Chapter 26 Mariella
My hand hovers over Silas’s wooden front door. I should’ve asked him to meet on neutral ground, at one of the college cafes or the local mall. Standing here on his porch, our past conversations waft in and out of my head with the cool afternoon breeze.
“You don’t need me anymore.”
“Don’t you need me?” I push the words past the sob building in my throat. A subtle shake of his head is enough to tear my heart open.
“Not enough, Mariella.”
The words sting far less than before. I rap firmly on the door and it swings open, as if Silas was hovering on the other side. He’s wearing his favorite long-sleeved soccer jersey, dark gray sweats, and a solemn expression.
“Mariella.” My name sounds like velvet on his tongue.
I often forget how tall he is, and after our time apart, I’m struck by the size of him.
I tilt my head for our eyes to meet, his gray-blue gaze scouring me from head to toe.
I used to love being at the center of his scrutiny…
Not anymore. Silas moves toward me and, like muscle memory, I mimic the movement.
But before we touch, we both pull up short.
I step away from him, and Silas stares down at me with shadows whirling behind his irises. Clearing his throat, he stands aside. I slip into his cottage, wrapping my arms around my chest as if to ward off the scent of him, magnified tenfold in the absence of my medication.
“How are you?” he says, closing the door behind us.
Should I tell him I’m a mess? That I’m barely sleeping and, when I do, my nights are plagued with strange dark dreams, and the two people capable of explaining it all have literally vanished?
Last night I woke to Anna hovering above me, her hands gripping my shoulders, and eyes wide with terror. This morning her perceptive gaze tracked my every move until I left.
I scan Silas’s aged wooden floorboards, the pairs of shoes neatly aligned by the door. So much has happened since we last spoke. So much has changed. Silas used to be the person I told everything, willingly. Now I don’t want to tell him any of it. “I’m… fine. And you?”
“I’m alright. Keeping busy.” We stand in silence, until he clears his throat and gestures along the corridor. “Come in.”
I lead the way to the living area and sit at his dining table, while Silas moves into the kitchen.
After a few minutes, he places a mug of coffee before me and slides into the chair opposite mine, holding a mug of his own.
It’s as if we’ve slipped back in time, sitting together at his table, coffee-scented steam rising from my mug.
I don’t need to take a sip to know he’s used my favorite beans and added just the right dollop of milk.
“I’m sorry about your house,” he says. We exchanged a few messages in the lead-up to my visit, so he knows about the fire and my new living situation. “What happened?”
I take a sip and recall the events of the fire. Silas stares into his drink as I speak, the mug encased between his large hands.
“I’m sorry,” he says when I finish, and his gaze flickers to mine.
“Me too.” I clutch the charm on my necklace. “Still feels strange not living there.”
“How’s living with Anna?”
A smile tugs at my lips. “She wants to party all the time, and she’s really hard to say no to. But it’s good.” I hesitate. “Her friends are nice, too. How’s work?”
His mouth pulls to the side, landing somewhere between a smile and a grimace. “Awful.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s not your fault.” He gives me a small smile, but the tension doesn’t leave his eyes. “In your voicemail, you said you needed something?”
That’s Silas, always straight to the point. I take another sip of coffee and release a breath. “I’m trying to find a copy of my mother’s death certificate.”
Silas’s dark brows furrow, his eyes abruptly lifting to mine. “Why?”
He already knows everything about me, so there’s no point in lying.
“I found one of her old journals after the fire and the entry dates don’t line up.
There’s no public record of her death, and the hospital lost her chart.
But then I thought—the police have access to those sorts of records, don’t they? ”
A look of pity crosses his face. “Mariella, your mother killed herself,” he says softly.
My fingers tighten around my mug. “But what if she didn’t? What if she wasn’t mentally ill? I need to know, before I waste my whole life trying to diagnose her.”
“Waste?” he says, tilting his head. “Becoming a psychologist is your dream.”
It was my dream, back when I didn’t think I had a choice. Before I got a taste of what life might be like without the weight of my mother’s disease hanging over my shoulders. Before I knew about time travel and Neurovida.
Before I knew about Parker.
“I don’t think it is anymore,” I whisper into the dregs of coffee at the bottom of my mug. I feel Silas’s gaze like a cool chill on a winter’s night, and I glance up at him. He’s sitting impossibly still, his expression unreadable. A closed book since the day we met.
“Since when?” he asks, his voice taut.
