Truest (5 page)

It didn't take long to confirm that Silas was absolutely crazy.

One morning he showed up at my house wearing an honest-to-goodness windbreaker suit straight out of the nineties: purple, mint green, and what is best described as neon salmon. I curbed a grin while Silas gathered our detailing supplies from my garage. “What?” he deadpanned. “What are you staring at?”

“Your windbreaker is just so . . .”

“Fetching?” he interjected. “Voguish? Swanky?”

“Hot,” I said, playing along. “The nineties neon just exudes sex appeal.”

“Well, I thought so myself.”

And after the sun was high in the sky and the pavement was heating up, he took off the wind suit, revealing shorts and a
New Moon
T-shirt beneath, Edward Cullen's pale face dramatically
printed across the front. “Vader's competition,” he said, shrugged, and started vacuuming the floors of the Corolla left in our care.

He also talked about the strangest things: “Can you ever really prove anything? How?” or “I read about this composer who said his abstract music went ‘to the brink'—that beyond it lay complete chaos. What would that look like? Complete chaos?” or “You know how in Shakespeare Romeo says, ‘Call me but love, and I'll be new baptized'? He's talking about his
name
, but baptism's bigger than that; it has to be. It's about identity, and wonder, and favor, you know?” or “A group of moles is called a labor; a group of toads is called a knot. Who comes up with this stuff? It's a bouquet of pheasants, a murder of crows, a charm of finches, a lamentation of swans.
A lamentation of swans
, West!”

One morning I was late coming downstairs, and Shea got to Silas first. The two of them sat drinking orange juice on the front steps and discussing Shea's question of whether fish have boobs. “I think,” Silas said, sounding like a scholar, “they do not, since they're not mammals. But mermaids do, since they're half fish, half mammal.”

“Mermaids aren't real though,” Shea said, the tiniest bit of hope in his voice that Silas would prove him wrong.

“Who told you that?” said Silas sternly.

“You think they're real?” Shea asked.

“I can't be sure,” Silas said, “but I
might
have seen one when I used to live in Florida. Probably best not to jump to any conclusions either way.”

Behind me, Libby giggled. Silas glanced at us over his shoulder through the screen door and grinned. “Libby,” he said, “what do you say? Mermaids, real or not?”

“I don't want to jump to conclusions either way,” my shy sister said, then turned bright red.

“Smart girl,” said Silas.

That afternoon, Silas and I sat in the backseat of a dusty Saturn, trading off the handheld vacuum as we talked—or rather, shouted—over its noise. I ran the hand vac over the back of the driver's seat while Silas said, “I used to think I was the only one with a crush on Emily Dickinson until a couple years ago.”

“You have a crush on Emily Dickinson?”

“
Durr.
”

“Did you just ‘durr' me? Is that like a ‘duh'?”

He nodded as I handed him the Dirt Devil. “But then I read this book that says it's a rite of passage for any thinking American man. And
then
I read a poem called ‘Taking Off Emily Dickinson's Clothes.'”

Just the title made me blush; I averted my eyes to focus on the vacuum's trajectory.

Silas, unruffled, sighed unhappily.

“What's wrong?” I asked, frowning, chancing a glance at him.

“I finally made it into the backseat with a girl,” Silas cracked, looking hard at the Dirt Devil. “This is not all I was hoping it would be.”

I slugged him in the arm, and his wry smile gave way to laughter.

“Want to come over after this, watch some
WARegon?
” he asked.

“I guess,” I said, but suddenly he turned the vacuum off and answered his phone, which apparently had been vibrating. It had to be Beth, since Silas scrambled out of the car and wandered over toward the church parking lot, where he'd be out of earshot.

I closed the car doors and finished the job, looking from time to time at Silas, whose brow was furrowed as he listened. When he spoke, his face looked diplomatic and impartial. One time he glanced over at the car and noticed me watching; he gave me a big, goofy smile—and then turned his back.

His call ended as I finished vacuuming. We started to work on the car's exterior, and I probed, “Everything okay?”

“Yeah, totally. Why?”

“Who was that—Beth?”

He nodded.

“Does she call a lot?”

“More often than Elliot, that's for sure.”

“Elliot is
working.
” I paused, then accused, “Why do you have to do that?”

“Do what?” he asked as he stretched over the roof of the car with a soapy sponge.

