Page 81 of The Someday Daughter
I think of GG, folding Silas in her arms, calling himbaby. Maren, a tangle of wild affection. The tree house, home to generations of memories on wooden walls. “But you love them so much.”
“Yeah,” Silas says. “They’re awful and I love them. That’s family.”
I look at him: his face tipped toward me, his tired eyes, his broad shoulders stooped in defeat. I can feel the last thread of resolve vibrating inside me—a guitar string plucked too hard, poised to snap. “I wish you hadn’t lied to me,” I whisper.
Silas closes his eyes, exhales through his nose like I hurt him. “I am so, so sorry,” he says. When his eyes open, they don’t leave mine. “I’ll never do it again. I’ll never stop apologizing, if that’s what it takes. I’m so sorry, Audrey.” He draws a breath. “I want to make it right so badly. What do I need to do?”
“Tell me what it looks like,” I whisper. My eyes are filling with tears—finally, finally I’m going to cry. “This fall, and school, and after. What happens?”
Silas’s eyes track over mine. Quietly, he says, “I don’t know.”A tear hops the dam of my eyelid and he reaches for it, thumbs it off my cheek before it drips into the space between us. “But you’re going to figure all of this out. I’m going to help you, if you let me.” Silas takes my hand, tentatively, in his. Looks up at me. “I don’t know what’s next, but I see us there together.”
“I’m scared.” It’s a relief to admit it, and when a sob hiccups out of me Silas squeezes my hand in both of his. “I feel like everything I thought I knew isn’t true anymore.”
“Not everything,” he says. “You’re still you. You’re still going to be so badass at school this fall, Johns Hopkins won’t know what hit it. Tropical Storm Audrey.” He runs his thumb over the back of my hand, and I watch the motion of it. “Mick and Cleo still love you, and so does your mom, even if she’s still learning how to show it, and so do—” He breaks off, swallows. We stare at each other, and I watch him wrestle with it, his jaw flexing.
“Fuck, so do I.” Silas rubs his forehead and then looks back at me, completely unguarded. “I’ve fallen in love with you five times just since I walked into this room.”
I laugh on a sob, and Silas smiles. It’s so good to see it—in spite of everything. I love his smile, that crooked canine, the unrehearsed honesty of it. How easy it’s come to him all summer long.
“Some things have changed,” Silas says. “Some really big things. And some things won’t, ever.”
I nod. Swipe my fingers through my tears. When I jerk out of my chair and into Silas’s lap, he wraps me tight as he did in Nashville, hand on the back of my neck, rush of air gusting out of him.
“I’m so sorry,” he says quietly. I brush my thumb over the ridge of his shoulder blade, close my eyes in the hollow of his throat.
“I forgive you,” I whisper. Silas kisses the top of my head, the curve of my ear.
I’ve been so many people just this summer alone—the Audrey Camilla painted me to be, the Audrey I became through osmosis with Ethan. And this one: honest and afraid. The real version of myself Silas made space for me to be.
“It’s going to be okay,” he says.
I close my eyes. I choose to believe him.
52
WASHINGTON, DC
Fallon Martin—wearing aColorado School of MinesT-shirt, surreptitiously eyeing her watch, and, last I checked, still living in Uganda—is standing on the National Mall next to my dad. I’m so excited to see her that I drop Silas’s hand and start running.
“Aud,” she says, her face splitting into a grin the same moment I launch myself at her. “Hi.”
“Oh my god,” I say over her shoulder. Her bony arms lock around my waist and she sways us back and forth. “What are you doing here?”
“Ask your dad,” she says, and when I catch his eyes he smiles. He got into DC last night. Told me to meet him here for a surprise.
“Thought you might need someone to lean on,” he booms, his enormous voice trumpeting across the Mall. When I pull away from Fallon, he yanks me into a bear hug. “Good to see you, mouse.”
I squeeze the familiar breadth of his shoulders, still looking at Fallon. “I thought you were in Africa?”
Fallon shrugs, tugging a hand through her short hair. She’s tanner than I’ve ever seen her. “I was supposed to come back in a few days, but we were mostly hanging around waiting for our flight by the end there, anyway. Quick DC detour on my wayhome to Alabama, as I heard there’s been somenews.” Her eyes flick to Silas, who’s come to stand next to me with Puddles at his feet. “Who’s this?”
I turn to look at him, and his eyebrows lift just the tiniest distance. Fascinated to hear how I’ll introduce him, I’m sure. “This is Silas,” I say, voice as steady as I can get it. “My boyfriend. And Puddles, his dog.” Silas grins, and it moves through me like the best kind of shiver. Like the first warm breath when you come in from the cold. “Si, this is my father. And Fallon, my roommate from school.”
“Roommate andbest friend,” Fallon says sternly, reaching her hand out to Silas. “Rude, Aud.”
“Best friend,” I repeat, hand over heart. Seeing Fallon and Silas right next to each other, occupying the same space in the same city, is nearly too good to be true.
“Silas,” my dad says, clapping him on the back. “I remember you from the paparazzi photo.”
