Page 101 of Even After Sunset

The door suddenly rattles open.

“What did you do with my bottle of rye?”

Silas barges in and marches over to where I’m standing. And even though he’s looming over me now, I refuse to be intimidated.

“I did you a favor and flushed it down the toilet.”

His eyes narrow; seething with fury. There’s a tense silence where neither of us says anything. We don’t even blink, because neither of us wants to be the first to back down.

But then his eyes dip to the counter, taking in the bowl, then the cookie tray filled with carefully aligned mounds of cookie dough. His body stills, and a second later, he reaches in front of me and grabs the tray of unbaked cookies, and wrenches the garbage can from under the sink with the other. He uses the mixing spoon to scrape everything into the bin, then does the same with the remaining batter from the bowl.

When he’s done, he slams the bowl on the counter and strides over to the rows of cooling racks, blocking me with his large frame as I try to race ahead to stop him. He jerks out the top tray and dumps the cookies into the garbage can he’s holding in his left hand, then removes all the other trays until he’s disposed of every last cookie I baked today.

He slams the can on the floor at my feet.

“There—favor returned. Now we’re even.”

I hate this Silas even more than the one who gave me the silent treatment for those first few days on the road.

“No wonder your aunt kicked you out,” I spit. “You’re anasshole!”

I’ve never called anyone an asshole before in my life. And I regret it as soon as I’ve said it. Especially when I see the hurt that flashes across his eyes. But then he schools his expression back into indifference.

“Took you long enough to figure it out,” he bites out, shoving past me into the bathroom, pulling the door closed behind him.

I can’t believe he’s choosing now to finally shut the door when he uses the washroom.

He re-appears a second later. I notice him falter when he sees the tears streaming down my face, but he still brushes straight past me to the door.

“I didn’t mean that, Silas… I’m—”

The door crashes shut, and he’s gone. Along with any of my sales for the night, and my trust that he is really going to kick this drinking habit on his own.

Silas didn’t go in to the washroom to pee.

He went in the washroom to chug a bottle and a half of Listerine.

I’m sick to my stomach at the implication of his latest actions—because resulting to drinking mouthwash falls well beyond even the most liberal parameters of teenage drinking, and definitely implies that Silas’ drinking habit is even worse than I thought. This is the behavior of someone who is a full-blown alcoholic. And I’m not entirely sure what to do with this information. Especially given that it’s piled on top of a whole other layer of raw emotions I’m trying to deal with right now.

Actually, that isn’t entirely true: deep down, I know exactly what I need to do with this information. I just don’t like it.

I need to talk to Richard.

Even though Silas will hate me for it. Even though it will almost definitely mean closing the door on any possibility of continuing the relationship we’ve started to build over the past few weeks.

But if helping Silas is really more important to me than being part of his life, then it’s the right thing to do. I have to get him access to people who are better equipped to deal with what he’s going through right now than I am.

And then I need to be okay with the fact that he will view my decision as an act of betrayal, and probably shut me out for good.

Chapter Thirty-Four

Silas

I’m woken up by stomach cramps, a serious need to pee, and an even more serious need to puke. I open my eyes and groan when I realize I spent the night on the floor again, which is not a good sign. Jackie is gonna be pissed. And I don’t want her to be pissed: I already feel bad about the fight we had last night. Our second one in two days. And yeah, she had no right to go through my bag, but I was a dick for trashing every last cookie she probably spent the entire afternoon baking. Also, for coming back wasted in the middle of the night. And passing out like a full-fledged wino on the kitchen floor.

I sit up, and my stomach tightens in protest.

Fun fact: drinking large amounts of mouthwash will give you the worst kind of stomach cramps. And make you as nauseous as the morning after your first high school bender. Still, I’m surprised it’s this bad. This is far from my first rodeo; I thought my body would be acclimatized by now.

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