“I was in the forest,” I explain, closing my eyes, facing the wall, waiting.
There it is: the heavy crash of guilt into my chest at my betrayal.
“Right,” he says, and I can tell he’s trying to sound like himself but he’s failing. I’ve gotten this call a dozen times before, and now I can tell that it’s this call within a second of answering my phone.
“Do you want to come over?” I ask, just as the bathroom door opens and June steps out, holding the paper bag filled with her clothes and backpack.
“I had a bad night,” he says, finally answering my very first question. “That’s not true. I had a couple bad nights. I haven’t really slept. I can’t really sleep.”
He’s jagged, raw, on edge. June walks to my front door, sits on the floor, pulls her shoes on.
The weight on my chest threatens to crush me, and I shut my eyes. I feel like I’m balancing on the edge of an axe blade.
“Can you drive?” I ask, trying to sound calm, serene. As if I wasn’t kissing his little sister sixty seconds ago. “I can come over there.”
“Don’t come over here,” he says quickly, the jingle of keys in the background. I get the impression that he’s been practically waiting by the door, waiting for me to answer my phone. I’ve got a cell phone, but it doesn’t get service in the forest or at my house. “I’d rather come to your place. It’s better. It’s quiet. I’ll be there in thirty, okay?”
“Okay,” I say, because it’s the only thing I can say.
Silas ends the call, and I put my phone back on its receiver. The cord bounces.
“That was Silas?” June asks, sitting cross-legged on the floor. The dog is on her back in front of her, tongue lolling out as she enjoys some belly scratches.
“It was,” I confirm, mind racing.
I can’t explain. I don’t know how. It’s not my place to explain.
“I’m sorry—” I start.
“It’s okay,” she says, looking up at me as I walk over to her.
There are a thousand things I want to explain, and I can’t.
“It’s not,” I say, and offer her my hand. She takes it and stands carefully, like she’s trying to keep my too-large shirt from touching her back.
“Levi,” she says, softly but firmly as she opens the door and I walk her to her car. “My back is a mess of itchy, oozing welts right now, and I am going to go home and sit in a bathtub full of oatmeal until I, too, am an oat.”
“I’m not sure that’s how it works,” I tell her, opening her car door.
“It had better because I’m pretty sure oats can’t itch,” she says, tossing the paper bags with her clothes in them onto the passenger seat.
Then she pauses. She looks up at me.
“Don’t tell Silas,” she says, and I nearly laugh.
“No,” I agree.
“I don’t think he would take it well, and I don’t know—"
She breaks off mid-sentence, looking up at me, still standing in her open car door.
I kiss her again. I don’t even mean to, I just do.
“I don’t know either,” I tell her.
I don’t. I’m fairly sure that right now I don’t know a single thing, least of all what I’ve gotten myself into.
June smiles, cocks her head slightly.
“I gotta go before I get busted,” she says. “See you around, Levi.”
With that, she closes the door, reverses, then drives down my driveway and out of sight.
I give myself five minutes to sit on my porch steps and wonder what the hell just happened.
Then I get up, go inside, and methodically make sure that every trace of June is cleared out before Silas gets there.Chapter TwelveLevi“It was the child bride this time,” Silas says. “The night before last.”
He’s sitting on my couch and the dog is next to him, her head on his lap as he scratches her ears, his feet on my coffee table.
“I wish you’d come over yesterday,” I tell him, leaning against my kitchen counter, looking out into the living room. Two mugs are sitting next to me, waiting for hot water.
“It’s so stupid,” Silas says, his head back against the couch. “I thought I could handle it by myself this time, I really did. I even called my therapist and she walked me through some stuff, but—”
The teapot on the stove just barely starts to whistle, and I snatch it off before it can get going, pour the water into the waiting mugs.
“You don’t have to handle it yourself,” I tell him, simply.
“The guys next door got the new Call of Duty game,” he says. He heaves a deep breath. “I can hear it through the wall sometimes, and it’s nothing, I know it’s nothing, but sometimes after a bad night I hear one of those and…”
He trails off, but he doesn’t have to finish the sentence because I know what comes next. Next is he’s back in the desert, listening to the bombs drop at night. Next is he’s in a tank, trying to spot IEDs. Next is they’re going into a village and everyone there is eerily quiet.