Never Never (Never Never #1)(13)

He groans. “No shit. You keep missing practice, you’ll be benched.”

Yesterday’s Silas probably would have been pissed off about this. Today’s Silas is relieved. “What day is today?”

“Wednesday. Day before tomorrow, day after yesterday. Come get me, practice is over.”

Why does he not have his own car? I don’t even know this kid and he already feels like an inconvenience. He’s definitely my brother.

“I have to pick up Charlie first,” I tell him.

There’s a pause. “At her house?”

“Yeah.”

Another pause. “Do you have a death wish?”

I really hate not knowing what everyone else seems to know. Why would I not be allowed at Charlie’s house?

“Whatever, just hurry up,” he says, right before hanging up.

She’s standing in the street when I turn the corner. She’s staring at her house. Her hands are resting gently at her sides, and she’s holding two sodas. One in each hand. She’s holding them like weapons, like she wants to throw them at the house in front of her in hopes that they’re actually grenades. I slow the car down and stop several feet from her.

She’s not wearing the same clothes she had on earlier. She’s wearing a long, black skirt that covers her feet. A black scarf is wrapped around her neck, falling over her shoulder. Her shirt is tan and long-sleeved, but she still looks cold. A gust of wind blows and the skirt and scarf move with it, but she remains unaffected. She doesn’t even blink. She’s lost in thought.

I’m lost in her.

When I put the car in park, she turns her head, looks at me and then immediately casts her eyes at the ground. She walks toward the passenger door and climbs inside. Her silence seems to be begging for my silence, so I don’t say anything as we head toward the school. After a couple of miles, she relaxes against the seat and props one of her booted feet against the dash. “Where are we going?”

“My brother called. He needs a ride.”

She nods.

“Apparently I’m in trouble for not showing up to football practice today.” I’m sure she can tell by the lackadaisical tone of my voice that I’m not too concerned about missing practice. Football isn’t really on my list of priorities right now, so being benched is probably the best outcome for everyone.

“You play football,” she says, matter of fact. “I don’t do anything. I’m boring, Silas. My room is boring. I don’t keep a journal. I don’t collect anything. The only thing I have is a picture of a gate, and I didn’t even take the picture. You did. All I have with any personality in my whole room is something you gave me.”

“How do you know the picture is from me?”

She shrugs and tugs her skirt taut across her knees. “You have a unique style. Kind of like a thumbprint. I could tell it was yours because you only take pictures of things that people are too scared to stare at in real life.”

She doesn’t like my photographs, I guess.

“So…” I ask, staring straight ahead. “Who’s this Brian guy?”

She picks up her phone and opens her texts. I’m trying to look over at them, knowing I’m too far away to read them, but I make the effort, anyway. I notice she tilts her phone slightly to the right, shielding it from my view. “I’m not sure,” she says. “I tried to scroll back and see if I could figure out anything from texts, but our messages are confusing. I can’t tell if I was dating him or you.”

My mouth is dry again. I take one of the drinks she brought with her and pop the top of it. I take a long sip and set it back in the cup holder. “Maybe you were messing around with both of us.” There’s an edge to my voice. I try to soften it. “What do his texts from today say?”

She locks the phone and turns it face down in her lap, almost as if she’s ashamed to look at it. She doesn’t answer me. I can feel my neck flush, and I recognize the warmth of the jealousy creeping through me like a virus. I don’t like it.

“Text him back,” I say to her. “Tell him you don’t want him to text you anymore and that you want to work it out with me.”

She cuts her eyes in my direction. “We don’t know our situation,” she says. “What if I didn’t like you? What if we were both ready to break up?”

I look back at the road and grind my teeth together. “I just think it’s better if we stick together until we figure out what happened. You don’t even know who this Brian guy is.”

“I don’t know you, either,” she bites back.

I pull into the parking lot of the school. She’s watching me closely, waiting on my response. I feel like I’m being baited.

I park the car and turn it off. I grip the steering wheel with my right hand and my jaw with my left hand. I squeeze both. “How do we do this?”

“Can you be a little more specific?” she says.

I give my head the slightest shake. I don’t know if she’s even looking at me to notice. “I can’t be specific, because I’m referring to everything. To us, our families, our lives. How do we figure this out, Charlie? And how do we do it without finding things out about each other that are going to piss us off?”

Before she can answer me, someone exits a gate and begins walking toward us. He looks like me, but younger. Maybe a sophomore. He’s not as big as me yet, but from the looks of him, he’s probably going to pass me in size.