4. Chapter Four
Chapter Four
Jackie
I wake up to the sound of running water and bolt upright as soon as I remember that Silas is here. I blink, squinting over at him just a few feet away, where he’s leaning over the kitchen sink, splashing water on his face. A thin beam of light squeezes through the gap between the window and the closed curtains and casts a hazy glow along his profile, making him look almost other worldly.
He turns off the tap and straightens, drying his hands on his jeans. His pale skin glistens, emphasizing the contrast with his full, pink lips, and he just stands there as droplets of water slide down his cheeks… his jaw… his neck… soaking the collar of his faded black T-shirt.
He glances over at the bedroom and when he sees me sitting there watching him, his body stiffens. I can see the outline of firm muscle across his shoulders through his worn T-shirt. He has the body of a man now. He’s barely even familiar.
The realization sends a wave of nostalgia through my chest, which makes me even more determined to rekindle at least some sort of connection with him.
I smile. “Hey.”
“Hey.”
His voice is sort of gravelly. And deep—another reminder of how much has changed since we last saw each other.
There’s an awkward silence after that, and I lean over and grab a scrunchie from the side pocket next to my pillow and use it to pull my hair up into a messy bun.
“Have you been awake for long? ”
He looks away when he answers. “Maybe five minutes.”
Another awkward silence.
I straighten the covers, then climb out of bed. Silas is sitting at the table now and I watch as he retrieves a pack of cigarettes from his pocket. My jaw goes slack.
He taps the end of the box against his palm to slip a cigarette between his slim fingers. The ritual looks familiar to him and it makes me sad, because Silas hated smokers. We both did. We agreed it was disgusting and trashy, and only stupid people would ever waste their money on cigarettes when you could spend it on Twizzlers and marshmallow bananas instead.
I don’t even know if he likes marshmallow bananas anymore.
“Is this their camper? Richard and Meryl?” he asks, as if we were just talking about them. I’m surprised he even remembers their names.
“Oh. Uh, no. It’s mine.” I feel a tinge of pride as I explain how I bought it for a steal with money that I saved from jobs over the past few years, and then did a lot of the re-furbishing myself. I want him to know that I’m making my own way. Or at least that I’m trying ; so he sees that I haven’t turned into an entitled snob, the way we always imagined kids would be who grew up in a fancy town like Sandy Haven.
I expect him to ask why I’d buy a camper, because it is a little weird. Also, it would give me a chance to tell him about the food truck business I’m starting. But he doesn’t say anything. He just sits there twirling the cigarette over and over between his fingers.
I tell him anyway. Mainly because I don’t know what else to fill the silence with. I pour us each a bowl of cereal as I talk and place his in front of him with a carton of milk and a spoon. When I’m finished, he still doesn’t react. Which is weird, because the Silas I knew was a huge talker. He was the bold leader. The boy with grandiose ideas and plans that the rest of the kids followed everywhere. I was the quiet, uncertain one. The one nobody noticed.
To this day, I still have no idea why he did.
He pours milk over his cereal, still holding that stupid cigarette like it’s his lifeline .
“Sorry if I freaked you out last night,” he finally says, still not looking up.
“No, it's fine. It’s totally okay.” My voice sounds higher pitched than normal. Extra perky. I try to rein it in a notch. “It’s just I had no idea what was going on at first. And I didn’t recognize you, but then I figured out you must have just, you know… just randomly crashed in here after… uh, after the party.”
After they kicked you out of the party , is what I really mean. When you showed up drunk and looking for trouble.
He doesn’t say anything; just eats his cereal, gaze lowered. I use the opportunity to study him more closely—to notice the slight bump along the bridge of his nose that wasn’t there before, the darker color of his hair: thick and wavy and slept-in, and the way his long lashes look like tiny fans against his pale skin. It’s the only thing about him, I decide, that is still boyish in any way.
But he does still look like Silas. Sort of. He’s just a harder, edgier version of his old self. Wider shoulders, bulkier muscles, and hands that look like they’ve been used for so much more than normal every day things. They’re scarred and rough, his knuckles slightly redder on his right hand. And then, of course, there’s the tattoo: a physical reminder that I really know nothing about him anymore—because if that fateful afternoon had never happened when we were ten, I would know the whole story behind his tattoo today: the why and the when and the where. I might even have been there with him when he had it done. But now it’s as much of a mystery to me as he is.
