Page 52 of The Someday Daughter
He hesitates, eyes moving back and forth over mine. They’re flecked green in the light from the windows, deep and brown andendless. “So you have to hit the mark every single time, or you might as well not exist? There’s no middle option?”
Yes, I think. That’s exactly it. I don’t have a loud, loving family like Silas. I don’t know how to connect with people like he does, or to move through the world so easily. I have school. I have my place there, at the top. The tears are so thick in my throat now that I can’t speak through them.
“That’s too much pressure for anybody,” Silas says. “This isonejob you didn’t get. It doesn’t mean anything about who you are.”
“But it does,” I say. There’s a magazine in the pocket of his suitcase, the same one Cleo showed me on the boat in Chicago. I pull it out, hold the headline up to him:Camilla St. Vrain’s Valedictorian Daughter Holds Court in Chicago.“The whole world knows me this way. Valedictorian.” I point to the word, and it feels more like a punishment than a compliment. “That’s who I am.”
Silas’s eyes track over the magazine, and he sighs through his nose. “But the whole world doesn’t really know you, Audrey. This is one piece of who you are, and it’s not even close to the most interesting thing about you.”
I don’t believe that, not even a little bit. And when I pull my lip between my teeth and clamp down I try so hard to hold in the words. I really do. I know how they’ll sound—indulgent and desperate. But I say them, in the end.
“What is?”
A muscle works in Silas’s jaw, like he’s weighing what to say next. And his voice is quiet when he finally, carefully speaks. “That you came here this summer to be close to your mom even though it scares you.” I close my eyes—maybe not ready, after all,to hear this. “Even though it’s felt really shitty sometimes. Because you’re hopeful for it.”
Silence spreads between us, fills the room. It takes everything I have to keep breathing.
The AC kicks on from beneath the windows; Silas clears his throat and keeps going. “That you know how you want to do good in the world, and the way you trust yourself to make it happen.”
My heart is beating so hard I’m sure he can feel it, all the way through my bloodstream to my palm pressed against his.
“And,” he says softly, “that you jumped in that lake after Puddles. Your heart’s bigger than your fear.”
The tears are leaking onto my cheeks now. When I open my eyes Silas is completely blurred out in front of me, like an illusion, like something so good I could only have dreamed it up.
“You don’t need to earn it,” Silas says. “Or prove it with some job. I lost my mom before I was ready and it—” He breaks off, looking away from me. He presses his lips together, swallows, draws a breath. “When you lose someone like that, you just know.” Our eyes meet. “We don’t have to do anything to earn it, Audrey. We matter to the people who love us just by existing.”
His words land in a soft, scared place deep inside me. And I realize that the feeling I’ve been tripping over all summer, like a splinter stuck through me sideways, is fear. I’m terrified that I built a whole life at the Summit School and that I have no place anywhere else. Not with my mother, not at Penn with Ethan, not with the interns. That maybe I don’t belong anywhere. And that if I can’t even get this job, I won’t matter in college at all.
“Listen,” Silas says. His voice is low and serious. “Fuck those guys, okay? You’re going to be the best doctor.”
I want to thank him. I want to tell him that I’m so, so sorry about his mom. I want to hide my face in his neck again—the only place I’ve felt safe this whole, entire summer.
But in the end, the only word I manage to get out is his name.Silas, whispered between us like an apology. And he just nods, like he heard the rest of it, and pulls me into him.
I close my eyes in the warm dark against his neck, and I count into the quiet, and I breathe. He breathes with me.
35
miss YOU!!!!
The text from Fallon wakes me up, the double buzz of the mattress next to my face. My eyes feel desiccated and sharp, like they grew thorns while I was sleeping.
where is this?? i miss CO so much it’s nutso
It takes me a few solid seconds to orient everything: dark hotel room, pink velvet drapes pulled across tall windows. Yellow glow of the desk lamp in the corner and the curve of Silas’s shoulder there, just blocking the light from the laptop he’s looking at. Puddles, warm and breathing near my feet. And what Fallon’s even talking about—the photo of Gossamer Lake I sent her two days ago in Switchback Ridge. Back before I’d made a failure of myself.
sorry i’ve been so MIA wifi’s a little all over the place but i have indeed birthed another beautiful well baby in the time since our last correspondence
My phone buzzes a few more times, photos coming through. And then:fill me inaudhow you doing over there?
I close my eyes again. Where would I even start? I can’t believe I fell asleep here. I can’t believe this is my life at all.
There’s a knock on the hotel room door, and I keep my eyes closed so whoever it is will leave me alone. Puddles shifts, lifting her head, and we both listen to Silas’s footsteps track across the carpet.
“Ms. St. Vrain,” he says quietly, after the door clicks open.
“Silas, honey.” My mother sounds tired. “How many times?Camilla, please. Is she awake?”
