27. Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Jackie
“ C ome on… You gotta do it.” Silas massages my sunburned shoulders. “We’ll jump together.”
We’re at the Norcross-West Marble Quarry, which was totally not on my itinerary, but Silas insisted we come. The quarry has been abandoned since 1917 and is now a stunning swimming hole, with ridged marble walls that have created a bunch of different platform levels to jump from.
Silas, of course, wants us to jump from the highest.
I’ve been shuffling back and forth along the ledge for long enough that a few of the locals are invested now, and encouraging me right alongside Silas.
“I’m gonna count down from three, okay? Then we’ll jump together,” Silas says. “No wussing out. You got this.”
“Yeah, you got this, girl!” a guy calls from where he’s sitting with a couple of friends on a towel a few feet away.
“It’s a rite of passage! You’ll be joining the ranks of the elite!” A girl about my age hollers, and a few more people cheer.
I can’t back down now. Not with an audience and everything. Not when I know I’ll just kick myself later if I don’t suck it up and jump already.
“Three…” Silas leans in, nodding at me… reassuring me I can do this.
“Two…” he drops his hand from my shoulder, but his pinky is still touching mine. My heartbeat races even faster.
“ ONE! ”
I take a running leap, and a second later I hear Silas whooping loudly somewhere off to my right, as w e
Fall…
Falll…
Falll…
And then
SPLASH!!!
Into the cool swimming hole. My arrow-straight body slices through the clear water, adrenaline still pumping through my veins. I have just enough time for the realization to hit me that, holy cow, I actually did it! And then I’m propelling myself upwards, and a second later, my head pierces the surface.
People cheer and whistle and I’m embarrassed by the attention, but also so elated that I can’t wipe the smile from my face. Silas swims over to me, his wet hair wild and unruly, and his lips deliciously pink. He sweeps my own soaked hair from my eyes and pulls me in for a kiss.
“You did it.”
I did it.
I kiss him back and then pull away, laughing; delirious and out of breath and high on life. I love spending my days with this boy. He brings out the best version of myself. And the smile on his face right now makes me think it’s possible that I’m doing the same for him. It’s all I want for Silas, for him to be as happy as I have been for the past few years. As happy as I am in this moment right now. And on days like this, I fully believe it’s possible.
On days like this, I think he does, too.
It’s hard staying awake until closing, after a full afternoon of swimming in the sun. Silas mans the window for the last hour while I flop on my bed and fire up my laptop to put the finishing touches on a cover I’m designing for a Cat Sleuth Mystery (yes, apparently that is actually a thing).
Once the last customers have left and he’s finished cleaning up, Silas pulls off his T-shirt and comes over to lie beside me. His skin is bronzed, and after spending so much time outside these last few days, there are lighter streaks in his hair from the sun. There’s also a wisp of cotton candy clinging to his bangs, which I pick off. Silas grabs my finger and sucks it into his mouth.
“Tasty…” he grins, removing my finger with a shallow pop, and I laugh.
I close my laptop and we lie there talking. Silas strokes his fingers through my hair. “ It’s so shiny, ” he always tells me. As if that’s something unique to me, even though I’m pretty sure it’s no glossier than any other girl’s hair.
The night-time post-festival sounds have become familiar now: camper doors slamming and clicking shut, muffled chatter, laughter, the crackle of fire in a metal pit nearby, and sometimes, like tonight, the faint strumming from a guitar. It’s a perfect summer mix, and it lulls me to sleep.
I jolt awake sometime in the middle of the night.
“Shit, no! NO! Please… don’t !” Silas’ voice shouts, and I swing around to find him lying on top of the covers beside me, where he must have fallen asleep earlier.
He still is asleep, I realize.
His eyes are closed, and the comforter is soaked with sweat. His entire body, actually, is covered in a sheen of moisture. The moonlight reflects off his muscled chest, which is heaving so, so fast.
“Silas!” I plead, placing my hand on his bare skin. I can feel his heartbeat pulsing against my palm. “Wake up! You’re having a nightmare.”
He swats my arm away so violently it’ll probably leave a mark in the morning.
“NO!” he screams again. “No…. PLEASE! ”
He isn’t thrashing and flailing like people having nightmares do in movies. Instead, he’s utterly still, except for the rapid rise and fall of his chest.
“ Please… ” he wails, and the raw agony in his voice shatters my heart into a tiny little pieces, because I know what he’s reliving right now and I hate that he can’t seem to find a way to leave it in the past. He deserves to find a way to move on, the way I did.
I rub my hand more firmly against his chest, ducking out of the way this time when his arm flies up to lash out at me. Tears escape his closed lids, and they trail down his cheeks… down his neck and onto the comforter. They look so out of place on him, because the square cut of his jaw and those broad shoulders and hard ridges of muscle make him look so… solid. But those tears make him look utterly broken.
I shake his arm, almost frantically now, with both hands.
“ Please Silas … Wake up!”
His breathing gets faster and his chest is rising and falling so fast it’s starting to worry me. I wonder suddenly if someone can get a heart-attack from an intense nightmare.
I don’t think so. I’ve never heard of it.
It still doesn’t make me feel any less panicky, though.
I reach over and turn on the light.
“Silas!” I shout. “YOU NEED TO WAKE UP! Please… Wake up! ”
His body flinches, and he suddenly jolts upright. His eyes fly open, wild and flooded with horror.
Then they land on me. And he stills.
“You were having a nightmare,” I tell him. In case that wasn’t glaringly obvious.
He sucks in a shaky breath, dragging a hand through his hair. He glances around again, and the panic slowly fades. Then he falls back against the wall and drops his head into his hands. His breathing is still shallow and so fast; I can’t imagine how he hasn’t passed out.
He stays like that for a few minutes, his panting breaths the only sound in the room. I just watch him silently, aching and wishing I knew the right thing to say.
“FUCK!” he screams, and I wince, squeezing my eyes against the tears that are threatening to spill. I reach my hand out.
“It’s okay…”
My fingers brush against his arm, but he swats it away.
“I know it’s fucking okay !” he barks.
I nod slowly, and then after a couple of minutes, I get up—because maybe he needs privacy right now more than he needs reassurance. I head into the kitchen, turning on the light above the sink, and get a glass out of the cupboard. I fill it with water and walk back through the narrow galley between the kitchen and the bedroom.
Silas is still sitting in the same spot on the bed, scrubbing both palms across his face.
“Here,” I tell him. “I got you some water.”
He takes it but doesn’t look at me.
“Thanks.”
He drinks the whole glass in three large gulps, his Adam’s apple bobbing with every swallow.
“Did you want me to fill it up ag—”
“I’m good,” he snaps. And he swings his long legs over the edge of the bed and stands, brushing past me through the galley and into the kitchen. He snatches his plaid shirt off the couch, shrugging his arms into the sleeves. Then he pulls out his pack of cigarettes from the chest pocket as he pushes his feet into his boots.
He slips a cigarette between his lips. He’s cut back on smoking these past couple of weeks, and I cringe at the sight of it dangling so easily from his mouth.
“I’m going out for a bit,” he mumbles, stuffing the pack back in his pocket. Still not making eye contact.
He’s already lighting the end as he pushes the door open with his other hand. And I’m left standing in the bedroom doorway, my hand resting against the comforter that’s still soaked with his tears.