Silas (39 page)

Everyone laughed.

She slid it onto his finger.

He took her hand. “With this
ring,” he said, “I mark my territory as well.”

“
Eeww,” she said, pulling
her hand back.

He grabbed it again. “Come
on. Can’t back out now. You said you wanted to be with me for the
rest of your life.”

Leigh giggled, letting him
put the ring on her finger.

He grabbed her, pulled her tight
against him and kissed her hard.

She threw her arms around his
neck.

They kept kissing.

And kissing.

I looked away.

I could see that the guests were
starting to shift in embarrassment as well.

Leigh pushed him away, her
face exultant. “I now pronounce us man and wife.”

“
I like the sound of that,”
said Griffin, tugging her close again. He looked out at the guests.
“Um, there’s beer in the coolers. Help yourself.” And then he
kissed her again.

* * *

Sloane sat down next to me,
plopping down two bouquets on the chair beside me. One was her
bridesmaid bouquet. The other was Leigh
’s.
She caught it in the bouquet toss. “Hey, bro.”

I was drinking beer. The
reception was beer and ordered-in pizza, it being an informal
anti-wedding and all of that. I realized that I’d been kind of a
cock not to offer to brew beer especially for their wedding, but it
hadn’t occurred to me before. I’d been a self-absorbed
asshole.

It wasn’t as if I hadn’t
known that before. The difference was that now I felt bad about
it.

“
Hey,” I said. “Congrats on
catching the bouquet.”

“
It thwapped me in the
head,” she said. “I wasn’t even trying to catch it. Weren’t you
watching?”

I laughed. “Not really. I
was sort of…”

“
Staring at Christa,” she
said.

I shrugged, not even bothering to deny
it.

She took my beer from me and
took a long drink. “Catching this stupid bouquet is like a cruel
joke. Everyone knows that I’m never going to find someone to settle
down with.”

“
No one knows that.” I
snatched the beer back. “You’re my sister, and you’re awesome, and
a guy would be lucky to have you.”

“
Whatever.” She slumped in
her chair. “Do you know when the last time it was that I even got
laid?”

“
No,” I said. “And I don’t
want to know either. You should keep certain things to
yourself.”

“
Eight. Months.” She took my
beer again. “That’s how long.”

“
Could you get your own beer
or something?” I said.

She glared at me. “When was
the last time you went eight
days
without getting laid?”

I sighed. “Yeah, well,
that’s going to change.”

“
It is?” She looked
skeptical. She took a drink of my beer. “Why?”

“
Because I don’t think it
was very healthy,” I said. “I think that shit with French, where I
was like a male gigolo, kind of screwed with my head.”

“
Really?”

I shrugged.

“
Are you admitting weakness,
Silas? Is my brother actually realizing he’s not
perfect?”

“
Shut up,” I
said.

She drank more beer. “It’s
because of Christa, isn’t it? You’re into her.”

“
No,” I said. “It’s not. She
doesn’t like me that way.”

She patted my arm. “I’m
sorry.”

I shrugged her off.
“Whatever.”

“
No, really, I am. I know
you think I’m giving you hell, but I do think that she’s got to be
crazy not to go for you. You’re the best brother in the world, and
you look out for me. The only thing that annoys me about you is
that you chase away guys who seem interested in me by scaring them
to death, but I imagine that wouldn’t be a totally bad quality in a
boyfriend.”

I sighed. “I’m sorry,
Sloane. Next guy you bring home? I promise to be nice.”

She took another drink of
her beer. “You’ll try, anyway.” She made a face. “It’s probably
better if we’re alone. Right?”

“
Yeah,” I said.
“Probably.”

* * *

“
What are you doing up so
early?” Sloane stood on the steps in the house in her pajamas. Her
hair was sticking up straight in the air in the back.

I was sitting on the couch.
“Convincing myself
not
to chase her to the airport.”

She made a sympathetic face
and trooped down the rest of the stairs to join me. “Oh,
Silas.”

“
They do it on the movies,
you know,” I said. “There’s always that last minute change of
heart, and the guy gets in a cab and races to stop her from
leaving. There’s always all these obstacles, like getting stuck in
traffic or the car getting a flat or something. But he keeps going.
And then it cuts to her going through security and checking her
bags. And then back to him. He’s still having problems. Back to
her. She’s boarding the plane. And he bursts into the airport, and
then…”

She gave me a hug. “I’m
sorry.”

I hugged her back. “It would
be a dick move, wouldn’t it? They make it seem romantic on the
movies, but if she told me she didn’t want me, then chasing her
after like that would actually be really uncool.”

“
Maybe.”

“
It’s only that I know that
they all drove to Clarksburg together. Griffin and Leigh were
getting a flight for their honeymoon, and they all went in one car.
Beverly, Christa, and the two of them. And I know that they left
about ten minutes ago. And if I got in the car now, I could get
there.”

She grabbed my hand. “You’re
right. It’s better not to go.”

I leaned back against the
couch, staring up at the ceiling. “I didn’t think it would feel
like this.”

“
What would?”

“
Losing her.” I swallowed.
“We spent days together. We were all each other had out there. And
she’s gone, and it feels wrong. It feels like something’s
missing.”

“
Wow. You have it bad for
her.”

I sighed, looking at my
sister. “I’m kind of pathetic right now, aren’t I?”

