Year Six - The Reed Land, North Carolina
Now playing: The Prophecy - Taylor Swift
Christmas at Scott’s house was loud. It was the kind of chaotic, manufactured joy that usually made me smile, but this year, it felt suffocating.
The kitchen was packed. My younger siblings were arguing over football. The dogs were barking. The smell of burnt turkey and expensive Christmas candles hung in the air.
I stood by the fridge, nursing a cup of hot coffee, watching Amanda in the living room. She was sitting on the floor with my twin cousins, laughing at something on the TV. She looked beautiful. She was perfect. She was everything a man should want.
“She’s a catch, Silas.”
I jumped. Aunt Jayme had cornered me, a mug of hot chocolate in her hand.
“Yeah,” I mumbled, taking a sip of my drink “She is.”
“Are you going to propose to that girl anytime soon?” Jayme asked, nudging my arm. “You’re not getting any younger. And neither is Maverick. He wants grandbabies, you know.”
I froze.
Marriage?
The thought made my skin crawl. Not because of Amanda, she deserved to be married. But the idea of me standing at an altar, promising forever to someone who didn’t know the real me? It felt like a lie.
“I don’t know,” I stuttered. “It’s only been a year.”
“But they say men know within the first six months,” Shannon, my stepmom, chimed in as she walked past. “If you don’t know by now, Si, you’re wasting her time.”
I looked back out into the living room. Amanda looked up and caught my eye. She smiled, a bright, hopeful thing. I tried to smile back, but my face crumpled.
I felt absolutely nothing.
My phone buzzed in my pocket. I pulled it out instinctively.
Instagram Notification:
UWFOfficial: @DeadlockUWF Main Events the 47 Arena in London! Sold out crowd!
I swiped it open. There he was. Cal. Standing on the turnbuckle, looking out at a sea of eighty thousand people. He didn’t have the title yet, he was still chasing it, but he was undeniably the biggest star in the company. He looked like a god. He looked lonely.
“Silas?”
I snapped my head up. Amanda was standing there.
“You okay?” she asked, touching my arm. “You zoned out.”
I looked at her hand on my arm. Then I looked at the phone in my other hand.
“I’m fine,” I lied, sliding the phone back into my pocket, burning against my thigh. “Just… tired.”
I was trying to build a life with a perfect woman in North Carolina. But I was haunting the Instagram feed of a man currently on a European tour.
How pathetic is that? I thought, downing the rest of the beer. Almost thirty and still pining for a ghost.