“Are you still trying to weasel your way into the wedding party?” I ask Silas, taking a sip of my iced tea.
Silas puts one hand on his chest and tries to look hurt and offended.
“I would never,” he says solemnly.
June just rolls her eyes.
“I was trying to weasel a drone into their wedding party,” he says. “It’s completely different.”
“You want to know a secret?” I ask, sidling closer to Silas.
He lifts both his eyebrows.
“Levi told me Hedwig is his best man,” I say, keeping my voice low. “Saves him the agony of having to choose a human, you know?”
I probably shouldn’t be baiting poor Silas, but I’ll do anything to get my mind off the fact that I had sex with a student last night.
Even though it’s not working at all. Even though the knowledge of what I did feels like a boulder on my chest.
It’s unconscionable. Even if it wasn’t technically intercourse, there’s no mistaking that what we did last night was anything but sex.
If I were someone else, I’d be appalled, no matter what. It’s an abuse of trust and it’s an abuse of power and even though it doesn’t feel at all like any of those things, it feels like I’ve met someone who lights up every room she walks into and makes me want to believe in magic, that’s the cold hard truth.
It’s wrong, and I know it’s wrong, and now I feel awful about myself, and I don’t know how to walk into class tomorrow and look at Thalia, so I’m hassling Silas and June instead.
“I don’t believe you,” Silas informs me. “Though I almost do, because Levi would do that. But I don’t.”
“It’s kind of a good idea,” June says, thoughtfully. “All you assholes can just sit in the front row and chill. Hedwig’s a very good dog, and you’ve still got two more weddings to fight over, probably.”
“No, he has two more to fight over,” Silas says, pointing at me. “Well, he’s got one because the other is his wedding —”
“I’m getting married?” I ask, and even though I’m kidding and I know what it means, the thought sends an odd ripple through me.
They both ignore me.
“ — But for me? This is my one shot,” Silas finishes.
June, his little sister, is marrying my oldest brother Levi. Levi is also Silas’s best friend, and he’s also the entire reason they still haven’t picked wedding parties for a wedding that’s just months away.
Does he stand on Levi’s side, as his lifelong closest friend?
Does he stand on June’s side, as her brother?
He can’t do both, and not being in either wedding party seems so wrong that it’s unconscionable. In the meantime, the rest of us have quietly decided that the suits we wore to Daniel and Eli’s weddings will do nicely for groomsmen suits when we’re inevitably asked two weeks before the wedding.
“Besides, I would make such a good toast,” he goes on.
“We already asked you to make a toast,” June says. “Don’t make me regret giving you a microphone in front of everyone we know.”
Silas just grins.
“Remember that time when you were thirteen, and you wanted to impress that guy you had a crush on, so —"
“Dinner!” Eli shouts, pushing open the back door.
“Thanks!” shouts back June.
Then she turns to Silas.
“You think I won’t kill you at my own wedding,” she says. “I will.”* * *After dinner and dessert, I help Seth and Violet clear the dining room and do the dishes, and then I tell them that I’m going to check the back porch for more glasses and plates, just in case, and I head back outside.
There aren’t any glasses or plates out here. I knew there weren’t, but I have the world’s nosiest family. I love them, but I’m not sure they’ve ever once respected someone’s desire to be alone with his thoughts.
Somehow, astonishingly, I get a full seven minutes before the door opens and footsteps cross the deck toward me. Seven minutes of staring out at my mom’s backyard, half thinking about how next time I’m here I should rake the yard and clean out the gutters for her, half thinking about last night and Thalia and how I haven’t even texted her today even though I’ve thought about her every three-point-four seconds.
I don’t know if I can text her, or at least, I don’t know if I should. Can the school administration find that? I know they can track the emails we send from school accounts, but my phone has nothing to do with the school, right?
I’m hyper-aware, hyper-alert, more on edge than I’ve ever been.
Breaking the rules and keeping a secret is so, so much harder than I thought it would be. I don’t even know whether to text a girl.
“What’s wrong?” my mom’s voice says, and I look over in surprise because I assumed it was Seth, coming out here to badger me.