by Callie Hart
“If I’m a dork, then you must get turned on by some pretty weird stuff,” she says breezily.
“You don’t know the half of it.” I gather her hair in my hands, reveling in the weight and the feel of it as I brush it back over her shoulders and I expose her bare neck. There is a line in the sand where physical contact with Silver is concerned; I made it myself, so I know how far to go and when to pull back. Kissing her neck is definitely not on the right side of the line, but I allow myself one slow, careful graze of my lips against the porcelain column of her throat. Just one…and it’s enough. The identical flushed patches of red on Silver’s cheeks have grown, but I don’t think they’re caused by embarrassment anymore.
“I’ll show you my tattoos, and you can grade every single one of them,” I tell her. “But I think we’re gonna have to hit up that diner I noticed on the way up here to grab some more food, Dolcezza.”
She frowns at me. I don’t know if she’s noticed, but her hands have found their way to my chest, palms resting familiarly against my pecs, and the contact is making me want to fucking sing. She cants her head to one side, and asks, “Why?”
“Because the French toast you were making is on fire,” I reply.
She nearly jumps a foot in the air as she spins around, rushing over to the stove, swearing loudly like a sailor. “Fuck! Shit, fuck, shit, fuck, shit, fuck! Shitshitshit, nooooo….” She turns the burner off, shoving the frying pan off the ring, and then proceeds to bat at the flaming, blackened pieces of French toast with a kitchen towel. Not really a good idea. I intervene, physically picking her up by the waist and setting her down by the kitchen table, then I take the towel from her and use it to pick the pan up by the handle. The whole thing goes in the sink. I turn on the tap, blasting the contents of the pan with water, and the mini fire immediately gutters out.
Silver stands next to me in front of the sink, regarding her destroyed attempt at breakfast with morose resignation. “Probably for the best,” she says. “I’m a horrible cook. I’m sure you’d have been the one that ended up poisoned if you’d eaten that.”
19
SILVER
I pinch myself repeatedly while Alex is in the shower, hard enough to bruise. This doesn’t feel like real life. I can’t bend my head around the fact that he’s here, with me, at the cabin, and we’re actually doing this. I’m letting him in, for fuck’s sake, and he…god, for some, unknown reason, he actually wants to be here with me.
By the time we get to the café on the other side of the lake, the heat blasting on full inside Alex’s Camaro, we’ve missed breakfast and have to make do with lunch. People halt their conversations, forks freezing halfway between their plates and their mouths, as Alex and I make our way to a booth. No one really comes up here in October, and the café crowd today are mostly locals; they’re not used to someone like Alex showing up in the middle of their BLTs and their gossip sessions.
We both order a sandwich each and two coffees. The waitress, Layla, who I’ve known since I was eight, shoots me a wide-eyed look as she scribbles in her notepad. I think she’s trying to signal me in Morse code with her furious blinking. Do…you…need…help? I laugh, shrugging at her, and Alex reaches across the table and takes my hand.
Such a normal, everyday thing that people do, and yet it feels monumental to me. Alex’s smile is tight when I look at him, though.
I kick him gently under the table. “What’s the deal?”
“I know you’re tough as old boots, but you sure you can handle this?” He dodges the balled-up napkin I throw at him in response to the boots comment.
“What? People noticing that you’re a bad boy heartbreaker?”
He pulls a face. “It doesn't bother me, people looking. Never has. But it might end up bothering you if you can't even go out to grab some food without feeling eighteen sets of eyes lasering into your back.”
Layla brings our coffees. I take a sip, watching, a little horrified, as Alex dumps four packets of sugar into his mug. “I think you’ve forgotten who you’re talking to. I’m stared at way more than you are every day at school. No one thinks twice about your ink there. Well, actually, they do. They probably think it’s hot. Me, on the other hand? Being a lying whore who tries to ruin Raleigh Royalty is not hot.”
