Page 42 of Even After Sunset

I play around a bit more with the cover design I was working on while Silas skims his guidebook, but I’m having trouble concentrating. It’s getting late, anyway. I scoot out from the table alcove and walk the seven and a half steps to the bathroom to get ready for bed.

When I come out, Silas is in the same position he was in a few minutes ago, only now he’s bare chested, his lower body under the covers. I climb onto my own mattress and pretend that it doesn’t feel weird for him to be lying in his skivvies, just a few feet away. This is the first night he’s come to bed at the same time as me, I realize.

The overhead light is on above his bed and it casts a warm glow across the hard planes of his face. His lips look pinker. His cheeks are a little flushed. And he isn’t giving off that angry energy that usually makes him seem so closed off.

He pulls himself to a seated position, resting back on his forearms. “Is the light gonna keep you awake?”

“Oh. No. It’s fine,” I say. “It won’t bother me.”

But he turns it off anyway, and then I hear him shuffling back underneath the covers. We’re technically in different rooms, but he’s still really close. I’m hyper aware of his presence, just a few feet away.

I turn onto my side. “Goodnight,” I say, closing my eyes.

I hear more rustling of blankets. And then: “Goodnight.”

And then it’s quiet, except for the muted chatter from a group gathered around a campfire a few sites over. My thoughts start to wander, but they don’t seem to be able to settle; just images and emotions flitting around, barely skimming the surface of anything with any real weight or substance.

“Hey, Jax,” Silas interrupts my thoughts, his voice barely above a whisper. And I suddenly go really still, becausehe just called me Jax—his nickname for me when we were kids; back when we were still friends.

“Don’t ever do anything just because you feel you have to prove yourself,” he says softly. “You’ll never win that game.”

I squeeze my eyes even more tightly closed and inhale as quietly as I can. My breath is shaky, and it feels like I’m holding back tears, but I have no idea why.

I pretend to be asleep. And he doesn’t say anything after that.

Chapter Twelve

Jackie

Iwake up way before the alarm goes off the next morning and I’m about to go back to sleep because it isn’t even really morning yet. But then I remember Silas is here—sleeping just a few feet away. And the feeling is too momentous to cram into one small compartment of my brain. It white-washes any of the dreams I might have been having seconds ago and I can’t fight the urge to turn on my other side just to see him, because for so many years he’s been just a memory, or a concern, or an aching loss. A lot of things; but never anything real.

But when I prop myself up to peer over at him, his bed is empty. Instead, there’s just a purple-ish glow filtering through the curtains across his cheap Walmart comforter. I get out of bed and pad down the galley, glancing over at the step in front of the door.

His boots are gone.

I pull a hoodie over my thin tank-top and yank a pair of sweatpants on. Then I slip into my flip-flops and open the door slowly, pushing it carefully closed behind me with a tinyclick. But even that small gesture feels loud and intrusive in the surrounding quiet.

The sun is just barely coming up, and the sky is an intoxicating pallette of navys and oranges and deep mauves. And everything is sostill. No sign of movement except for a lone seagull that swoops and soars above the dark canopyover the stage area. He squawks twice and then disappears up and up into the deepest blue part of the sky, somewhere way above the ocean.

The dark silhouettes of trailers scattered across the field lie like sleeping beasts; kind of eerie, but also sort of beautiful. And there’s no one awake yet to ask if they might have seen a boy who looks like Silas.

Only he’s not a boy anymore, I remind myself. Not really. I’m guessing he hasn’t been a boy now for quite some time. Maybe since the day he found both his parents on the kitchen floor in a pool of their own blood.

I shove the vision from my head and shuffle quietly across the flattened grass. I have no idea where to look for him. I don’t even know this place. But then, I didn’t know Provincetown either, and that didn’t stop me from searching for two hours straight and finding him.

I weave my way through the field of trailers and merchant booths, past the stage and the two rows of band trucks and buses. I even sneak into the two collapsable huts they use for the backstage area, but the only thing I find there are piles of cables and boxes and a couple of soda crates.

In less than ten minutes, I’m all the way to the other end of the fairgrounds, where a concrete path runs parallel to the beach. I walk along that for a while, my eyes scanning left and right. But there’s nothing to my right except for the wide stretch of deserted beach and the purple-hued waves lapping at sand that looks like molten lava: more red than pink even, because of the light cast from the sunrise.

Up ahead, about two-hundred feet away, is the long silhouette of the pier jutting out over the ocean. From this distance, it looks like a set from the Waterworld movie: like someone crammed a bunch of random wooden fishing huts and shingled houses onto a high stilted dock. It’s definitely nothing like the elegant, twinkling piers you see in romance movies. This one looks rickety and temporary; gritty and unpretentious. And it’s way more interesting than glamorous.

And that’s when I spot it: the male silhouette propped against one of the tall stilts that supports the wooden boardwalk — at the end closest to the shore, just barely out of reach of the lapping waves.

I recognize him by his hair. And the profile of his face: the nose that used to be long and straight but now has a slight bump. His square, defined jaw and the way he holds a cigarette up to his lips with a muscled arm to take a long, desperate drag. And also the way he lets his head fall back against the wooden beam in a way that looks resigned and sad and thoughtful all at the same time.

I let out a sigh, rubbing my hands across my face in relief—because Silas is still here.He’s still here he’s still here he’s still here.

I bend over, hands on my thighs like I just finished a half marathon. Itfeelslike I just finished a run. Maybe not physically; but definitely the sudden release of heightened emotions is similar.

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