Chapter 31 Holden #2
He wore a blue shirt, jeans, and a baseball cap that he took off as he gave me a tentative smile.
Silas’s hair was the same chrome blond I’d remembered in Alaska, only instead of ragged and dirty and hanging in his face, it was cut short and swept off his brow.
He’d been nearly eighteen then, stronger and bigger than me.
Now he glowed with health, his body filling out his clothes, standing tall when he’d been so broken in Alaska.
“Silas,” I managed.
“Hey, Holden,” he said, his own voice thick. “It’s been a while.”
I rose on shaking legs, part of me wanting to run away as the demons of Alaska whispered.
Memories returning, one on top of the other.
But now I had tools. Weapons to fight back.
It had taken two years, and the work wasn’t done yet—it might never be done.
But when the cold reached for me with icy fingers, I remembered Silas’s kindness instead.
When I shivered in that drafty cabin until I thought my bones would shatter, he’d lain on that hard floor and put his arms around me, sharing what little warmth he had. For a few moments, I’d been safe.
Silas tried for a grin, but his eyes were shining, and suddenly I was rushing around the table at him. We embraced hard; he held my shaking shoulders, and I felt his chest hitch with shallow breaths.
We pulled away quickly, wiped our eyes, laughing and crying and then hugging again.
“Shit, it’s good to see you, Holden. You look great.”
“So do you. I feel like I’m dreaming. What are you doing here?”
“I was searching online for something to read and saw your name. I couldn’t believe it was you. I even doubted the author photo on the back. But then I read your book and—holy shit—I cried like a goddamn baby. Alaska was all there. Even in the scenes where it wasn’t.”
“I had to get it out.”
“Did you?”
“It will always be a part of me. I’m just getting better at not letting it control my every waking fucking moment. You?”
“Same, but it’s been a goddamn journey.”
“Tell me about it. My parents disowned me about eight seconds before I took the stage.”
Silas’s eyes widened, and he shook his head. “Then I’m even more proud of you. Is it too soon to say that?”
“I’ll take it,” I said with a grateful smile. “Let’s go somewhere. I want to hear everything.”
Although I had an after-party and photo op, I canceled it all, and Silas and I went to a hole-in-the-wall Chinese restaurant in Midtown.
I ordered kung pao chicken and watched Silas fumble his chopsticks through a giant bowl of chow mein.
We talked a little about my book, and he told me he’d taken his family’s vast pharmaceutical fortune and used it to work on cleaning up the opioid crisis it’d helped to create.
“I’m going to guess you didn’t pick that as your cause by accident,” I said slowly. “You’re the one who asked me about addiction at the Q and A.”
“It had me for a while. I needed to feel something, even if it was manufactured. But Alaska was even stronger than dope. It taught me it was better to feel nothing than something ‘wrong’ or ‘unnatural.’ I lived that way for a long time. Like a robot in human skin.”
“I went the other way,” I said. “Everything they told us was wrong, I did. Like a sad little rebellion that hurt me more. But I felt possessed sometimes, by forces beyond my control. They were always whispering that I was no good. Not worthy of anything. So when I met someone who was the physical embodiment of good, I sabotaged it.”
Silas’s eyes lit up. “You met someone?”
I nodded. “But I’m pretty sure I thoroughly fucked it up. I’ve seen him once in three years.”
“Why?”
“My therapist says I grew up in an ‘atmosphere of deprivation.’ River was an infusion of everything I’d gone without—a disruption of the status quo. Being with him was too good.” Tears threatened. “I fought us every step of the way.”
“This River was good to you?”
“The best.”
“I like him already.” Silas took a bite of spring roll. “But why not give it another try? You’re not in the same place you were the last you saw him.”
“True. I’m off the booze. And I’ve been celibate for two long years, which, if you know me, is as improbable as a lunar eclipse, Halley’s Comet, and a meteor shower all happening at the same time.”
My breath caught as a meteor shower and my perfect night with River—our first time—came rushing back to me…
“That’s not nothing,” Silas said, echoing my own thoughts from earlier.
“Once I got a little bit of clarity, it was easy,” I said. “I never wanted anyone after River. I still don’t.”
“So what are you waiting for?”
“I don’t know. I’m scared of fucking it up again. That I’m not well enough.”
Silas thought for a moment and folded his hands on the table. “I was where you were just a year ago. And then I met someone.”
I sat back in my chair. “Oh damn. The way you said that just now tells me everything I need to know. You’re madly in love with him.”
Silas chuckled. “Damn straight. His name’s Max and he’s…
everything. Better than anything I believed was possible.
But it hasn’t been easy. I have a therapist too, I go to meetings, and Alaska still tries to infiltrate our happiness.
But when it does, Max helps me. Because he loves me as much as I love him.
I don’t know this River, but he sounds a lot like my Max. ”
“I’d give my right testicle to call him my River.”
“It’s not too late.”
“It could be. He may have settled down already. He wants a house with a white picket fence and two-point-five kids while I have wanderlust in my blood.”
“So you compromise.” Silas leaned over the table. “Look. When you’re down in the shit, it’s impossible to imagine a better life than what you have. But it’s there. You just have to trust yourself enough to reach for it.”
Suddenly, I was on the damn verge of tears. “What if he’s given up on me?”
“If he has, you’ll survive it. You’ve made it this far. But do you honestly think that’s possible?”
“I never told him,” I said in a broken whisper. “He told me he loved me, and I never said it back. Not when he could hear it.”
“Go to wherever he is, and you just say it.”
“Because it’s that easy.”
“No, it’s scary as shit,” Silas said. “But damn, Holden. Think of what could be waiting for you on the other side.”
The waiter came by and dropped the check. I reached for it, but Silas was faster. He tried to pull it toward him, but I held on, and a mini tug-of-war ensued.
“Look at us,” I said. “Two idiot billionaires fighting over who gets to pick up a thirty-dollar tab. When the revolution comes, they’re going to hang us first.”
Silas threw back his head and laughed, and I snagged the bill.
Outside, the night air was warm and thick—summer in New York City—and I wore only a lightweight jacket. A major achievement, even if no one knew it.
River would know it. He’d notice instantly.
“I have to get home to Seattle,” Silas said. “But let’s keep in touch, okay?”
“We’d better. When I get back to the book tour, I have a date in Seattle. Bring your Max.”
“When you get back to the tour? Does this mean you’re pausing to go to your River?”
I heaved a breath. “I have to take a shot. I love him too much.”
Silas’s eyes filled. “You know that’s a victory over Alaska, right? Being able to love someone without the self-hate, shame, and guilt getting in the way. We gotta grab our victories wherever and whenever we can and hold on.”
I nodded, my own eyes stinging. I pulled Silas in for a hug. “Thank you for coming. And for what you did for me in Alaska. You saved me that night, and they punished you for it—”
“I’d do it a hundred times over,” Silas said fiercely, his voice gruff. “But you saved me too, Holden. You kept me sane. I wouldn’t have made it out if it weren’t for you.”
“I find that hard to believe,” I said. “But I’m trying.”