He pauses for a moment. It’s probably just the phone.
“Really great?” he asks.
“Yup,” I confirm, lying back and flipping through muted channels. “My boss seems like he’s a really, you know, interesting guy, and I met some of coworkers today and they’re all… cool. I start tomorrow!”
There’s another pause and it’s definitely not the phone.
“Is something up?” he finally asks.
“What? No,” I say. “What would be up?”
“I don’t know, you just sound weird,” he says.
“I’m great.”
“You keep using that word,” he says. “Are you sure everything’s cool?”
I stop flipping and, for a moment, just stare at an infomercial for a stretchy garden hose.
“Yeah,” I say, but my voice betrays me and I do not sound like everything is cool.
“You just had this rough breakup,” he says. “Of this secret relationship with Logan that no one knew you were in, and now you’re sounding weird and starting a brand-new job tomorrow and you can’t tell me that something isn’t up, June.”
I pause. And pause. Finally, I take a deep breath.
“The job seems like it might have some challenges,” I tell him. “I’m not sure that all my coworkers get along, and my boss seems like he might be a little intense, but I can handle it.”
“I see,” he says.
The pause this time is very long, and I note some impressive qualities of the stretchy garden hose.
“June, you’re better than a job that sucks,” Silas finally says, his voice quiet, sincere. “I know that you’ve had a really hard couple of months, and I know you were really down after losing your last job and that assface dumped you, but you’re better than a shitty job.”
I close my eyes, take a deep breath, and fight tears yet again.
“I don’t have other options,” I remind him. “I’ve applied for a hundred and five jobs, Silas, this is the one that’s available.”
“It’s not your fault that newspapers are dying, that’s because of… uh, the internet, I think,” he says. “If you want to come home and spend a while just figuring out what it is you want to do, that’s okay. No one thinks less of you. No one here is pinning your worth on whether you’re employed or not, and you shouldn’t be either.”
I swallow an enormous lump in my throat.
“Who is this?” I demand.
“Huh?”
“You’re being nice, and my brother Silas once held me down and farted into my mouth, so you’re obviously an imposter,” I say.
“I never did that.”
“Yes, you did.”
He’s laughing, because he knows he did it.
“You must have me confused with another brother,” he says.
“I’m pretty positive I’ve only got the one.”
“Then I guess you’re just confused,” he says, then clears his throat. “Bug, if you’re happy, I’m happy, and if this is really your dream then Godspeed. But you wouldn’t be worthless if you turned down a bad situation.”
I pull myself to sitting on the bed, and an attractive woman on TV makes an astonished face at the stretchiness of this garden hose.
“Thanks, Silas,” I say. “I’ll be fine.”
We talk a little longer, then hang up. I watch a reality TV show about people who live in Florida, drink too much vodka, and are obsessed with whether or not other people are ‘respecting’ them.
I never do find a Chinese restaurant, so I end up at the diner next door again.Chapter Thirty-EightLeviFour forty-five in the morning may as well be midnight. It’s still dark, still deadly quiet. In mid-October, in the mountains, the mist winds through the air like it’s a living being. Even in town it floats, sits, thinks, parts in front of you as you walk through it like it’s allowing you to pass.
It allows me to pass. It’s cold. It’s dark. The moon is gone, and there’s not a single sound as I cross the street and climb the steps to Silas’s townhouse and knock on the door before I can let thinking get in my way.
Then I step back and wait. I know full well that I’m waking him up and that finally coming clean at this hour makes me an asshole, but I’m also confident that in about three minutes the time won’t be the thing he’s angry about.
I shift my feet, rub my hands together. My breath fogs in front of me, and I quietly hope that Silas is simply slow getting out of bed, that I haven’t triggered something. I know what a loud knock can sound like.
Finally, I hear footsteps inside, rushing down the stairs. I stand up straight. I steel myself.
The door opens.
“Levi? What happened?” Silas says, wearing nothing but flannel pajama pants and a robe, his hair wild and his eyes wide.
“Nothing’s happened,” I say. “I have a confession.”
Silas stares at me, a long, hard, penetrating stare, like he’s trying to decide whether I’m real or not, so I go on.