Chapter Five
“When’s Cade coming home?” Sky asks, trying and mostly failing to keep the worry out of her voice.
“He can’t come back until his shift is over. He’s not still at the trailer, he’s just working. I promise.”
Sky seems to relax, but Maddi is staring at her plate, pretending to pick at the food. I’m already apprehensive about the point when Sky gets old enough that she isn’t easily reassured, either.
Guilt creeps in, all over again. These moments I feel like I should be helping to raise them, and raising other people just isn’t something I’m equipped to do.
I tried to raise myself and it was a disaster, I don’t have any business trying to help living children build their own brains correctly.
I can keep them safe. I can keep them fed and refrain from the kind of emotionally unstable behavior that their real parents are so prone to. But that’s as far as it goes.
“Do you want something else to eat?” I ask Maddi, because the very boring chicken and vegetables that I made from shit in the freezer doesn’t seem to be doing it for her.
It’s a subject change. I’m not proud of it, but I’m flailing a little here.
“No. I’m gonna go watch TV.”
No eye contact, her hand already reaching for her phone.
“Come on, Maddi. You have to eat something. And not just Cheez-Its. What about a baked potato?”
Carbs are the way to Cade’s heart, it’s worth trying with his sisters once in a while.
She raises an eyebrow but finally looks me in the eye.
“You’re going to get in the kitchen and bake me a potato?”
I pause. “Well, I was going to microwave you a potato. And then put some shit on it. It tastes just as good.”
Now they both snort.
“We don’t trust what you say tastes good, Silas. You love vegetables too much. It’s weird as fuck,” Sky says.
Her over-aged potty mouth is as active as usual, but I’m used to it now. I think she just likes to copy Cade, and I get it.
A sigh slips out of me, because Sky’s food is mostly untouched as well, now that I’m looking. She’s fidgeting in her chair, shifting her weight from side to side as she looks around the room more than she needs to.
I swear, their entire family is chronically over- and under-stimulated at the same time, all the time.
I huff a little, and then remind myself I’m supposed to be making them feel better, not more stressed. Sitting at the table in the quiet is apparently too much for them.
“Okay, how about you guys go pick something to watch, and I’ll make you some better food. But it will still have vegetables on it, and you have to at least pretend to eat them. We can eat in front of the TV. Deal?”
Sky nods imperiously, and Maddi even smiles a little. They both slip out of their chairs before I was even finished talking.
Cooking distracts me from worrying about Cade, at least. Well, mostly.
I know he went to the trailer and then left, and Kris is still choosing to stay there.
I know he was planning to finish out the rest of the shift, even though I asked him not to.
He’s going to be a walking disaster-human.
Of course, he won’t admit it. I just hope the rest of the shift goes smoothly.
Eventually, I manage to focus enough to finish the food. I cut up all that chicken and veg, threw it on the microwaved potatoes and then added a bunch of cheese and melted it. Seems like a reasonable compromise, right?
Sky and Maddi both accept their plates when I head back into the living room and join them on the couch.
They have Heartstopper on, which I only recognize because Wish got them a Netflix subscription for Christmas last year, so they’ve made me watch it more than once.
I think they just have limited things to watch, but they insist it’s part of some critical cultural development that I missed out on.
Both of them, like Cade, refuse to accept that I’m not really a TV person.
When the front door opens, all three of us tense in unison. A matching gut reaction, forged in pretty similar experiences.
“Yo!” Cade yells to us, and I can see Maddi and Sky both unclench. Maddi stays on the couch, staring at her phone and trying to school the tension out of her face, while Sky bounds up to meet him when he walks in the room.
His boots are off but his uniform is still on, including his coat, when he appears in the doorway. He has a big smile that I immediately recognize as fake, and he makes a big show of scooping Sky up into his arms when she runs to him.
“You took forever to get home, asshole,” she says, and her voice is haughty but she’s clinging to him with the mannerisms of a much younger child.
“Charming,” he says. “What a welcome.”
He strokes her hair before kissing the top of her head, but then puts her down with a muffled groan.
“I was out saving lives and doing very important things. You should be calling me a hero, instead of lying around here eating all my food.”