She smiled. “A little,
maybe. But it’s nice too. It’s okay to be pathetic now and then,
Silas. You don’t always have to be strong for me.”

I hugged her again.

She rested her head against
my chest. “You said goodbye to her last night after the wedding,
right?”

“
She barely even looked at
me,” I said. “She told me before that I reminded her of what Rolf
did to her. I guess I can’t blame her.”

Sloane lifted her head.
“You’re going to be okay. You know that, right?”

“
No,” I said. “I don’t know
that. Right now I feel the opposite of okay.”

She stuck out her lower lip.
“Maybe we should start drinking. What do you think? It’s Sunday
morning. We could have mimosas. There’s leftover champagne from the
toasts at the wedding.”

I considered. “That’s not
really a very healthy way to deal with it, is it?”

She grinned. “We could also
eat really bad junk food.”

I laughed.

“
You’re smiling.” She jumped
up off the couch. “My work here is done.”

“
You’re a good sister, you
know that?”

“
So, do you want to start
drinking?”

“
Uh… yeah. Actually,
yeah.”

She scampered away towards
the kitchen. “I’ll find the champagne, okay?”

I got up too, going after her. She
could never get the corks out without my help. In my pocket, my
cell phone beeped at me. I dug it out of my pocket.

It was a facebook
notification.

Christa Fawkes wanted to be
friends. There was a message. “Be my friend? I might be lonely back
in Austin.”

I clicked the button to accept the
request.

Huh.

CHAPTER
TWENTY-THREE

three months
later
…

My phone was ringing. I was
taking the steps three at a time up to my bedroom. It was late, and
I was a little drunk. Even now, after all this time had passed, it
still sometimes felt strange for me to come back from the bars
without a girl. But I’d been celibate for quite some time now. I
dug the phone out of my pocket and was pleasantly surprised to see
that it was Christa.

I answered it. “Hey. You’re
calling me late.”

She giggled. “I’m
drunk.”

I reached the top of the
steps and wandered into my bedroom. “Me too.”

“
I wasn’t sure if you’d be
awake.”

“
Are you kidding? It’s three
in the morning on Thursday. Well, Friday now, technically, I guess.
But, anyway, of course I’m awake.”

“
Are you home or are you out
somewhere? It’s only two in the morning here, you know.”

“
Well, greetings from the
future,” I said. “I’m home. Just got in, in fact. What about you? I
thought you were going out to celebrate the end of summer classes
tonight.”

“
I did,” she said. “It was a
blast. And now I’m back in my dorm. And my roommate went home for
the weekend, so I’m all alone.”

“
Oh,” I said in
understanding. I sat down on the bed. “You okay?”

“
Fine,” she said.

“
Christa, this is me. You
can tell me if you’re not.”

“
I’m alone all the time
these days, Silas. Seriously.”

“
Because, you know, I
couldn’t believe it when you told me that you stayed at school over
the summer and took classes so that you wouldn’t have to sleep in a
room by yourself.”

“
That is
not
why,” she
said.

“
It’s what you
said.”

“
Maybe it was part of it,”
she said. “But only a little tiny part. Anyway, I’m not calling you
because I’m scared. I mean, not exactly.”

“
Not exactly?”

“
I just wanted to catch up,”
she said. “You know, see how you’re doing.”

I laughed. “Well, in the
last two hours since I commented on your status, I have gone to
three bars and had about seven beers and talked a lot about
brewing.”

“
Right,” she
said.

“
What about you?” I lay back
on my bed.

“
Um, I went out with my
friends from my math class,” she said. “And we had rum runners. And
April—you remember I told you about her?”

“
The one with the nose
piercing?”

“
No, that’s Blair. April’s
the one who’s—”

“
The lesbian.”

“
Yes,” she giggled. “Well,
she totally flirted with me all night, and these guys kept asking
us to make out, and I told them to get lost. And we danced and
stuff.”

I raised my eyebrows. “You
and April danced? Together?”

“
Shut up,” she said. “I
should never have told you I had a friend that was a lesbian.
You’re just picturing me making out with her.”

“
No, I’m not,” I said.
“We’re friends, remember, and that would be completely
inappropriate.”

“
Yeah.” She laughed a
little. She sounded nervous.

“
Hey,” I said. “Seriously,
are you all right? You don’t usually call me in the middle of the
night.” Honestly, we didn’t talk on the phone that much. It was
mostly texting and facebook and stuff. But we did communicate
nearly every day. I talked to her more than I talked to anyone
except Sloane.

“
I am,” she said. “Uh…
Jesus, I want to ask you something.”

“
Okay,” I said.

“
I’m not sure how to bring
it up exactly.” She was quiet for a minute. “Okay, well, you’re
still not sleeping with anyone, right?”

“
Right,” I said. I sat up.
“Wait, are you? Is that why you’re calling me? Did you meet
somebody?”

“
No,” she said. “Of course
not. No way. There was a guy that accidentally brushed up against
me while I was dancing tonight, and I completely flipped for like
three seconds. I had a flash and everything.”

I gripped the phone in
concern. “Was it a bad one?”

“
It was a normal one,” she
said. “I got through it. I told myself that I managed to live
through Rolf raping me for real, and I could absolutely live
through remembering it. And it went away.”

“
Well, that’s good,” I said.
“That’s what your therapist said to do, right?”

“
Yeah,” she said. “It’s
working.”

“
Good.”

“
Um, so how is it going for
you? Not having sex?” she asked.