“Hi,” she says, after a moment, her face serious. She holds out a hand. “I’m June, Silas’s sister.”
Even in the dark, June looks like a smaller, female version of Silas. I can’t see if she’s got the same almost-freckles, but they’ve got the same eyes, the same eyebrows, his features softened and smaller on her face. I think her hair’s darker. Also, she’s visibly pregnant, somewhere in the ‘cute bump’ stage of pregnancy.
“Kat,” I say, shaking it. “I’m. Uh. Silas’s girlfriend.”
Still a weird thing to say out loud, but June laughs.
“I’ve heard all about you,” she says, and practically peels out of the parking lot. “Sorry. This thing either stalls or does that.”
We reach the main road, and June almost stops before turning right.
“So, I heard you nearly made him drop out of college?”
I’ve got my head back against the seat, mind still racing.
“Not quite,” I say without thinking. “I heard you slept with his best friend?”
That gets silence.
“Oh, my God,” I say, the second my brain catches up with my mouth. “Pretend—”
June’s laughing too hard to even hear me, I think. The truck wobbles a little on the road. I clear my throat.
“Sorry,” I say, but now I’m trying not to laugh, too.
“No wonder he likes you,” she says, still giggling. “That asshole needed someone with a spine.”
I blow out a breath, then reach back and start undoing my hair since it’s uncomfortable in the car and I think I’m about to go on some sort of deep woods adventure.
“I’m glad we’re on the same page about him,” I say.
“That he’s an asshole, but we love him anyway?”
I glance over at her, profiled in the dark, dashboard lights giving her face an eerie glow.
“Yeah,” I say, and don’t elaborate.
“He’s sorry for ditching you with his coworkers,” she says, and then rolls her eyes. “Probably. He should be, I’ve met them before.”
She blows out a breath, runs a hand through her hair the exact same way Silas does sometimes.
“No one knows where Javier is,” she says. “But his car’s up at Wildwood.”
“Oh,” I say, the only thing I can think of. I remember Javier at the brewery: the easy way he laughed, the paint that dotted his knuckles. Floppy black hair that he kept shoving out of his eyes. The casual way he moved, like he was in communication with all his limbs but couldn’t always tell them what to do. Mexican, I think he said. A pretty kind of handsome.
“The guys are up there right now,” she goes on. “They were looking for him earlier but it’s probably too dark now. No point in getting two people lost. I think now they’re just hoping he comes back.”
“Okay,” I say.
“We’re going for moral support. Javi…”
June thinks for a minute, like she’s being certain of getting her words right.
“…Struggles with addiction,” she finishes, and takes a sharp curve about ten miles an hour too fast. I grab onto the sides of my seat.
“Oh,” I say again.
“He’s been sober for about three years,” June goes on. “But. You know.”