He says it as he leads Sky back to the couch and collapses in between his sisters, and he’s clearly joking, but that doesn’t stop Maddi from tensing again. There’s an unspoken fear that maybe he means it, I think, and the mood in the room sours a little further.
“You okay, squirt?” Cade asks Maddi in a softer voice. Sky is already snuggling down into the crook of his arm, but he still leans over to kiss her on the top of the head, as well.
“How was it?” she asks, not acknowledging his question.
“The trailer?” There’s a flash of emotion in Cade’s eyes before he shoves it back down again, and I worry more than before.
He’s too cheerful, it’s too forced. “It was fine. Normal. They’re gonna do whatever the fuck they’re gonna do, and we are all going to hang out here and have nothing to do with it until he leaves. Cool?”
She sighs. “I need my school stuff. So does Sky.”
“We can get it in the morning. My shift doesn’t start until later. I’ll drive you both to school, and we can swing by the trailer on the way. You can stay in the car while I grab your stuff. Does that work?”
“You’re just going to fight with him and get hurt if you do that.”
Maddi won’t look at him, but she does glance at me for a second. Probably because she knows I’m thinking the same thing.
“Can you go instead?” she asks me.
“I can—” I start, before Cade immediately cuts me off.
“You start work at 6 a.m., dude. You’d have to do all this driving to get there and back and still get to work on time, it doesn’t make sense.”
“I can ask Ford to be late, it’s not a big deal.”
Cade rolls his eyes at me, which I find way more annoying than I should.
“Dude, it’s fine. Don’t miss work over it. I will go. Dad will be passed out on the couch, if he’s home at all, and I will just slip in and grab their stuff. It’s no big deal.”
“Yeah but you shouldn’t have to—”
“I said no!” He doesn’t quite shout when he cuts me off for a second time, but he’s getting there. Anger is roiling underneath the surface, trying it’s best to peek out, and I can see this getting worse the more I push. “I don’t want you in there alone with him. It’s not worth it.”
It’s not safe, is the unspoken implication here.
I can’t stop that a little warmth spreads through me, knowing how much he cares about me. But the rest of me is settling into annoyance.
“I’m bigger than both of you, and I’m the only one who isn’t going to start a fight for no reason.”
“Silas,” he says, tilting his head and looking at me with wide eyes and a down-turned mouth. “Please. Just don’t.”
Sky is silent, still clinging to her brother’s side but looking increasingly upset.
Maddi is frozen, trapped between Cade and I as we talk and doing her best impression of a statue.
I want to blow all this intensity out of the room, for all of our sakes, but I don’t know how.
The TV has kept playing along in the background, all that wholesome earnestness seeming like a ridiculous contrast to our shitty fucking lives.
I blow out a long, slow breath and work my fingers over the material of my jeans, trying to ground myself.
“Fine. Okay. How about you guys go to your room, though? Cade needs to shower and eat.”
Sky shakes her head sharply, fisting his jacket like a toddler. Maddi looks at me disparagingly.
“But the show!” she says, pointing.
“Yeah, the show!” Cade joins in, raising his eyebrows at me. “I’m fine. I’m not going anywhere, we can chill.”
I turn back to look at the screen, not saying anything.
“You can also chill,” he tells me. Not in a mean way, though. Like he means it. “Come here, though. I didn’t get the chance to say hello before I got tackled by the monster that lives under my bed.”
“Hey!” Sky protests, but she’s trying not to laugh.
He sticks his tongue out at her, and it makes me laugh a little as well.
I stand up, moving to his knees and then bending over. He lifts his chin to kiss me, but I catch it in my hand, holding him still for a moment while I look him in the eye.
“Hello,” I say. I don’t know what I mean by it, but I mean something.
“Hi.” He’s already breathy, like he always gets when I manhandle him a little. Then he smiles at me–all goofy and shit, as he would say–before I close the distance between us for a very PG kiss.
“Gross. Can’t you do that somewhere else?”
Cade gasps dramatically.
“Selective homophobia! We’re literally all sitting here together watching boys kiss on TV!” he says, turning to laugh at his sister as she glowers at him.
“TV kissing and real-life kissing are two very different things. One’s cute, the other has saliva. I don’t need to ever see either of you with spit on your mouths again, thank you. It’s nasty.”
