The Rebel of Raleigh High (Raleigh Rebels #1)(36)
She's there, sitting beside me in the booth as I make short work of a burger, the guys tossing fries at each other, chugging milkshakes that Jake spikes from a scuffed hipflask. She's there, silent, judging me morosely as I make a point of joking and laughing along with my teammates. On the way over to Leon's place, she's sitting next to me in the Camaro, her head resting sadly against my shoulder. I can feel a resigned sorrow pouring from her and into me as I pull down a driveway after Jake's tricked out Jeep Cherokee, and I know she thinks this is a bad idea.
Except, Silver isn't really here. She's probably locked away in a bedroom I've spent a considerable amount of time imagining in great detail, studying, her head buried inside a textbook, hair gathered in a messy ponytail, her quick, bright eyes devouring the information on the pages before her. She's probably playing her guitar. She's probably not struggling to shove the memory of me out of her head. She probably hasn’t even thought about me at all since last night, when she told me I’d tasked myself with the impossible challenge of pulling down the moon.
Leon's family are predictably wealthy. The driveway turns out to be a mile long. From the outside, the house is a sprawling jigsaw puzzle of a building, all odd angles and jutting overhangs; an architect designed this building to mimic the shape of the land that surrounds it, complementing the steep, unforgiving buttress of the cliff face that forms the western wall of the valley the house is nestled into. The soft, liquid lines of the sloped roof seem to open themselves to the sky. Everywhere, vast stretches of glass reflect the green of the trees that gather around the structure. The subtle grey-blue of the slate exterior blends into the landscape with artistic precision. That’s how the whole place feels actually: that it wasn’t just designed. That it emerged or was wished into existence, right out of an artist’s dream.
“Pretty badass, right?” Jake asks, jerking his chin toward the house. “Leon’s dad’s rich as fuck. He’s a defense attorney in Seattle. He’s never here.” Jake shrugs. “Leaves Leon alone with his platinum Amex and the keys to his jag most of the time. Leon’s basically the luckiest bastard in the world.”
“Where’s his mom?” The question comes out unbidden.
“Dead.”
I flinch away from the word.
“Oh, it’s okay, man. Leon was just a kid when she offed herself. You ask me, he’s better off without her. My mom’s a major pain in the ass. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying I wish she’d kill herself of anything. That’d be super fucked up. But…you can’t deny it. Leon’s got it fucking easy here. And he wouldn’t be able to throw such killer parties if he had a bored, self-medicated yoga instructor mom hovering over him, prying into his shit, right?”
It feels like the gold chain around my neck is choking the life out of me. Thank fuck it doesn't seem like Jake actually expects an answer out of me, because I don't trust myself to speak right now. I ignore the heat rising up the back of my neck, giving Jacob a tight smile. If he were concerned with anything but his own shitty perspective, his own self-centered point of view, then he might notice the cutting edge that's crept into my voice.
“Yeah, you’re right. He’s far better off without anyone giving him shit. It’d suck if he couldn’t throw parties anymore.”
I would kill to have my mother back.
I would kill to know where my father was, if only so I could throat punch the fuck for abandoning us all after Ben was born.
Jacob’s probably never even considered the possibility that Leon might sacrifice this house and his unfettered freedom if it meant that he could have his mother back in his life. He grins at me like I’m seeing things his way, we’re cut from the same cloth, and he’s pleased that we’re so much alike. “Come on, man. Let’s get this fucker started before the others show up. Leon’s dad’s got a stash of high-end Japanese whiskey, and I know where the key to the liquor cabinet is.”
Everywhere I look, I keep seeing her face. The place is thumping, loud, bassy music echoing around the cavernous interior of the house, but everything feels very quiet and very still inside my head. I know she’s not here. This is the last place on earth Silver would appear, but still my eyes continue to play tricks on me, making the back of every head of long golden-brown hair look like hers. I can feel the slight buzz of alcohol jittering through my veins, but I’m far from drunk. I’m used to drinking. I’ve been knocking back stuff way harder than the pissy beer one of the guys on the football team managed to scrounge up for a very long time now. Even Leon’s dad’s whiskey didn’t have any real impact on me. I laugh and joke along with the other revelers, though, pretending to be as fucked up as them, and all the while I’m biting my tongue, hating every second of this bullshit, tasting blood in my mouth.
Leon's not like Jake and his brainless cohorts. I'm not sure how I haven't run into him until now, but I think, under different circumstances, I'd like the guy. He’s quiet and steady, thinking a lot as he looks around, watching our school mates treat his father's pad with complete disregard. He flinches every time something breaks, but he doesn't do or say anything about it. When a large, expensive looking painting hanging over the fireplace is hit with a flying football and the canvas tears, he just walks blankly into the kitchen, his eyes glazed over. The guy looks like a teenaged ken doll in his stiff, button-down shirt and his khakis. On the outside, he and I couldn't be more unlike. But when I catch the look of open disgust on his face when he finds three guys in the hallway, gathered around a phone, rapt, talking about someone's wet pussy, I get the feeling we're pretty fucking similar on the inside.