“Heison your side, Frank. He works for the state, but he doesn’t set policy,” Si said, folding his arms across his chest. I could tell this was a discussion they’d had more than once. “Dare cares about both of you, and no one’s sorrier than heis.”
“Maybe,” Frank allowed. “But maybe intentions don’t matter as much as actions. Maybe there’s right and wrong, and you need to stand up for things you care about because some things can’t beundone.”
Frank’s words made my stomach jangle, and I frowned. I’d grown up steeped in superstition on my father’s side of the family, and I wondered if this was some warning from the universe to stay away from Silas before it was too late, even as the pull of him throbbed like a toothache – insistent and impossible toignore.
“Maybe there isn’t one right answer,” Si told Frank gently. “Maybe once you’ve fought the good fight and things didn’t work out, it’s okay to let it go and to be happy with what you still have. You don’t have to stay angryforever.”
Whoa.
The problem with superstition, of course, was that once you allowed it to catch hold of your brain, it was impossible to control. Once you opened yourself up to the possibility that the universe was sending you awarningdisguised as two men discussing an eminent domain case, you had to accept that that same conversation could be the universe sending you some sort of tacitapproval.
Even when you weren’t sure you wanted it. Even when approval was by far the scarieroption.
My cheeks flushed and tears burned the backs of my eyes. I tried to suck in a breath, but my lungs stuttered and I couldn’t quite level out.High-strung, Grandpa Hen used to say. All that Romanian blood. All that artistictemperament.
“Ev? You alright?” Si asked. When he put his hand on my lower back, the warmth of him burned through all my layers and left my skin tingling. “You needanything?”
I needed very badly not to cry in front of strangers, and I was about to. I needed to stop the see-saw of emotions because I couldn’thold them,and I was drowning. I needed to be kissed, because it had been so damn long. I wanted to figure out how to get Si to make a move, since that seemed beyond my capabilities at this juncture, and I needed to let him know I was interested, since the man seemed to have finally gotten the message and backed off, just as I changed my mind. I wanted to hear him say my name again, just to feel the shiver of it flow through me in a way I’d never felt before, reaffirming for me that thereweremore things for me to experience and I was alive to experiencethem.
I wanted to justbe.
Si studied me for a second, then nodded like I’d somehow managed to convey with a look, some fraction of what I couldn’t articulate. We said our goodbyes to Frank and Myrna, with Si not seeming to care how strange it was that the high-strung freak of nature at his side was struck mute and on the brink of tears. He simply grabbed my backpack, took my hand, and led me into thewoods.