“Are you done staring?”
He doesn’t even look up when he says it.
I tense. “I wasn’t staring,” I shoot back, even though I totally was. But how the heck can he tell? Did he develop fish-eye vision or something?
I try to deflect the conversation. “I was just thinking; it’s kind of cool that you fell asleep in Connecticut and woke up in Massachusetts.”
He jolts upright. He looks more awake than he has since I found him.
“We’re in Massachusetts? ”
“Yup.” I raise both arms in a jazz-hands pose. “ Surpriiise!”
He actually scowls, and for a second he does look boyish again—the way I remember him. But then he bangs the back of his head against the window and mutters, “Fuck me.”
Which, well… isn’t exactly boy-ish. Or endearing.
He stands up and walks over to the window, dragging a hand through his already messy hair as he opens the curtains with the other. When he leans over the counter to peer outside, his T-shirt hikes up. And my jaw drops in horror.
“Oh my gosh, Silas… What happened? ”
I’m beside him now, lifting his T-shirt to reveal a massive bruise—like almost the size of a dinner plate. His entire torso is a mottled mess of deep purples and pinks and yellowish-browns.
He whirls around and backs up all in one movement, pulling the fabric out of my grip. He looks annoyed; his eyes more silver now than grey as they glare back at me. I don’t understand why he’s mad at me for being concerned about—
“Wait. Was it…” I take a step back. “ Was it the guys at the party that did this to you? When they kicked you out?”
He rolls his eyes and combs a hand through his hair again, turning his body sideways to push past me. His bare arm brushes against mine and the brief warmth of his skin makes him seem more real to me in that moment than he has since I found him last night.
“You’re still as dramatic as ever, I see.”
He tries to throw the line callously at me as he reaches to grab his cigarette off the table. But the fact that he has to force the words through gritted teeth makes it obvious he’s working hard to restrain whatever emotion he’s really feeling.
“I need a smoke,” he mumbles as he strides down the galley and out the door, letting it slam closed behind him.
My instincts scream at me to go after him, but I force myself to wait. To give him space. I mean, already within five minutes of our second interaction in seven years, I managed to embarrass him and send him fleeing .
I keep myself busy brushing my teeth and changing and checking the directions to the festival grounds in Provincetown. I’m sitting at the table on my laptop when I hear a phone message alert, only it’s not coming from my phone. It’s coming from a phone lying on the opposite seat cushion.
Silas’ phone.
I glance at it, and when I see the first line of the text, I can’t help myself: I pick it up and read the rest.
And then just a couple seconds later, another text comes in.
My fingers are sweating where I’m clutching his phone, and my heart is shattering. All of this is so wrong: everything that happened that horrible afternoon when we were ten, the way Silas has changed… that he seems so angry now. And then this text; which sounds like his uncle actually beat him up— when he was passed out on his front lawn , which, God… that’s just awful. It’s sickening and so utterly unfair and probably not the first time, either.
The guilt digs into my ribs like a blade, because if I hadn’t been so wrapped up in myself all those years ago—in my quest to fill every single minute of my life with any kind of distraction from my home life—then maybe I would have paid more attention to the signs… to the fact that my mother was veering so rapidly off the rails. But I was too intent on milking my childhood for all it was worth; even as my world began to crumble around me, spiraling toward the hell my mother would put everyone through in the fall of grade five. But instead, I escaped deeper into my childish realm of adventure and escape and “let’s-act-like-nothing-exists-except-for-me”.
And now Silas is the one paying the price. The one person who had nothing to do with what happened that day. And who, afterwards, at least had living relatives. Relatives who drove over a thousand miles to live with him… because they were supposed to take care of him . And look out for him and help him make it out the other side okay. Scarred maybe, but still at least okay—at least recognizable as the same carefree boy who taught me how to do backflips off the dock at Lyman’s wharf, and make homemade water bombs out of old sponges that he found in his mother’s broom closet.
Out of the two of us, I was the one who didn’t have anyone left: no relatives to claim me or family friends. Except that everything got flipped on its head. Someone did show up for me—probably the most unlikely couple of all: the older couple who my mother had worked for as a cleaning lady for years. Richard and Meryl Pemrose.
