Silas reaches down, and with one sudden movement—and a grunt of effort, because I’m smaller than him but I’m not exactly small—hoists me the fuck up like a little kid. I don’t object. Not one little bit. I just slide my arms around his neck and wrap my legs around his hips and let him walk me slowly but steadily toward the bedroom.
“I’ve got you,” he whispers, cupping the back of my head as he walks.
Once we’re in the bedroom, already dark from the shades being down, he half-places, half-dumps me on the bed. All I want is for him to crawl on top of me and lean his entire bodyweight into me, but no such luck. Instead, he keeps a blank face as he moves around the room, fussing over this and that. Silas gets me to take my hoody off and my sweats. He brings a wet washcloth in from the bathroom and wipes my face. He turns the ceiling fan on, because I like it on when I sleep, andonce I’ve drunk a glass of water with some electrolyte powder in it, brushed my teeth sloppily and taken a piss, he gets me back on the bed and wrestles me under the covers.
“Please don’t leave,” I say, my voice sounding small and wounded.
Silas stops, halfway between the bed and the door, then comes back to sit on the bed next to me.
He leans over and kisses me. Just a peck, but it already makes me feel more rooted in reality. Then he brushes back my hair while he speaks.
“I have to go take care of Maddi and Sky. They’ve had a rough week, and you know better than anyone that this shit stresses them out.”
I jerk back as if he slapped me.
“It’s just—” I start, but Silas cuts me off.
“Stop. We’re not talking about this while you’re shitfaced. I don’t know what happened today, but we’ll talk about it when you wake up. Please sleep. I gotta get them some food and clean up.” Silas pauses, studying my face for a second before he sighs. “It’s okay, Cade. Everything will be okay. Just sleep. Can you do that for me?”
I nod, feeling a little like a chastened child and not liking it a single bit.
“Stay with me? Just until I fall asleep?”
I know it’s pathetic, but that doesn’t stop me.
Silas shakes his head. He looks pained, and I hate it. This is the opposite of everything I’m supposed to be doing for him.
“Sleep, Cade. I’ll be back in a little while.”
He cups my cheek one more time before he stands up, and it feels like there’s a glass wall between me and the affection I’m used to getting from him. It hurts more than I want to exist.
Silas slips silently out of the room, closing the door behind him, and it’s only then that I let myself start to cry.
Chapter Nineteen
I’m operating on autopilot for the rest of the night. I make the right faces and the right sounds—I think—as I feed the girls and reassure them that their brother is just having a hard time, and not descending into the sort of self-destructive alcoholism that a lot of people would say he was born to.
I don’t know who I’m working harder to convince, them or myself. Nobody really seems to be buying it. Everything is quiet between the three of us, moving through the basic routine of homework and showers and a tense dinner in front of the TV. When I tell them it’s time for bed, they don’t even complain. They both look as worn out as I feel.
Whenever they stay here, they share the bedroom that used to be mine. It’s always something I like to see. We really should clear out one of the other rooms still full of junk so they don’t have to share, but I’ve been dragging my feet on that.
I’ve spent so much time in that room being miserable that having it spackled over with their particular brand of chaos and noise always makes those memories seem like a bad dream. Butof course, tonight when I go to make sure they’re ready to go to sleep, the old familiar tension of my childhood has seeped back into the atmosphere.
Sky is already out; face slack and a soft snore coming from her. But Maddi is in bed, propped up by a pillow, tapping on her phone as the light from the screen illuminates her face. She’s somber, biting her lip slightly as she concentrates in a way Cade does sometimes as well, and only glances at me briefly when I open the door.
“You good?” I whisper, feeling suddenly unsure of my role in this little family drama.
Maddi finishes what she’s typing, sighs, and holds the space for a long time before she finally looks at me.
“What are you going to do?” she asks, ignoring my question.
Sky, thankfully, can sleep through almost anything. Still, I walk into the room so I can sit on the edge of her bed and not have to talk across the room. It’s hard to look her in the eye, because more than anything I want her to look back at me and see someone strong. Someone who’s going to keep her safe. But I don’t have any more idea of what to do right now than she does.
“What do you think I should do?”
She snorts, rolling her eyes at me the way she’s started doing constantly. I recognize all the prickliness for what it is—a defense—and I don’t feel like I have any right to tell her to drop the attitude, considering none of us have been able to be a real defense for her, either.
“Tell him to get his shit together, before he loses everything he has. Just like our dad.”
