Page 28 of Where We Ended
My mind drifted back to what Alec had said about me being pathetic, and how the love of my life didn’t really want me. It wasn’t like I hadn’t heard it all before. Silas had let me go, choosing his plans of vengeance over a life made with me. While most people weren’t privy to what had happened, and not even Alec had gotten all the details surrounding it right, it still served as a reminder that The Roman was a slave to his club, and to his darkness.
He was a dark forest, obstructing all the light.
And I was parched earth in need of his shade.
We were impossible, and the idea that we could ever be anything more than two passing ships in the night was laughable.
I closed my eyes, pushing out the tears that kept trying to push forward and I did the one thing I had trained myself not to for these past two years.
I remembered.
Age Sixteen
Silas was gone again.
This time he’d left in the middle of June, right after we’d started our annual frog hunting tradition. It was different this summer though. We’d finished our studies in May, and then we started driving. Neither of us had a car; we just borrowed Sasha’s Jeep. She didn’t mind as long as we were careful and safe, and promised to never touch any of the shit being channeled through the club. The older we became the more it seemed to bother her that we were both so close to the Death Raiders.
I would never touch drugs regardless. Watching my mother get high and choose drugs over keeping me fed removed any temptation I might ever feel for that shit. Silas too, he was smart…he was the college kind of smart, and everyone knew it. I had overheard his mom talk to him about applying places, but Silas never answered her.
I’d even brought it up once while we were out learning to drive stick together, the Jeep jerking with every push of the clutch and us laughing as the gears ground. We’d barely made it down the road when Silas pulled off and decided we should go swimming instead. Soaking wet, and shimmering with beads of water against our skin, we laid out on the dock watching the minimal clouds float by.
“Will you try to go to college?” I turned toward him, loving the way the blue in his eyes turned almost aqua in this light. He swiped a hand over his thick hair, letting tiny drops of lake water linger on his chest. He gave me that stare that always struck me quiet, because he followed it up with a blinding smile.
One that made my breath hitch.
“Only if you come with me.”
A scoff crept up my throat as my heart sank. “And what, sleep on your floor while you get yourself a degree?”
His head dipped but I didn’t miss the way his cheeks flushed pink.
“Maybe not…maybe instead you just sleep in my bed, and we share the degree.”
I sat up, folding my legs under me, ignoring the way his eyes tracked my every move. “We can’t share a degree, Silas, that’s not how it works.”
I’d skip over the sharing the bed thing completely because while I was completely and devastatingly in love with Silas, I knew better than to ever imagine he’d care for me in that way. It was something we’d danced around since we were kids, something neither of us had ever confronted. We were getting older though and I’d catch him looking at me differently.
His eyes would linger on my legs and my lips.
Small touches would land on my back, and he was finding reasons to hold my hand more and more. I only wanted it to mean that he saw me how I viewed him, but he’d yet to make any official move. I noticed it when he’d found an old dirt bike behind the clubhouse and informed me, I needed to learn how to ride. He’d sit behind me with his hands over mine on the throttle, teaching me how to hold it steady. Other times his hands would remain on my hips while we navigated the small lot behind the house. Even when I started getting comfortable with riding and transitioned to bigger bikes, Silas would remain behind me, holding me.
“I don’t see why not.” His severe glare caught me again, making words die on my tongue. “You’re already in here.” His palm covered his heart. “Half of you at least…you’ve got the other half of mine in there.” He pointed at my chest. “Not like they’d want me to give half the effort when a simple solution would be to go as one whole.”
My heart sank because I knew he was telling the truth and I didn’t have the grades or the money to go to college. I didn’t have the drive either; as it was, I’d barely graduated high school through the state, and whatever homeschool program Sasha used with us. She had us take state tests at a local school; otherwise, Silas and I did all our educating at her kitchen table.
Being separated from him was a painful knife twisting over and over in my chest. Every day that he wasn’t here, every night he was gone…it all felt so wrong. It was how I knew I’d never survive after we were old enough to move away from the club and start our lives. Silas could leave this place, go to college and work on Wall Street if he wanted. He could be someone who helped configure moon landings and space shuttles. He was brilliant, and yet the only aspiration he seemed to have was spending time with me.
With him gone, it left a gap in my life I struggled to fill.
I applied at a few places to work, but the club was miles from anywhere local. I could walk, but Silas had always warned me to be smart, not desperate. One solo walk on the club road at night and I’d be sorry, so working was out unless it was something I found within the club.
Most people knew I belonged to Lilly, the strung-out bunk bunny who sucked club cock, and whatever other depraved things they’d ask for, all for drugs. Not money or food. No, that she’d leave me to beg for and when I was younger, I cared enough about her that I would take her whatever I found. I don’t anymore. Now, I keep it all for myself. Because it finally dawned on me that I was alone in this world. At the mercy of Sasha and the strange admiration of Silas; otherwise, I would be homeless with nowhere else to go.
Dempsey, Sasha’s man, had offered to move Sasha and Silas into his house off the club property, but that invite didn’t include me. With Silas gone, Sasha allowed me to continue sleeping in her son’s room and I was fine with staying on the floor, but one night, when missing him became too intense and the loneliness in my chest had nearly tore me open, I crawled into his bed and inhaled what remnants of him that I could find. Campfire. Our Lake. Summer.
I didn’t like the way my life seemed to stop spinning and existing, unless Silas was at the center of it. I knew it wasn’t healthy and, in a way, I was just like my mother, except Silas was my drug, this home our club, membership of just two.
Weeks passed where I busied myself in Sasha’s garden, keeping it green and helping as much as I could with her trips to the farmer’s market. She’d established a good customer base there, several of whom had shown up just for her week after week. It was nice to help her, and any time she tried to pay me, I’d just slide the money back into her purse. Her teaching me, feeding me and giving me a place to live was more than I could ever pay back.