“Be such an ass about things. I was just asking an innocent question.”

He squinted at me from the other side of the car, the corner of his mouth curling up. “Were you?” he asked.

“Yes,” I hissed back. “Of course.” Well,
maybe.

“What do you two even have in common?” Silas asked as he continued to wash the car. “The big football jock and . . . oh hell, you're not a cheerleader, are you?” He glanced at me with curious wariness.

“Yes,” I lied.

“I don't believe you. I just feel like—hey, where are you going?”

I lobbed my sponge back into the bucket, climbed my front steps. “Finish it yourself.”

“I thought you were coming over for
WARegon!
” he complained.

With the door halfway open, I turned around and gave him a blistering glare. “Put the supplies away before you leave.”

Later that night, when I was almost asleep, I got a text from Silas, the first he'd sent since getting my cell number that week: Sorry.

I wrote back: It's fine.

He texted: Sleep well. Then, a minute later: Are you really a cheerleader?

I let out a laugh and wrote back: Not on your life.

I hated the dreary gray carpet of the church, the musty smell of old hymnals, and the social hour before the service, when old ladies crowded around my dad as if he were a rock star. I tried to dodge the chattering congregants on the way into the sanctuary, but it was nearly impossible.

“West!” said Mrs. Callahan, flagging me down. “In case I don't get a chance to speak with him today, please pass along our thanks to your dad. He bailed us out on our mortgage last month. Not even from the benevolent fund—just wrote us a check! Such a good man.”

“Yes, of course, Mrs. Callahan. He was happy to do it,” I replied.

Mr. Tennant, who lived alone with his troublemaker son, whispered to me conspiratorially, “I'm sure you've heard that
Jacob got picked up for shoplifting last week. But Pastor Beck knew just what to say to him. I don't know what we would have done without your dad. You're one lucky girl!”

“I really am,” I agreed with a painted-on smile. “Thanks for coming today.” My standard response.

I steered clear of James and Rhiannon Raymond, who'd once had the impudence to tell me that my dad saved their marriage. Rhiannon had gotten teary-eyed, and I'd desperately wanted to cover my ears and say, “Don't tell me. I don't want to know.” I gave the couple a wide berth as I made it to the front row, where I sat between my mom and Libby, letting out a huge breath as if I'd just survived running the gauntlet.

Beside me, Libby was giggling when someone in the row behind us kept sneakily tapping her shoulder. I glanced over my shoulder to see who it was.

“Hey,” said Silas Hart to me, finally getting caught by my sister. He winked at her.

“You came!” I said, a little surprised.

“I said I would.”

I looked down his row. His parents sat beside him; beyond them, his grandparents.

“Where's your sister?” I asked, lowering my voice as the service music started.

“At the house.”

Mom turned to me and Libs, put a finger to her lips, and gave us a look we knew well:
Eyes forward. Set a good example.
I
turned to the front where the worship leaders were crowding behind the pulpit.

No Laurel. Maybe Lillian Mayhew—“Oma Lil”—had no power over her. Or maybe Laurel was, as I'd guessed, too sick to leave the house. I imagined her in Heaton Ridge, sitting on the wicker couch, staring straight ahead with those hollow eyes that had glanced off me like a rock skipping across the water.

Behind me, Silas sang with conviction:

“
It is well with my soul

It is well, it is well with my soul.
”

He wasn't loud, drew no attention to himself, but I heard every note as if he were singing into my ear. His voice was a paradox—at once angry and brave, sorrowing and confident—and yet, the song spread over him like a blanket and rushed forth like an anthem.

Laurel's absence was like a secret that followed Silas, like dice that he jostled in his hand but never tossed onto the table. But Green Lake was a town of two thousand. I knew as well as anyone that you can't hold big secrets in such a small hand.

Agoraphobia, I thought at first—that anxiety disorder that keeps its victims chained to a safe, controlled space. But no. I felt pretty confident the move from Fairbanks to Green Lake was for Laurel (and not for Mrs. Hart's job, whatever Silas said); if Laurel had agoraphobia, she'd have wanted to stay put. Or maybe she's just really shy—but then I remembered how she
had introduced herself to Dad, held out a confident hand to shake his, how her eyes had met mine with ferocity.

Oh my gosh: Was she
crazy?
Like, legitimately, certifiably insane?