I can’t help but laugh quietly as Cade looks a little shocked.
“Well, I gotta say I’m a little happy you’re so anti-saliva.
It’s very hard for someone to get knocked up without exchanging any fluids, so you can keep this attitude as long as you want, as far as I’m concerned.
” He nudges her elbow with his, smiling.
“I’m not going to stop kissing Silas, though.
You can learn to live with it. At least we let you put on something other than Home Shopping or the fucking Real Wives of Sheboygan. ”
Maddi snorts. “Yeah, you’re a real prince. I’ll be sure to mention you in my prayers for your great sacrifice.”
She’s dry and prickly about it, shifting away from Cade.
I swear she gets funnier every day, even though I’m not exactly an expert on comedy.
It makes me worried, though. I can tell that she’s upset about shit.
Maybe all the time. And cracking dark jokes is about all she’s willing to do to let it out.
It’s not my place to say anything, I always thought. But maybe I should. Cade is amazing with them, but I can’t keep relying on him to take care of everyone all the time.
“Did you eat?” I ask Cade, always the master of the subject change.
“No, I came straight home. Don’t worry though, I’ll get something.”
He starts to get up, but I can see how pale and exhausted he looks.
“Sit, Cade. You just finished your shift, I’ve been home all afternoon. I’ll get you some food.”
I turn and move toward the kitchen, before Cade shouts after me, “Something with carbs, right?”
“Vegetables are a carb, Cade.”
“Aw man, don’t try to trick me, robot boy,” he shouts loud enough that I can hear him from the kitchen.
I smile, but don’t answer, pulling another potato out of the bag to put in the microwave.
“Do you think Maddi’s doing okay?” I ask Cade later as we’re crawling into bed.
He stills, crinkling his eyebrows for a minute before turning to look at me.
“Yeah? I mean, why wouldn’t she be? She seems normal to me.”
The words I want to use aren’t really coming, so it takes a second to piece together what I want to say. Cade takes advantage of the moment to burrow down further under the comforter and press his face directly into my armpit like a brat.
“She seems sad.”
It’s all I can come up with, in the end. Cade also takes a long time to think before he answers.
“We’re all sad, man. It’s sad. She’ll be okay, though. She’s tough.”
“I don’t know if that’s a good thing. Sometimes people can get too tough. Take on everything themselves, always pretend that they’re fine until they eventually break down.”
I’ve wrapped my arm around the back of his head so I can tease at the hair falling over his face while I talk. He was leaning into it, but as soon as he gets the picture of what I’m saying, he freezes.
“Are we still just talking about Maddi?” he asks, his body stiff.
“We’re just talking, Cade. Sometimes I worry.”
He huffs a little, his breath warm on my skin, and shakes his head against me.
“That’s the point, Silas. You shouldn’t have to worry about this stuff. I have everything taken care of. Everything’s fine. All you need to do is focus on yourself.”
Irritation prickles through me, but I don’t move. If I sit up and try to look at him, I have a suspicion this conversation will pretty much immediately turn into a fight.
“It’s not all on you though, Cade, that’s what I’m saying.
I’m okay, I don’t need you to spend all your time tiptoeing around me and protecting me from thinking about anything.
I care about Maddi, I’m allowed to worry about her.
I can handle like… experiencing emotions other than numbness. I’m fine.”
Cade snorts, muttering his words into my skin so I can barely make them out.
“Yeah, like you were fine yesterday?”
I know he doesn’t want me to respond, otherwise he would have said it louder, But I can’t stop myself from tensing before letting out a long, frustrated sigh.
“I’m fine now. I get weird sometimes but it passes. I’m still a fucking person.”
Cade doesn’t say anything, instead tipping his head up to look at me, the edges of his cheekbones shining nearly blue in the moonlight. He looks ethereally beautiful, as always. Like a Rembrandt or something.
“You’re my person, robot boy. Don’t forget it.”
My heart quivers, and all that quiet anger that was building in me dissipates. I lean down to press my lips against his, and his expression quickly smoothes out into something relaxed.
No one says anything after that. We continue to hold each other, content to be close in the dark until we drift off.
It isn’t until sleep is pulling me under that I realize he never really answered any of my questions, and we still had a conversation without anything real being said.