Alex’s expression turns stormy. He looks out of the café window, out onto the lake, deep lines furrowing his brow. “Don’t say that.”
I shrug. “It’s just the truth.”
“You’re not a lying whore.”
“It doesn’t matter whether I am or I’m not, though, right? People believe what they want to believe. They believe what everyone else believes, because they’re too scared to stand apart from the crowd. In the end, I am whatever they say I am, Alex.”
He picks up the salt shaker, his hand closing around it into a fist, still staring out of the window. “I’m gonna need to know exactly what happened that night,” he says in a monotone voice.
My ears are suddenly on fire. I want to shrink back into the seat, or under it, or just fucking run away. I do my best to keep my voice steady when I say, “I thought you believed me.”
His head whips around, eyes bearing down on me, full of wild energy. “I didn’t mean it like that. I’m not trying to fact check.”
Shame spirals through me. ‘Don’t be such a fucking tease, Silver. Show us that pretty little cunt. Come on, princess. That’s right. Open your mouth. Wider. Wider. Stupid bitch. D’you wanna die for the sake of a quick fuck?’
I jolt at the memory of the hand cracking against my cheek. Alex’s eyes widen at the sudden movement. I can’t bear the look on his face, so I avert my gaze, staring down at the peeling laminated menu that’s tucked behind the condiment bottles. “Why then? What’s the point in rehashing it all? It’s all over and done with now. It doesn’t matter.”
For a second, Alex doesn’t say anything. When I risk a sidelong glance at him, he’s running his thumb along the edge of his steak knife, pressing so hard his skin has bleached white. A small, crimson bead of blood drips down onto the table. “It matters,” he says flatly. “I’m gonna need to know who I have to hurt first, aren’t I?”
“Don’t be stupid, Alex. You’re not going to do anything to any of them.”
He puts the steak knife down and quickly wipes away the blood from the table as Layla approaches with our food. Once she’s gone, I repeat myself, needing him to hear me. “Those guys are untouchable. Their families own the school. They own the whole town. Hell, they even own the cops. If you fuck with them, there’ll be hell to pay, and it won’t be any of them settling the bill. Believe me.”
“I believe you. But I still want you to tell me. Do you think…” He knows he’s asking something really hard. He looks like he hates that he’s asking it of me. “Do you think you could do it?”
“I don’t know. What’s the worst, most awful, brutal thing that’s ever happened to you? You think you could tell me all about it in great detail?” I’m not being sarcastic. I genuinely want to know.
He gives me a hard look, jaw set, and then nods. Just the once. “My mother killed herself when I was six. I came home from school. It was a Thursday, so I only had a half day. The kitchen smelled strange, and it made me lightheaded to breathe. I didn't know it then, but the gas burner was still on. If I'd turned on a light, I would have blown the whole fucking place sky high.”
I reach across the table, placing my hand over his. “Alex, I didn’t mean right now.”
He shrugs one shoulder, quirking his mouth up at one side, too. “Ben was only nine months old. He was in the living room, naked, with a cut on his arm. Was screaming at the top of his lungs. I knew something wasn’t right, so I went from room to room, looking for my mom. I found her in the spare bedroom upstairs. She wasn’t dead yet. One of her eyes was missing, and her hair was wet, full of these little white shards. Her hair was dark like mine, almost black, so I didn’t know it was covered in blood until I touched it and my hand came away r
ed. I didn’t know the little white shards were fragments of her own skull.
“She was gaping at me, her mouth opening and closing like a fish. I was six, so I didn’t really know what had happened. I saw the gun on the floor. It was half under the bed, and she was reaching for it, hand clasping and unclasping. She was making these awful wet, gurgling noises. I started crying, because I knew she was going to die. She was crying too, but she was crying tears of blood, and I didn’t know what the fuck to do, so I tried to leave the spare room to get to the phone, but…” He swallows, then exhales a steady, long breath.
