20. Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty
Silas
S he doesn’t say anything.
She doesn’t even react. Her face is just… blank. And unlike all those other times, I feel the need to fill the silence.
“I’m so sorry… I am so fucking sorry, Jax.”
I shift on the blanket so I’m closer to her rock-still body.
“I should have told you before. I wanted to. And I just… I didn’t know how. And I thought someone would find out. I thought for sure the cops would figure it out and it would get out that way. I was hoping I wouldn’t have to say it and you’d hate me, but I wouldn’t have to see you. And then… Jesus, Jax… It just… time just passed…” I drag my fingers through my hair, tugging at it, like I need proof that at least one of us is feeling something right now.
“I tried to forget. Even though I knew it was wrong. But I wanted—”
“What do you mean, you killed her?” Jackie finally breaks her silence. “That doesn’t… I don’t understand.”
I still can’t decipher her expression. I think because she hasn’t processed it yet. There is no emotion right now for her face to reveal.
God, that makes me feel worse.
“I lied,” I tell her. “About them being dead when I came home from school that day. They weren’t. They were all in the kitchen when I got home. Fighting. Your mom was freaking out. She had a gun. It was the first time I saw a real gun, and it scared the hell out of me. She was pointing it at my mom and I was just frozen. I didn’t know what to do, and none of them even saw me come in. They didn’t know I was there, in the doorway from the porch, watching. ”
Jackie doesn’t say anything; just keeps listening. Her face doesn’t look frozen anymore, and she looks… anguished. And shocked.
I’m relieved. But also, I’m curling up inside with shame. Still, I carry on. I tell her the rest because she needs to hear it all.
“Your mom looked like she’d been crying,” I continue. “Her eyes were red and puffy. Her whole face was blotchy and covered in tears and snot, and she was screaming at my mom. Saying mom had been pretending and didn’t really care about her. She said she wanted to die, and she didn’t have any friends and no one liked her and stuff like that. She wasn’t making a lot of sense. She was just… freaking out and screaming and crying.”
“You were there? You were there the whole time? When they… when everything happened?” Jackie asks, still a beat behind me, trying to process everything.
I nod.
“Yeah,” I tell her. “I mean, I didn’t hear everything. I walked into the kitchen in the middle of it. I don’t know what started it or you know, what happened before. But yeah… they were all alive when I got home.”
I wait for Jackie to say something, but she doesn’t. She looks like she’s just waiting for me to say more. So I do.
“Your mom just started bawling. Full on bawling. She was yelling that she loved my mom. Screaming stuff like, ‘I loved you, and you lied to me!’… She was scaring the hell out of me. I’d never seen an adult act like that before.”
“My mom denied it. She was crying too, and I could tell she was scared. She said it wasn’t true and that she never lied and that she did care about her.”
“Then dad started talking, and that’s when I noticed he had a gun, too. He was pointing it at your mom, and all I could think was that I didn’t know he even owned a gun. Because I never saw it anywhere in our house or anything before.”
“He wasn’t screaming, but he was talking to mom—saying that he told her that your mom was crazy… and that he told her it was a bad idea to stay friends with her when they knew she was unstable. That was the word he used: ‘ unstable’.”
“That just made your mom even more mad. She said she hated them both. That they were both liars and two-faced and that they deserved to die too, because they had led her on, making her believe they cared about her.”
“Dad kept telling her to calm down, and to drop the gun so they could talk. Only that just made her more mad, and she pointed the gun at him instead. She told him to shut up or she would kill him…”
I take a deep breath. Remembering it all is even harder than I thought. It brings back every little detail. The way I felt and the total fear of knowing I needed to do something, but not knowing what.
“I ran over to where my parents were standing, then. And I begged your mom not to shoot anyone. I started trying to tell her that my mom did care about her and she needed to put down the gun, but my parents freaked out. They both started screaming at me to get out. My dad yelled at me to go get someone. Three times he told me to get out and call 911. And when I turned to leave, your mom yelled at me not to move.”
“Again, Dad told me to run. Your mom yelled not to call anyone and then it happened so fast… Your mom pointed the gun at me and dad whipped around and pointed his gun at her. And that’s when your mom… that’s when she shot him… And my dad… he… he um, he fell and… Shit, I don’t— I can’t talk about that part, Jax. But uh,—”
“Oh my Gosh, Silas… I’m so, so sorry. ”
Jackie wraps her fingers around my forearm, and I am so confused about why she is telling me she’s sorry. Like maybe she’s not understanding everything I’m telling her.
And then I’m suddenly aware I’m almost done, and I need to finish. I need her to know everything so I can get this over with.
“Anyway, yeah… she shot my dad,” I continue. “And I dropped down on the floor next to him and I was shaking him and uh… He was…” I swallow. My mouth is suddenly really dry. But I finish. “He was dead.”
Jax squeezes my arm tighter. But why is she doing that? Can she really not see what I’m leading up to here? That I didn’t just see it all happen. I was part of it.
I pull her hand off me, determined to finish and get this over with, now .