And they may have treated me like grandparents since as far back as I can remember, every Saturday afternoon when I tagged along while my mother cleaned their house. But still, they were the people my mother cleaned for . They didn’t have any obligation toward me. They didn’t even really have any motivation to take me in, besides just being exceptionally kind. So it shocked me just as much as everyone else when they showed up and took me in, no questions asked. They folded me gently into their world as if it was the most normal thing in the world for them to do.
And over time, it did begin to feel normal.
But never fair. Especially now, when I’m more aware than ever of how unjust the aftermath really was. And how wrong. I have this feeling that I want to do something. To change something—make it better.
What I really want to do is text back this MAGZ girl (at least, I’m almost positive it’s a girl), but I’ve already crossed a line by reading Silas’ texts; probably even by questioning him about an incident he wanted to keep to himself when I saw the bruises. Although nothing can change the fact that all of it: the bruises, the texts, the way he acted at the party, the empty look in his eyes—it’s just confirmation that I have every reason to be worried about him. And that he needs my help, even if I have no idea how I might do that. Or if he’ll even let me.
I place his phone back on the seat where I found it and make my way outside. It’s been about twenty minutes since he stormed out, so I’m hoping he’s had time to cool off and smooth out some of his anger.
When I can’t find him outside, I head into the diner and eventually spot him sitting at a booth by a large window overlooking the parking lot. I keep my hands shoved in the shallow pockets of my shorts as I make my way down the aisle of avocado-green pleather benches and chrome tables, my eyes watching him the entire time.
He doesn’t look seventeen. He looks like someone who’s lived a thousand different lives that are finally catching up to him. My former best friend is in the middle of ordering a large orange juice from a grey-haired waitress when I reach him. His eyes brush over my face, casual and cool. So serious .
When I slide into the bench across from him, his only reaction is a glance back at the waitress to add a hot chocolate to his order. It’s what I always used to have when we hung out at his place after a long day playing outside, and I feel silly for how much I love that he remembers.
I don’t ask again about the bruise, even though I want to. I’m determined, more than ever now, to get him out of that place. But I’ll bide my time for now until I figure out what I can do that will actually help: a strategy that will get him away from his aunt and uncle and that house. For good .
That’s the longer-term plan. The short-term plan is to do whatever I can to help him get whatever he wants right now. And he insists that’s getting back to Allerston Lake. So we spend another half hour using the diner’s free Wi-Fi to research options, and we figure out there’s a bus leaving the next morning from Provincetown, which is where I’m headed, anyway. The ticket is over a hundred dollars, but Silas only has thirty-seven dollars and sixteen cents to his name. I know this because he sat across from me counting his money on the linoleum table while I was looking up bus options.
I have more than enough to cover the ticket. I mean yeah, I’m on a tight budget for the next couple of months since that’s the point of this whole thing after all: to make my own way and live off the money that I earn—so any money I didn’t sink into fixing up Trudy is technically already accounted for. Except that really, at the end of the day, I am not going to be left hungry or broke or lacking for anything if I use some of that money now. Richard and Meryl are already trying to subsidize this venture as it is. So I can definitely pay for Silas’ ticket. I want to pay for his ticket. But he is as prickly and resistant to my offer as he seems to be about everything else.
We keep going back and forth: Silas insisting that he can just hitchhike back, and me digging my heals in because that is such a bad idea. And un-necessary. So we eventually come to a compromise, which is still not ideal but the best we can come up with under the circumstances: he’ll let me chip in toward a bus ticket from Provincetown to New Bedford, and he’ll hitchhike for the final stretch.
The waitress shows up with our drinks and it suddenly dawns on me it’s all he ordered: these drinks are our breakfast.
I tap the waitress’ elbow as she turns to leave. “Actually, could we get a couple of breakfast platters, too? Just like, eggs and bacon and toast or something?”
“Sure, honey. I’ll just—”
“Only one breakfast.” Silas cuts her off. “I’m fine with just the juice.”
But I know he’s only saying that because all his money’s already accounted for with his portion of the bus ticket .
“Breakfast is on me,” I tell him. “To make up for the way I screamed and freaked out last night when I found you.” I smile, trying to loosen the tension that’s rolling off him and ribboning around every obstacle between us.
But he doesn’t smile back.
“Just the one breakfast,” he repeats to the waitress, who nods once and then hurries off before I can amend our order again.
