Page 54 of The Silence Between

Mari was leaving for college soon, which scared the hell out of me but would free up some space to maybe finally take those night classes. Diego was failing English but killing it in math, which might actually get him somewhere. Sophie's art was getting seriously good with real lessons.

All of it hanging by a thread that seemed to fray whenever Ethan appeared with his perfect hair and published novels and life that went according to plan. Each time I saw him I'd spend days distracted, imagining impossible what-ifs instead of focusing on the next bill, the next shift, the next problem to solve.

“Building a fallout shelter for the Ethan-pocalypse?”

I jumped at Mari's voice. She’s always been good at sneaking around.

“Just organizing work stuff,” I mumbled, shuffling papers around like that would hide their obvious purpose.

Mari gave me that look, the one she'd perfected around age twelve that said bullshit detector activated. She picked up my work calendar with all its arrows and cross-outs.

“You literally changed your entire schedule at both jobs,” she said, dropping the paper back on my desk. “Including your lunch break at the diner to when absolutely no teachers would be there. You can't just rearrange your whole existence because he moved back.”

“I'm not?—“

“Save it.” She perched on the edge of my bed, arms crossed. “We've done this dance before. What's really going on?”

I sighed, running a hand through my hair that needed a cut I couldn't afford. “It's not that complicated. I see him, I get distracted, I mess up at work, we can't pay rent. Simple cause and effect.”

“Try again,” Mari said, not buying it for a second.

“Fine. Every time I run into him, I start thinking about roads not taken. About choices I didn't get to make. About what my life might look like if I hadn't been trying to keep three kids fed and housed since I was eighteen.” I gestured at the cramped room, the secondhand furniture, the life built from necessity rather than choice. “He comes back with his fancy degree and award-winning books while I'm still scrubbing toilets and fixing leaky pipes.”

“And?” Mari prompted, arms still firmly crossed.

“And nothing. That's it. It's distracting, and I can't afford distractions. End of story.”

Mari's face softened. “You know we're not in crisis mode anymore, right? We're stable enough now that you could actually have something for yourself.”

“Stable is a strong word for four people living in a two-bedroom apartment with three and a half jobs between us and a car that makes that noise.”

“That's just regular life, Leo. Not a state of emergency.” Mari reached over and flicked my calendar. “This isn't healthy.”

“Neither is reopening old wounds that don't change anything,” I countered.

“So your solution is to become a nocturnal janitor who never crosses paths with the English department? Realistic.”

Before I could come up with a decent comeback, Sophie's voice called from the hallway, asking about breakfast and whether her blue sweater was clean. The conversation paused, but the truth of Mari's words lingered in the air, stubborn as the water stain on my ceiling that no amount of paint would ever quite cover.

For two days, my elaborate avoidance strategy worked pretty well. I'd managed to clean the English department well after midnight, fixed the library's broken shelf during the faculty meeting, and even traded shifts with Rick to avoid the afternoon when parent-teacher conferences brought all the teachers into the hallways.

But on Wednesday afternoon, my carefully constructed house of cards collapsed when Principal Rodriguez caught me in the maintenance office.

“Leo, just the man I need,” she said, dropping a set of keys on my desk that was really just an old door on cinder blocks. “The pipes in the faculty lounge finally gave out. Water everywhere. I need someone to handle it ASAP before it gets into the electrical.”

I glanced at the clock: 3:40 PM. Peak danger zone. English department meeting would have just ended, and teachers would be scattered throughout the building. Including one specific teacher I'd been successfully avoiding.

“Can't Rick take it? I'm scheduled to?—“

“Rick's out sick, and the rest of the maintenance crew is at the middle school dealing with their heating system.” She gave me the look that made even the toughest seniors straighten up. “It's all hands on deck, Leo.”

Arguing with Rodriguez was pointless. I grabbed my toolbox, feeling like a soldier being ordered over the top of a trench.

“It's contained to the faculty lounge for now, but it's spreading fast,” she called after me as I headed down the hall. “Hurry!”

I jogged through the maze of hallways, toolbox banging against my leg with every step. The faculty lounge was in the administrative wing, tucked between the guidance counselors' offices and the staff bathrooms—well away from my carefully planned routes. As I rounded the corner, I could already see water seeping under the door and into the hallway.

Great. Not just a small leak but a full-blown disaster. I pushed open the door to find an inch of water covering the linoleum floor, spreading slowly toward the electrical outlets. And standing in the middle of the room, pants rolled up to his knees and frantically trying to move books and papers to higher ground, was Ethan.

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