“The gun dropped out of my dad’s hand when he fell. I picked it up and stood up. Your mom was still yelling. Worse than before. And mom was crying and pushing me behind her back and yelling at me to run. And then it all happened in a blur. Your mom pointed the gun at my mom and she fired… And then I fired.”
I suck in a breath and hold it for a second. Then blow it out. I look over at Jackie; right into her eyes, so I’m sure she hears me. That she gets it. Because I don’t want to go over this again. Ever.
“I killed her, Jax… I’m the one who shot your mom.”
I cling to Jackie’s teary gaze with every ounce of strength I’ve got, because Christ, I want so badly to look away. I want to be looking anywhere right now but into her eyes.
But I’m determined to man up and see this through. I’m already giving her the truth seven years too late: I can’t wuss out again. Even though it is So. Fucking. Hard.
But I do it: I finish. I tell her the rest of what happened that afternoon.
“I killed your mom,” I stutter, “And I didn’t even have the guts to admit it when the cops finally showed up.”
“One of the neighbors must have called 911 when they heard the shots. As soon as I heard the sirens, I dropped the gun. And when the cops came inside, I was so freaked out and messed up in the head. I told them I just got home and found everyone dead. And they believed me… they were so focused on making sure I was safe and I just went along with it.”
“I just kept thinking how mom and dad were gone, and I was gonna go to jail and I would have to stay there until I died because nobody would be there to get me out. And I fucking played the cops. I played everyone. I even broke free from the lady cop’s arms to run over and pick up the gun I’d dropped on the floor before they came in—so I could cover my ass. I grabbed the gun and told them I needed it in case the bad guys who killed my parents were still in the house. I lied to them… to cover up what I did, because I’d seen enough cop shows to know it was bad that my fingerprints were on the gun. ”
I swallow hard, forcing out the words. And now I do let myself look away, into the fire that has died down and is mostly just embers.
“Even after I watched my parents die… After I saw them being shot and after I killed a woman… I still thought about covering my tracks . And maybe it was just… like, survival instinct or something. Or shock or whatever, in the moment. But even after that… even when I was questioned again later. And even after I went into foster care for a couple weeks… and then when my aunt and uncle moved in—I never told the truth. When everyone explained to me it wasn’t some mystery ‘bad guy’ that killed them, I pretended I didn’t know already. When they told me it was your mom who shot my parents, and that my mom fired at the same time as your mom out of self defense, I just went along with it. I let the cops and everyone treat me like I was a victim instead of a fucking killer. ”
I look back at Jackie.
“I’m a killer and a liar and I’m so sorry, Jax… I am so sorry that I didn’t—”
“Silas… Oh my gosh, Silas…”
Jackie is crying, and she looks like she’s shattering inside. And I want to die of shame. Because I did this to her.
But then she’s tugging at my sleeve, coming up onto her knees and pulling me into her arms. And she’s hugging me. She’s sobbing into my shoulder, shaking and squeezing me so hard it feels like she’s twice her size.
“ You were a little kid ,” she sobs. “ You were scared, and saw your parents get shot right in front of you. You saw everything… You acted out of self defense and oh my God, Silas… I am so sorry…”
I’m so confused. And worried that she somehow got the story mixed up. But I don’t know how—because I know I didn’t leave anything out. I know that, because that’s what made it so fucking hard to get through. So what in the hell? Why is she acting like this?
And then it dawns on me: maybe she’s in denial… Maybe I’m still not done.
Maybe I need to go over it all again.
I try to push her away, but she’s clutching me so tightly that I literally have to wrench her away from my body. I hold her at arm's length.
“I shot your mother, Jax. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. I’m the one who killed her! ”
She wipes her face with the palms of her hands and I see the moonlight reflected in her eyes, mixed with the sadness.
“Out of self-defense, Silas!” she cries. “You shot her out of—”
“You aren’t listening!” I scream. “I am not a good person! I am not some guy you should be trying to save!” I push her away when she tries to reach for me again. “I may have shot your mom because I was scared, but I still lied about it after. I covered it up for years. Do you get that? I deserve every bad thing that’s happened to me since then—living in that house, getting stuck with my aunt and uncle, every single one of those beatings my uncle gave me. I deserved to be locked up in juvie! Hell, I should be back in there now—because I am a killer. That is who I am—not some friend who grew up and just made a few stupid mistakes, okay? You need to get that through your head. You need to stop being so goddamn nice for just five seconds of your life and—”
“You were ten, Silas!” She screams. And it shocks me, because I’ve never seen Jackie full-on scream like this before.
“You watched both your parents get shot, and you tried to defend them. And then you were scared you would go to jail for it,” she continues, a little less loud now that she sees she has my attention. “You were too young to deal with any of that. Of course you didn’t tell anyone. It weighed on you more and more and the older you got, the more scared you were to tell the truth.”
She clutches both my arms in her hands. “You didn’t do anything wrong… And I don’t hate you.” She’s pleading with her eyes now, and that is not the expression I expected to see on her in this moment. I am confused as hell. One more emotion to add to the mounting pile from today.