I bite my lip and lower my hands into my lap, curling the sleeve of my sweater around my fingers.
Silas leans forward, the table creaking under the weight of his tense arms. “You’re making a mistake. Don’t throw all your hard work away on a whim.”
I sit up and place my hands on the coarse surface of the table. “Like you threw me away?”
He leans back in his chair, dark brows raised as he scans the forest outside his living room.
“Why did you do it?” The words slip out before I can stop them, small and fragile.
“Mariella,” he warns.
“Please, Silas. I need to hear it.”
He exhales through his nose, frowning at his large fists, white-knuckled on the table.
“I told you. I was holding you back,” he says, his deep voice laced with regret.
“You’d turn down invites from Anna and come here instead.
And even when I was away, you’d only leave the house to go to class or work.
And look at you now.” He gestures across the table.
“Living on campus. Going out. Making friends. The way it should be. I knew without me you’d have a better life. ”
His throat moves in a forced swallow, his gaze averted to the rough grains in the tabletop. “You’re lying,” I say. “You pushed me away, and the least you can do is tell me why, Silas. You owe me that. Why wouldn’t you let me in? Why wasn’t I enough?”
He slams his fist down on the table with such force my mug rattles.
“Because you’re a child. You’re eighteen and I’m—We’re in different stages of our lives.
When we met, I took pity on you, Mariella.
” His voice breaks and he clenches his jaw.
“You needed help and I gave it to you. But like I said, you don’t need me anymore.
You haven’t for a long time. You need to move on with your life. ”
I get to my feet, tears sliding down my cheeks.
“I wish I’d never met you,” I whisper. The words don’t seem to surprise him; the crease in his brow only deepens.
“I feel sorry for you. I think you want to be alone and miserable. I think you’re punishing yourself for some messed-up reason, and you justify your actions as noble and selfless.
But the reality is you led me on, Silas. ”
He takes every word I throw at him. I’m not sure he’s drawn a breath. Then his stormy blue gaze lifts to mine, and it’s as if I’m looking through a window he’s always kept shut. “I never meant to hurt you.”
But he did. And I’m glad, because never again will I let anyone treat me like he did.
“I have to go.”
Silas gets to his feet, his eyes glassy.
“Wait. Please.” He clears the emotion from his throat.
“There’s something I need to ask you.” He disappears into his bedroom and returns with his shoulders set and a cold expression.
He’s slammed that window shut, locking his feelings away, nestled among the hundreds of secrets and lies he keeps inside.
“I know it’s poor timing, but… there’s been a development with a case at work. I believe two of the fugitives I’m tracking might be on campus.” He places a black-and-white photo on the table before me. “Have either of these people ever tried to contact you?”
I step toward the table, and my blood cools. The figures are unmistakable—Parker and Rose.
“Mariella,” Silas says, his voice low. “Have you seen them before?”
“No,” I say. “Why would I?”
“They were spotted on campus a few weeks ago at a bar called Tilly’s. College security cameras place you at the scene. I need to find these people, Mariella. Do you understand?”
I nod, but I don’t understand because none of this makes sense.
“Are you sure you’ve never seen either of these people before?” Silas asks, his steely gaze holding me in place.
I study the image of Parker and Rose, a screenshot of them running down a corridor. My heart squeezes at the sight of Parker. Is this why he left without saying goodbye? Where is he now? Is he safe?
“Mariella,” Silas says.
I can’t bring myself to meet his stare. “I said no. Tilly’s is always packed with students and I’m not exactly social.”
He nods. “If you do, call me straight away. I know things are rocky between us, but I need to find them.”
“What have they done?”
“You know I can’t tell you,” he says. It’s confidential, like everything else in his life. My skin crawls from the intensity of his gaze, as if he’s trying to read my thoughts.
“I have to go,” I say, moving toward the front door. “Anna will worry.”
He follows me, speaking to my back. “If those people contact you, call me.”
“I will,” I lie, reaching the front door. I abruptly turn, remembering the reason I came here in the first place. “And you’ll find my mother’s death certificate?”
“I promise to try,” he says. He passes me the photo of Rose and Parker I didn’t know was in his hand.
“Goodbye, Mariella,” he says. The words sound sad and final.
I step out onto his porch with the photograph clutched in my hand.
The door closes behind me, and I stare down at the image.
Blinking, I pull the pixelated picture closer.
I glance back toward Silas’s closed door with my heart in my throat, wondering if he noticed Rose wearing my favorite brown leather jacket.