groggy.
“How did you get in here?” I yell. And then, before he even has a chance to answer, I add, “Who are you?”
He doesn’t respond, though—just rubs a palm across his face as I keep staring at him in horror. Then he looks around, seemingly as baffled as me.
Now that I have a second to take him in, I realize that he’s actually pretty young. Maybe even just a bit older than me. He’s also really good looking; all smooth angles and chiseled lines and eraser-pink lips.
“Is it morning?” He asks. As if the time of day is the most puzzling part of this whole situation.
Also, he still hasn’t answered any of my questions.
I spot my phone on the dinette table out of the corner of my eye and palm it without taking my eyes off him .
“I’m calling the cops.” I tell him, trying to sound in control. Like I’m not freaking out and totally, completely out of my element. “You can’t be in here.”
The guy squints at me, like even the dim light above the galley is too glaring. “You don’t have to call the… Wait —” He stretches his torso to peer more closely at me and I instinctively take a step back. He drops his hand.
“ Jackie? ”
I take another step backwards. This guy knows me?
I study his face again, trying to place him. And yeah, he does actually look familiar. Full lips… dark shaggy hair… intense grey eyes that are—
“Oh my gosh!” My hand flies up to cover my mouth. “ Silas? ”
Silas Carmichael. My Silas. In my camper.
I drop my hand. Open my mouth… Close it again.
He’s so tall now. Even though he’s sitting, I can tell he’s at least six-foot—maybe more. His shoulders are wider, his chest broader: everything just… bigger .
“Why are you… What are you doing here?” I finally stutter. “Are you in trouble? I mean, are you okay?”
What if something’s wrong and he came to me for help and here I am threatening to call the police on him? Two minutes in and I’m already failing him all over again.
He scoots over so he’s sitting at the edge of the bed now, his long legs hanging over the side. He combs a hand roughly through his hair and my eyes can’t help zero-ing in on the tattoo that runs from his wrist all the way to his elbow.
“Is there a bathroom in here?” he asks, and my jaw drops a little, because really? He hasn’t seen me in almost seven years, and that’s his first question: where to find the bathroom?
But I just nod. “Uh, yeah. Sure.” I motion toward the narrow door on the right side of the small passageway separating the main area from the bedroom. “It’s just in—”
But he’s already up, brushing past me and yanking open the flimsy sliding door.
Two seconds later, I hear him puking his guts out into the toilet and I just stand there, frozen for a second, because none of this makes any sense and my head is spinning. I feel kind of nauseous myself, to be honest. It’s all just… weird. And improbable and confusing and exhilarating and just so much all at once that it’s impossible to process.
But then slowly, it starts to make sense.
Silas must have been one of the guys who crashed Scarlett’s party: one of the three guys from Allerston Lake. One of the guys that Xavier and the others had to throw out.
Maybe the guy who smashed his fist into Xavier’s jaw.
But I can’t let myself think about that right now. It’s already too much, with him just being here. In my camper—where he must have gone after he got kicked out of Scarlett’s house. Because I guess if you’re plastered and get thrown out of a party almost an hour from your home, a massive gleaming yellow camper is kind of a beacon. It makes sense, in a messed-up drunken perspective kind of way, that it would be the first place you’d stumble to if you were in a haze and looking for a place to crash for the night.
I hear water running and a few minutes later, Silas emerges from the bathroom. He leans against the wall, wiping his hands on his jeans.
“Wow.” I laugh nervously. “You’re so big now!”
And as soon as I realize that I said it out loud, I cringe. Way to sound like a great aunt who hasn’t seen him since the last family pot-luck.
“Yeah,” he says. “I guess.”
“I mean, obviously.” I roll my eyes.
Please let him see I didn’t mean to say that out loud.
But he doesn’t respond, and it’s impossible to read what he’s thinking, because even though his eyes are still that same pale slate-grey almost silver, now they’re eerily emotionless.
His face looks pale too, I notice, and he wreaks of liquor. He’s definitely hung over; possibly still drunk.
God, please don’t let him still be drunk.