This is soul destroying. This is the most terrible thing I have ever heard, and I wasn’t even there. Six-year-old Alex was, though. I rub the heel of my hand into the center of my chest, as if the physical action will ease the emotional pain I’m feeling. “Alex, you really don’t need to—”
“She grabbed hold of my ankle. Wouldn’t let me go. She was so fucked up, but it was surprising how tight she held onto me then. I turned her onto her back, and that’s when I saw that most of the left side of her jaw was missing. She couldn’t speak. She tried,” he says, nodding, “but she couldn’t. So, she told me what she wanted by pointing at the gun. I didn’t want to give it to her, but I could see that she was in so much pain and I didn’t know what else to do, so I got it for her. I gave it to her. I did.”
I cover my mouth with my hands, my eyes burning like crazy. I’m too scared to breathe for fear that I’ll end up bursting into tears. Alex looks at me. Looks hard. Doesn’t waiver. “She couldn’t close her hand around the handle. She kept on trying, and she kept on dropping it. In the end, she started this…awful wailing. I’d never heard anything like it before. She was suffering. She wanted to go, and she couldn’t fucking do it, and I knew what was going to happen next, but—”
“Oh, Alex.”
“The gun was fucking huge. I think it was a desert eagle or something, must have been to blow half her face off like that, but I wasn’t really looking at it properly. At the time, all I knew was that it was heavy and I couldn’t hold it straight, not even with both hands. She helped me. She guided it to her other temple. The one she hadn’t already ruined. She closed her eyes, sighed, and it was like this…this wash of relief came over her. She nodded, squeezing her hand around the top of my thigh, digging her fingernails into my leg, and then I remember her jerking, the sound of the gun firing, the small room filling up with this horrible smelling smoke, and there being blood running down the wall. And…that was it. I called nine one one. Told them what had happened. There was a second there where they thought I’d just straight up fucking killed her. Took two days for the coroner to confirm that my story was probably the truth. They kept me in a psyche ward, locked inside this room with three fully grown crazy motherfuckers who kept trying to touch me. And then it was the system. Foster care. Bumped from home to home.”
His skin has taken on this deathly hue, like a part of him has just died in the retelling of this dark, fucked up story. “If I’d come home earlier, I probably could have stopped her.”
“It wasn’t your fault, Alex. None of it.”
He looks down at the food in front of him, then back up at me again. He shifts a little, laying his hands flat against the top of the table. I don’t think he knows what to do with them. “You’re right. I know,” he says. “She did it to herself. Even in the end, she managed to pull the trigger. But I held it for her, Silver. I fucking held it.”
20
ALEX
I run the St. Christopher medallion along the chain around my neck on the drive back to the cabin, tearing myself a new one. Way to ruin lunch, ya fuckin’ asshole. Nothing like a good old gory suicide to really whet a girl’s appetite.
Beside me, Silver sits in silence, two to-go boxes full of cold food resting on her lap. I think she’s fucking traumatized. I was traumatized as fuck for a seriously long time after that happened to me, but I’ve had the benefit of eleven years and a whole heap of a state-ordered therapy since then. I don’t like to think about it. I sure as fuck don’t like to talk about it, but I can if I really feel the need to.
Once we’re back, Silver puts our abandoned food into the fridge for later and goes upstairs. When she comes back down, she has her guitar in her hand; she opens up the doors that lead onto the lower deck, letting the cold air inside, and goes to sit in a weathered old chair by the railing. She doesn’t say anything as she begins to play. The melody is haunting and soft, filled with a sadness that makes my throat ache. She’s seriously fucking talented. Her fingerpicking skills are on fucking point.
I sit myself down on the deck, back resting against a wooden post, watching her hands slide deftly up and down the instrument. I’m still only wearing a t-shirt, and the cold knifes through the material, but I barely feel it. I’m too sucked into the music that spills from her like a tortured confession of her own. To the right of the deck, the lake lies as still and flat as a mirror, reflecting the gunmetal grey of the sky, as well as the brace of trees that venture all the way down to the shoreline, their exposed roots, knotty and tangled, dipping into the water.
