Kat
Silas materializesthe moment the last person goes through the doors at the front of the theater, leaning in the dark rectangle that leads backstage, arms crossed, watching. Waiting to reckon with me, and I don’t think I’ve ever looked forward to anything less.
That’s not true. Evan’s mom insisted on throwing me a bridal shower. That took two Xanax and I still called Anna Grace from the bathroom, hyperventilating.
“I win anything?” he asks when I step into the doorway, feeling like it’s the Tower of London.
“Coconut creme, I think,” I tell him, my voice coming out wooden, the way it always does when I’m nervous. “Pecan went for close to nine hundred.”
“Lord have mercy,” he says. “Meckler get any?”
We’re a few steps backstage, in a hallway next to a set of steps, dimly lit from the stage and the door.
“No,” I say, and a smirk works itself across Silas’s face. The two of them spent the last hour alternating trips to the pie table and outbidding each other, Evan never saying a word, Silas never shutting up. I’ll admit it: I’m curious.
“Good,” he says, and leans back against the wall, one foot propped on it behind himself as he flattens his back to it, arms still over his chest. He looks different alone, in the low light, at the end of the night. There’s less bluster and superficial charm, more humanity. Not too much more, but some.
I take a deep breath and find the opposite wall with my own hands behind my back, prepping the thing I’ve been practicing for the past hour.
“I’m sorry,” I say, voice steady.
Silas waits a beat, watching me.
“Go on,” he finally says, and I have to look away as irritation flares inside me.
“I’m sorry that I panicked and forced you into telling Evan, and by extension everyone who was present tonight, that we’re dating,” I tell him, focusing on the steps to our left because if I make eye contact, I’m certain I’ll sound insincere, and I’m not.
I’m sorry that I claimed to be dating Silas just to piss off Evan, even if the way his eyes glinted and his jaw tightened and his face darkened brought me pure, crackling glee, an unparalleled high.
Mostly. I’m mostly sorry.
“Forced?” he says, a low drawl with fight running underneath it. “You didn’t force me, Nakamura.”
Behind my back, I make a fist against the wall and press my knuckles into it. Of course Silas can’t just accept an apology.
“You said it yourself,” I say, sounding remarkably calm. “I didn’t give you many options.”
“But you did give them.”
“Then I coerced you,” I say, over-pronouncing the word as if I think he’s never heard it before. “I’m sorry for coercing you into being nice to me for five minutes, can we—”
“When you called me your lover you gave me options and I picked one,” he says, cutting me off. I press my knuckles harder into the wall. “You don’t get to act like you’re some all-powerful puppet master pulling the strings and making me dance.”
“Puppet master?” I say, sarcasm now on full blast. “Are you serious?”
“You didn’t force me into shit. I picked an option, and I picked the one that did you a favor.” He says, tone not shifting in the slightest. “And now, you owe me.”
“I already apologized.”
“Thanks. That’s not what you owe me.”
I’m tempted to tell him to go fuck himself and then walk away, because I don’t want to be in Silas’s debt for anything. I don’t see what he could possibly want me in his debt for, what he could need from me that he can’t get on his own.
There’s a long, long silence in the hall, the sounds of people on the other side of the wall drifting dully through.
“This is the part where you say so, Silas, what do I owe you?” he says in a terrible imitation of me. “And then I say, thanks for asking, Nakamura, it’s so kind of you to acknowledge both my existence and the fact that I helped you out earlier.”
I set aside acknowledge his existence for another time, because I can only deal with so much of his bullshit.