Or maybe it was something
really
different—like an allergy to sunlight. It was possible: there were two girls in Enger Mills, a couple towns away, who had this. I always forgot what it was called, but the school had to put this special film over all the windows in the building, and they had to wear helmets and gloves outside.

Such speculations even prompted a dream: a strange one where I followed Laurel around the high school halls (in my bathing suit, no less), wondering about the large brass key she carried in her hands. The halls were not filled with water, but I did the front crawl nevertheless, and that detail made me laugh out loud when I woke up and remembered it.

I visited Mark Whitby at the mini-mart that week while he was working, and he—correctly—assumed I was checking up on him. Whit was the loose cannon of our group—the biggest sweetheart, but also the most unpredictable. As Elliot and I had guessed, he'd been partying over at Simon Sloane's back forty.

“But you almost got a minor there last fall!” I complained. “I wish you wouldn't drink like—”

Whit gave me a look, his dirty-blond hair falling into his eyes, daring me to finish my sentence
like your dad.

“—like a fish,” I revised lamely. Whit's dad was a very tricky subject, best left for conversations not happening in the candy aisle of the mini-mart.

Whit gave me a big grin, all teeth, then took my face in his hands, kissed my forehead with a loud
muah!
“I've got everything under control,” he said, which made me worry more.

That same day, I took my family's car to Enger Mills and picked up a toasted sub sandwich to surprise Elliot while he worked, but when I got to the Thomas farm, he was nowhere to be found, even with Caleb
and
Greg
and
Mrs. Thomas all helping me look. I called him and texted him for half an hour before giving up, going home, and eating the cold sandwich alone in the church bell tower.

I tried calling Trudy, but—as usual—it went straight to voice mail. But a minute later, she sent a text: Can't talk now, but miss you! I'm coming home for the 4th of July!

This news buoyed me after a rough afternoon and filled me with such a generous spirit that when Silas called soon after and asked me to come over, I said yes.

Silas's parents were very welcoming; Mr. and Mrs. Hart invited me to call them Glen and Teresa, which was nice but a little too chummy—I'd known Elliot's parents my whole life but would never call them by their first names. Silas's parents were an attractive couple, both with dark hair like his, and they were rarely home during the day, as Glen was doing research for
an astronomy article and Teresa was already advising graduate students at her new job at the university. They told me to keep Silas in line and to make myself at home in their house, to help myself to whatever was in the fridge, to let myself in whenever the front door was unlocked. “Which it usually will be,” Teresa said, smiling. “I know how this town works.”

I let myself into their house several times that week, heading up the stairs to Silas's room and rapping on his door as annoyingly as I could. But he always opened it grinning, as if our day included wild adventures instead of detailing cars, talking about books, and watching
WARegon Trail.
Our plans never included Laurel; our conversations rarely.

On Friday, I let myself into their house as I'd been doing and started up the stairs, declaring loudly, “If that creepy little-girl zombie in the white bonnet shows up again, I swear I'll—”

But my words and my feet both stopped short as I was hit by a wall of sound: wailing coming from upstairs, loud and feral. My heart thudded hard against my chest, but I was struck immobile by the sound of wild despair.
Laurel?

Questions unspooled in my mind. Is this a real-life horror movie? Is someone in trouble? Are the Harts witches? Is this how a banshee sounds before somebody dies? What the
hell
is wrong?

But I landed on only one answer: I don't want to know.

I started to retreat back down the stairs, eager to escape without notice. Despite how badly I had wanted to know the
Hart family's secrets, in this moment my insides were begging to be kept in the dark.

Then—quite suddenly—Laurel was at the top of the staircase, her face spotty and wet from tears, her cry spiraling upward into alarming pitches. Silas was behind her, clutching her elbow and shouting, “Laurel!
Listen!
” They both looked at me for a second—a second that felt like a slow-motion minute—then she wrestled her arm away from him and disappeared back down the hallway.

Silas looked at me, frowning hard, and I swallowed in fear of having seen something I shouldn't have. “I—I'm sorry. I—” But my tongue felt too thick for my mouth, so I just turned around and bolted for the front door, my hand gripping the smooth banister.

“West,” Silas said, angry or annoyed, I couldn't tell. When I reached for the doorknob, he called louder. “
West!
” And then he was right behind me, a strong hand on my shoulder, turning me roughly to face him. But when I looked at him, he didn't look mad at all—just regretful. “I can explain,” he insisted, leading me out the door to the porch.