Time slows as Silver plays. She doesn’t even seem to be paying attention to what she’s doing, her fingers flying nimbly up and down the neck of the guitar. It’s quite something to watch. When she finally stops, her hands falling still, I get to my feet and take the guitar from her. I’ll admit, smug bastard that I am, that I’m pleased by the look of shock on her face when I begin to play, mimicking the melody, pitch and pace of the song she was just playing herself.
“You motherfucker,” she says, a small smile spreading across her face. “I s’pose this is what you meant. When I asked what you were planning to do when the end of year music exam rolled around, you said you had it covered.”
“Were you picturing bribery?” I ask quietly, still playing her tune from memory.
“Something like that.” She chews on her thumbnail, her eyes following me as I pace up and down the deck, head bowed, expanding now on what she played, throwing my own twist on it, adding my own sorrow into the mix. That's what this song is, after all: a haunting, beautiful, painful lament. When I'm finished, I sit on the deck again, Indian style, laying the guitar flat over my legs, so it doesn't get scratched.
“I want to tell you what happened to me,” Silver says. “But I worry.”
“What are you worried about?”
“That you’ll hear all of the gruesome, messed up details and you won’t be attracted to me anymore. You’ll feel sorry for me instead, and I don’t want that.”
“I can guarantee you, there is nothing in this world that could ever make me unattracted to you, Silver. And I’ll be sorry that something so fucking horrible happened to you, but I won’t pity you. You’re too strong to deserve anybody’s pity. What else?”
“I’m worried you’ll do something stupid. You said something pretty disturbing in the café. You said you were gonna hurt them. And you didn’t say you wouldn’t do anything to them after that.”
This is a tough one. Urgh. “I didn’t take back that comment, because I don’t plan on lying to you. Ever. And I will hurt them for what they did to you. D’you think they deserve to walk around, free, after causing so much pain? D’you think they won’t do it again to someone else if they’re left unchecked?”
She looks doubtful. “You forget I heard that conversation outside Darhower’s office. You’re on your final warning. If you do anything illegal, you’re gonna end up in jail, and that’s not something I can live with. Not for me. Plus, if you use violence against them, the way they used it against me, then how does that make you any better than them?”
Drumming my fingers against the top of her guitar, I consider this. The solution I come up with doesn’t make me happy, but it’s something at least. “What if I don’t do anything illegal? Or use violence?”
“How could you possibly avoid it?”
“I’m a resourceful guy. If I have to, I’ll make it work.”
“I don’t want to testify,” she says miserably. “I can’t face that. My parents wouldn’t be able to live with themselves if they knew.”
“They don’t know? Any of it?”
“You don’t understand. It’s not as simple as just telling them something bad happened to me. They had me so young. They’re good parents, but they have so much going on, Alex. They both work like crazy, and Max needs all of their focus. He’s just a kid. If I tell them this, he’ll fall by the wayside. Everything will be about me. Their lives will stop. I can’t do that to them. I can’t do that to Max.”
I can see how she’d think that, but her perspective is so warped. “They’re your parents, Argento. When they eventually do find out about this, they’re going to be so fucked up. They’re gonna be devastated that you didn’t trust them to have your back.”
She looks away, out over the lake; clearly, she doesn't want to hear this. She wants me to just understand and accept that she's made the right decision. I'm not going to get her to change her mind, so instead, I press for the offer I just made her. “How about it? All above board. A legal takedown. Not a single drop of bloodshed in the pursuit of justice?”
“And no testifying on my part.”
I sigh. “Fine. No testifying on your part.” She waits, considering my proposal, her eyes searching the calm water. “Come on. Don’t you want a little payback? Just a little revenge, for everything they put you through?”