Jackie sniffs loudly.
“Why would you even think that?” she asks. “Why would you think I would hate you for… God! I just… I hate that you didn’t think you could tell anyone. I’m so sorry, Silas…”
Now I don’t even know what to say. Because she did hear me. She knows I’m the one who killed her mom—and she is mad. But for the wrong reasons. She’s dismissing everything I told her and feeling bad for me . She’s sounding a lot like Richard right now, and it’s turning all my thoughts upside down in my head.
She wipes her eyes again with the sleeve of my hoodie and sits back on her heels.
“I mourned my mom’s death a long time ago,” she says, lifting her hand like she’s about to brush it against my cheek. But I duck out of her reach and she lowers her arm.
“My mom struggled mentally for years,” she continues, still trying to explain herself. “I didn’t understand it at the time, but I get it now: the reason she acted the way she did. The constant sadness,” she says. “And the way she stayed in bed. For days sometimes. And the mood swings. All of it — those things are what killed her.” She pauses, then adds, “And that’s what killed your parents: my mom’s disease. The mental illness, and the fact that no one stepped in earlier to help her. You were just a little kid who panicked when you witnessed a horrible, awful thing. You saw your own parents getting murdered, and you never got a chance to deal with that.”
She reaches toward me and I let her this time. She cups my face in her hands and her palms feel cool against my skin.
“It was not your fault, Silas… You are not a killer, ” she says softly. Her fingers press firmly against my jaw, and I feel her breath on my lips. “You are not a bad person: you were just a scared, traumatized kid.”
And I know that some of those things are true, but some of them are not. They can’t be. Because that would be too easy. And my life has been a lot of things, but never easy.
So maybe she’s just got everything mixed up. But I’m too exhausted right now to untangle it for her. I’ve used up all my courage for the night and the only thing I can think about right now is how good her touch feels and how close our bodies are right now. Her hands have trailed from my face, down my neck, down to my shoulders. And yeah, I feel like a jerk for noticing something like that when I’ve just hit her with something so heavy. But also, I’m feeling such a huge sense of relief— that I finally told her.
It’s so liberating to have it out in the open, regardless of how she ends up reacting to it. At least it’s no longer my secret to carry.
I feel a shudder of disappointment when Jackie drops her hands and shuffles a couple of feet over.
Smart girl…
“I’m glad you told me,” she says, laying down on the blanket and folding her arms behind her head. The casual, almost relaxed stance is such a contrast to how I pictured this conversation ending. It puts me on edge.
“I should have told you a long time ago.”
She turns her head to look up at me. “Maybe you just weren’t ready.”
Now there’s the understatement of the century.
“Yeah, maybe.”
She turns to look back up at the sky and I reach over and grab the last log and throw it on the fire.
“I think it’s better you told me now,” she says softly. “I probably wouldn’t have been ready to hear it before. I didn’t understand so many things about my mother until a couple years after it happened.” She pauses. “I was too young to get it, I think.”
I don’t say anything to that. I’m not sure what to say because honestly, I’m confused as hell. I still don’t totally get it. I guess I never stopped to re-analyze the situation from a different perspective than the one I had when I was ten. Maybe that’s what people pay shrinks the big bucks for: permission to think about stuff that happened when they were a kid, from an older person’s perspective.
So, maybe she and Richard are right… Maybe how I reacted in one bad situation when I was ten doesn’t define who I am seven years later.
“Lie down next to me,” Jackie says, patting the empty space beside her. “Let’s just look at the stars for a few more minutes before we go in.”
I poke at the log in the fire until it takes. The flame crackles, heating my forearm, and I toss the stick beside the blanket. Then I stretch out beside her, tucking my palms beneath my head.
I try to control my breathing, because I’m suddenly aware of how erratic it is. My heart is beating fast, too. Like I’m about to rob a bank or something. Or like I just finished robbing a bank, and I’m still waiting to find out if I got away unnoticed.
The sky is perfectly clear. Full of stars, too. And so insanely vast… I don’t hate the feeling it gives me: a reminder that maybe all the crap I’m dealing with isn’t nearly as huge as it seems. I try to hang on to that feeling because it helps slow my breathing. It only works a little though, because it isn’t just about that. It’s more than the last hour of conversation that’s messing with my head. I have the physical alertness of a thirteen-year-old right now: aware of every place where Jackie’s body is touching mine.
Heel… Side knee… elbow…
I inhale another slow breath. I need something to ground me right now, because my thoughts—hell, my feelings— are starting to scatter again. And apparently my hormones are jumping on board for the ride now, too.
I just want a break from it all. I need something to distract me, and without liquor, I suddenly realize, I have no idea what that might be.
There’s a long, weighted silence where we’re both lost in our thoughts. If I’m this messed up right now, I can’t imagine what Jackie must be thinking.
“Geez,” she says after another few minutes, her voice low and breezy beside me. “I still can’t believe you bought a used cotton candy machine today.”
And I laugh out loud because it’s so random and so unexpected.
But also the most perfect thing she could say.