He sat me down on the swing that hung from the rafters, standing in front of me as if I was about to be in trouble. Laurel's banshee cries still ricocheted off the walls of my skull, but I finally found my voice. “What is going on?” I panted. “Did—did something—are your parents okay?”

Silas's mouth tightened into a bow, but he nodded. “Yes,
they're fine. Everyone's fine. Everyone's fine except for Laurel.” He breathed out a long sigh that made him seem older than seventeen.

“I'm sorry you had to hear that,” Silas said, nodding toward the house. “It still gets under
my
skin. . . . I know it's not . . .” I nodded a little, as if prodding him toward his promised explanation. “Look, Laurel has a . . . well, I guess it's like a depersonalization disorder. This . . . this . . . it's called solipsism syndrome. It's not really that easy to explain.”

“Solip-
what
?” I asked, not understanding him.

“Solipsism syndrome.” He sat down beside me on the swing, then looked out across his yard while he scratched the back of his head, leaving his hair there standing up. “I didn't really want anyone to know,” he said, almost to himself. Then he laughed without humor. “Two weeks. We didn't even make it two weeks.”

He looked so grief-stricken that I almost wanted to lean over and put my hand on top of his. “I'm sorry,” I said to him, even as I blushed a little at the thought of touching him.

Silas shrugged. “It's not your fault.” He struggled to find words.

“You don't have to tell me,” I said quietly.

He shook his head. “No. No, it's okay. Laurel . . . she got it into her head that she's living in a dream.” When Silas saw my look of incredulity, he explained, “She's only sure that
she
exists—but not that anyone else does. It's a mental state. A
detachment from reality. Basically, it either makes you lonely and depressed or an asshole. Some days are worse than others. Today is worse.” He smiled weakly.

It was the very last thing I would have expected him to say. Even now, as I sat blinking on the porch swing, I wondered if I had heard him right. “So . . . wait—
what?
She just woke up one day and decided reality wasn't real, or . . . how did that
happen?
Is this okay that I'm asking?”

“Yeah, it's fine. I don't know. I honestly don't. It's been like this for a few years. But Laurel has always been this way—where she gets hold of an idea and then throttles it. Or it throttles her. She and whatever idea put the screws to one another. I think it started with philosophy books and some cracked movies.”

My mind clung insistently to the word “philosophy.” I tried to remember something I'd heard on
August Arms
about René Descartes, but I came up blank.

“And the polar twilight,” he added. “That even messed with
my
head a little.”

“So is that why you guys moved?”

Silas nodded again. “We had to get her out of Alaska.”

“But—I mean, we're seventeen. Doesn't everyone have these weird thoughts at our age? I know I have—well, maybe not
that
one, but . . . other things.”

He was quiet for a little bit and seemed to be formulating an answer. “It's—it's not the same,” he said. “Yeah, I think everyone thinks up some crazy shit from time to time, but—I
don't know to explain it—it's not like that with Laurel. It consumes her. She lets it drive her crazy. It's like these ideas have eaten away part of—part of who she is. They dominate her.”

Silas looked so sad that I thought he might cry, and I had no idea what I'd do if he did.

And then just as quickly, he shrugged and pulled himself together. “Now you know. Life with the Harts. We should have a reality show. Or
non
reality, I guess,” he said. Silas looked at me out of the corner of his eye, then cracked a tiny grin, permission to laugh.

But I saw right through it. It was such a contrast from the normal beaming smile I was becoming accustomed to, and I wondered how such joy and heartbreak could live inside the same person.

“You realize what this means, don't you?” he asked.

“
What?
” I asked—or rather, leveled at him, suddenly alarmed.

“We have to be friends now, Westlin Beck.”

“Oh,
do
we?” I asked, but my voice was feeble. Silas looked so broken.

“Yup,” he said. “Afraid so. You know my secret . . . well, one of them.”

“One of them?” I raised an eyebrow. “You don't have any other siblings, do you?”

“I'm for real, West.” He shoved my shoulder with his own. “Let's be good to each other.”

“Friendship doesn't work like that, Silas. You don't just
decide
to be friends.”

“I just did.”

“Well, I didn't.”

He looked me in the eye. “My girlfriend is in Alaska, and my sister is messed up. Your boyfriend lives on a tractor, and your best friend ditched you for summer camp.”