Sign Here(24)

Lily could hear splashes and laughter but couldn’t see the girls out beyond the boathouse. The lawn between them was thick, green, and lovely, a demonstration of the word “alive.” The grass under the bird feeders was already padded flat by the bunnies that nibbled there in the early mornings. Lily made a mental note to refill the feeders. She took her time with the girls’ pillowcases and, lingering over the corners, pulling and tightening, smoothed down one of the quilts Silas’s mother had made. Mickey wouldn’t care; she wouldn’t even notice. But Lily liked making things nice for her daughter. She liked the idea of her sleeping on a pillowcase Lily had touched.

Lily next stopped in front of Sean’s door, which had once been Silas’s door. She could hear Sean on the other side, his phone making the sounds of some game he played constantly but refused to explain to her.

“Knock, knock.”

“What?”

“I’m going to make the bed,” she said as she moved Sean’s backpack to the floor. “Don’t bite my head off.”

Sean rolled his eyes and put his headphones on. He had his phone in one hand and in the other his pocketknife, the one Silas had given him a few years before. It had belonged to Philip. Sean clicked it open and closed against his jeans over and over, and Lily was happy she’d made the “Only in New Hampshire” rule.

She snapped open the fitted sheet and lifted the mattress.

Despite everything that had happened, this was still her favorite room. The walls were dark blue, with faded patches where Silas used to keep posters of football players and a Playboy model in a schoolgirl costume with the words Study Hard. In a corner Silas’s old TV set still hunkered, the bulky kind with the built-in VHS player, to the back of which he would tape twisted sandwich bags of pot. The first time Lily ever got high was in that bedroom, out of a bong Silas made from a honey bottle shaped like a bear. She remembered the way colors got brighter and the katydids got louder, singing in individual tones instead of their usual collective sound. She felt so connected to everything that night, including Silas. He taught her how to put her mouth on the bear and hold the smoke in even when it burned, and how to blow it out the window through a toilet paper roll capped with a dryer sheet. He was always teaching her things, back then. How to hold a tennis racket. How to understand Faulkner. Even how her own body worked, how touch could bring to the surface parts of her she hadn’t known. At sixteen, he was the brightest person she had ever met. Not just smart, but white-hot bright. A star. The whole school knew Silas Harrison. The kid who could throw a football fast enough to blow off your hat the same day he aced a history test. The kid who called other kids’ parents “Mr. and Mrs.,” who remembered things about them and asked after them later. Lily’s mother was over the moon when Silas called to ask her out. Silas Harrison, Lillian! Lucky girl! Better skip dessert tonight, dear.

If he hadn’t been Silas Harrison, Lily wouldn’t have been allowed to go that summer. Anyone else and her mother would’ve said, Absolutely not, sixteen-year-old only daughter of mine. You cannot spend weeks on end with your boyfriend in his summerhouse. But because it was Silas Harrison, Lily’s mother practically packed her bag for her. She looked at Silas and saw Lily’s future. But who could blame her? Lily did the same exact thing.

At sixteen, Silas Harrison had the kind of smile girls could build a future on.





PEYOTE





“AT THE RISK OF sounding moony, I had fun today,” Cal said as she lingered in my cubicle, her jacket over one arm.

I swallowed. “Ditto.”

I wanted to celebrate. I wanted to go out and get a drink, have a few laughs. But as much as I wanted that, I knew I couldn’t have it with her. Cal had flat out told me she came from the Downstairs, for Darkness’ sake. You have to make some extremely poor choices above ground to get sent to the Downstairs right off the bat. And to work her way up to Fifth . . . there was no denying she was dangerous. Any other time, I would’ve been bored enough to welcome some danger. But not now. Not this close to my goal.

“I have to admit,” Cal said, fingering the hem of her jacket, “we work well together.”

I shrugged.

“Come on, Pey. You have to admit that.”

“I don’t have to do anything,” I said as I clicked off my computer and began gathering my things. I hoped she would get the point, but instead, she slid into my cubicle and sat on my desk. I moved around her, straightening files, filling my pencil case.

“Come on, quit being such a pussy!”

She said it loudly enough that I heard a pause in the keyboard clacking of my neighbors. I grabbed her wrist and pulled her down below the divider.

“What do you want from me?” I hissed, my face close enough for me to see where her eyelashes clumped together in the corner of one eye, moving as one under my breath. “You’re a nutjob, and I don’t want to be friends with you. So whatever game you’re playing, stop. We worked together today because KQ made us. It wasn’t particularly good or bad, all right? It was a job. Get over it.”

I let go of her wrist, but she kept her hand clasped over mine, holding it there.

“If you keep talking to me like that, I’m going to start to want you.”

I huffed and yanked my arm free.

“Look, I admit it. The Honey Pot stunt was stupid. No one regrets that more than me. Just think of all of the things I could’ve gotten out of you if you still thought I was some lost little mouse? It was a poor decision on my part, and I think I might be the first person to ever do this, but I blame alcohol.”