Page 2 of The Silence Between

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The cafeteria roaredwith lunchtime chaos. I stood at the edge, tray in hand, mapping the invisible boundaries that separated the room. The West Riverton kids claimed the tables near the windows, golden sunlight gleaming off their name-brand water bottles and Apple watches. The East Riverton kids dominated the tables near the food line, their laughter louder, their movements more expansive.

Where the hell did I fit?

My gaze caught on a corner table where a single boy sat hunched over a book, seemingly content in his isolation. He wore glasses and a blue button-down that looked ironed, his dark hair falling over his forehead as he turned a page. He didn't look up once, completely absorbed in whatever world existed between those pages.

Something about his solitude called to me. But before I could move toward him, a voice cut through the noise.

“Hey! New kid!”

A group at a nearby table waved me over. They were clearly East Riverton—work boots, hoodies, that slight hardness around the eyes that came from growing up on the wrong side of town. I recognized the hunger in their gazes—fresh meat, someone new to entertain them.

I hesitated, then made my way toward them. Better to be entertainment than invisible.

“Sit down, man,” said a guy with a buzz cut and a skull tattooed on his forearm. “You're the kid from California, right?”

I nodded, lowering myself onto the bench.

“I'm Leroy. This is Cruz, Taylor, and Jackie.” He pointed around the table. “So Oakland, huh? That's hardcore. You in a gang there?”

The question hung in the air like smoke. I'd heard variations of it my entire life. Are you illegal? Do you know how to get drugs? Can your cousins get us fake IDs?

“No,” I said, stabbing a fork into what the cafeteria claimed was lasagna. “Just a regular neighborhood. Not everything in California is a gang territory.”

Leroy raised his hands in mock surrender. “Just asking, man. No offense.”

“None taken,” I lied.

Cruz, a stocky guy with an eyebrow piercing, leaned forward. “So what brought your family to this shithole town?”

I shrugged. “Work. My mom got a job at the factory.”

“Oh shit, Riverside Paper? My mom works there too,” Jackie said, flipping her purple-streaked hair. “Which section?”

“Packaging, I think? She just started two weeks ago.”

Jackie's face clouded. “Damn. That's rough. Those jobs wreck people, seriously. My mom's been there five years and her back is fucked. They keep cutting benefits too.”

My fingers found the painted stone in my pocket, worry building in my chest as I thought of Mom's worsening limp.

“You got siblings?” Taylor asked, clearly trying to shift the conversation.

“Yeah,” I said, grateful for the change. “Three. My sister Mari is seven, Diego's three, and Sophie's just learning to walk.”

“Damn, that's a full house,” Cruz laughed. “Big age gap between you and them.”

I smiled despite myself. “Yeah. I was the trial run. They figured out all their parenting mistakes on me before trying again.”

They laughed, and for a moment, I felt a crack in the wall between us—the possibility that maybe, just maybe, I could find my footing here.

“So, little siblings,” Leroy mused. “That means you're stuck babysitting all the time, right?”

“It's not so bad,” I said. “They're good kids.”

“Man, that's your youth slipping away,” Cruz said, shaking his head. “When do you have time to party?”

I didn't tell them that the concept of “partying” felt as foreign to me as this town still did. That my life in Oakland had been school, home, siblings, repeat. That watching my parents struggle had never left much room for the kind of teenage rebellion they seemed to take for granted.

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