Now the tension between us is even thicker and I’m grateful for the steady murmur of conversations going on around us, and the scraping of cutlery against plates and the occasional rattle of dishes being stacked and carried back to the kitchen. Silas takes a long sip of orange juice, his gaze focused somewhere outside the window.
“I’m sorry about earlier,” I finally say softly. “About the bruise; I didn’t mean to—”
“So, what do you sell?” He cuts me off, his voice pointedly louder than mine. “Out of your food truck? What’s your thing?”
Okay… so I guess we’re going to just pretend it never happened. That I didn’t see those horrible bruises.
I thread my fingers around my mug of hot chocolate.
“I sell cookies… Homemade. They’re amazing—and I’m not just saying that because I’m selling them.”
He arches a perfect eyebrow. “You bake cookies in that camper?”
“Yeah. There’s a long shelf; like a counter, that just slots in above the couch. I keep it in the underside storage compartment when I don’t need it.”
“Huh.”
Another awkward silence.
“So, do you still play baseball?” I finally ask. “I remember how much you loved little league.” I smile. “Man, you were fast .”
“I quit in seventh grade.”
“Oh.”
More silence. Until my food comes, and then it’s even worse because I’m sitting there with this big plate of food: fried eggs with bacon and hash browns and toast… and Silas is already done his glass of juice .
“I feel bad,” I tell him. “That I have this huge breakfast and you’re not eating anything.”
He doesn’t respond, and I push the plate toward him.
“Will you at least take a few of the hash browns or something? I’m never going to finish all of this.”
“I’m fine,” he says curtly, like I’m a stranger on an airplane in the seat next to him that he’s trying to shut out.
I pull the plate back and start spreading peanut butter on my toast, pretending it doesn’t feel weird to be eating when he’s not.
“So, are marshmallow bananas still your favorite candy?”
He gives me a funny look. “Huh?”
“Marshmallow bananas… they used to be your favorite. I’m just curious if they still are.”
He shrugs. “I don’t really eat candy.”
“Oh. Okay… What about your favorite movie?”
He sighs, leaning back in his seat. “I don’t know… probably Pulp Fiction.”
“Cool. I’ve never watched it.”
I will now, though.
“What about the one thing you—”
“Why are you doing this?” he leans forward.
“Doing what?”
“This one-hundred questions bullshit.”
I feel like he just slapped me. He is so mean now.
“I’m just… I’m trying to find out what you like now and stuff.” I shrug. “I guess I’m trying to be friends again?”
The last sentence sounds more like a question than an answer, though.
“What for?” He asks, like he is legitimately baffled. “You don’t even know me anymore.”
“So I can help you,” I want to say. “So I can try to help you put the pieces of your life back together. Because no one else seems to have even tried.”
But instead I just go with: “Well, I’d like to get to know you again.”
He laughs, rolling his eyes. “Trust me: you don’t. ”
“Yeah, actually, I do.” My voice this time carries conviction.
He keeps looking at me, like maybe he’s processing my words. I struggle to try and read whatever’s going on behind his icy stare and fail. Then he lets out a sigh and combs his hand roughly through his hair. Obviously a habit he’s picked up since the days when we were joined at the hip.
“Look, it’s just a bad idea, okay? Us being friends.”
“Um… Okay.” I try again. “I just thought—”
“Christ!” He rolls his eyes. “Can you take a hint? I don’t want this!” He motions back and forth between us with his finger. “This whole bonding crap. I don’t want to be friends, alright?”
He slides out of the seat and stands up, digging in his pocket for his wallet. He fishes out a five-dollar bill which he slaps on the table.
“I’m going for a smoke. We’ll drive to Provincetown so you can go to your festival or whatever it is, and then we’ll go our separate ways.”
“I’m only trying to—”
“I’ll be out front.”
And just like that, I’m dismissed. Our entire friendship is dismissed.
I eat my eggs and toast alone for the next ten minutes, willing myself not to let even one tear escape. Because he may have hurt me, but I am not the shy, frail girl I used to be. Or the clueless rich girl he probably thinks I am today. And Silas doesn’t get to call all the shots. He can’t make me stop caring, or be the only one to dictate how this sudden re-acquaintance is going to play out. I can choose to be the bigger person if I want—if that’s what it’s going to take for me to be there for him.
I’m not going to turn my back on him just because he doesn’t like me anymore.