“Are you okay? I mean, do you want a glass of water or something? ”
He shoves his hands in his pockets and it makes his arm muscles tighten against his T-shirt. “Yeah. Water would be good.”
I walk over to the cupboard above the sink to get a glass, and he brushes past me to sit at the table. I get the jug from the fridge and fill the glass with cold water, but when I turn to give it to him, he’s slouched in the seat, arms crossed, eyes closed, and the left side of his face resting against the window.
I shift awkwardly from one foot to the other. I have no idea what to do, so I just plunk the glass down loudly on the table in front of him, hoping the noise will wake him up. But it doesn’t, so I nudge his boot (his massive, definitely at least a size eleven boot) with the toe of my pink Converse.
“Silas?”
He stirs but doesn’t open his eyes and I nudge him again a little harder. “Silas… Hey. Wake up.”
He’s out for the count. His lips are slightly parted and his breathing is slow and even. And the longer I stand there staring at him, the more I start freaking out. Like, really freaking out. Because Silas Carmichael has mysteriously appeared in the food truck I’m driving across New England and I may have planned for a lot of things but I definitely didn’t plan for this kind of thing or anything even remotely like it and even though I want to rock this whole food truck business thing there’s nothing I want more in the world than to help Silas Carmichael but this is not how I thought that would happen and maybe this is my only shot and if it is I have no idea how I’m going to get him home again or if home is even where he needs to be right now and also… I need to breathe.
I need to calm down… Breathe and calm down. Two easy things to focus on, right?
Right.
So I do. For what feels like a really long time, but is probably just five minutes. Which is still long enough that the fatigue starts to catch up with me again and it actually helps balance out the intensity of my nerves. My head is a little clearer, at least. I’m a little less freaked out.
And Silas is still fast asleep .
I try one more time, unsuccessfully, to wake him up, and then decide I might as well get some sleep myself. I don’t need to be in Provincetown for another ten hours. We can figure things out in the morning. I’ll buy him breakfast and we can catch up. I can make sure he’s okay and get him a bus ticket home and find out what else he needs; figure out a way to see each other again once I’m back home without his aunt finding out.
Except I don’t want to send him away after I just found him. Not after just a few hours. Already I’m regretting how I reacted to seeing him at first; what I said and how I said it and what I didn’t ask, or how I could have asked it differently. Because I wish that the re-connection felt more concrete… more tangible. More like something I could hold on to, especially if I’m not going to see him again for another couple of months. Or possibly years.
I go through the night-time routine, which I know will become second nature to me soon, but for now, feels stilted and awkward. I velcro the covers over the front windows, draw the curtains and make sure the doors are all locked. And finally, after brushing my teeth and grabbing a quick bowl of cereal, I check on Silas one last time, debating whether I should do something to make him more comfortable. But I have no idea what that might be, so I just head down the short hallway and collapse onto my bed.
I keep my clothes on and stay on top of the covers. Because even though he isn’t technically a stranger, the idea of changing into my sleep shorts with Silas just a few feet away just feels strange. Also, I have no idea if he’s going to wake up puking in the middle of the night or something, or if there might be some other scenario where I’ll need to jump out of bed at a moment’s notice.
So I lie staring up at the shadows on the sloped ceiling above my bed, trying to focus on something simple to keep my thoughts from racing. But it doesn’t help; my brain is a jumble pile.
It is really, really hard to comprehend that this guy, who has stubble and muscles and a freaking tattoo on his forearm, is the same lanky Silas from seven years ago. But it is him. Silas Carmichael is here. In my kitchen. And I have so many questions for him. So many things I want to say to him, too.
I hate that he’s drunk and that he got kicked out of my friend’s party and that he didn’t even seem excited to see me. I hate that I don’t know him anymore. I hate that even though I’m not sure I’ll even like the person he’s become, this might be the only chance I ever get to see him again. Most of all, I hate that Silas Carmichael was just sitting two feet away from me and I had no idea what to say to him.
But tomorrow will be different. Because tomorrow I will be better prepared. Tomorrow I will find a way to make sure it isn’t the last time I see him.