Page 6 of The Silence Between

“Mari.”

She sighed, then slowly rolled up her sleeve. The bruise was the size of a golf ball, already turning a sickly yellow at the edges. Five distinct fingerprints.

“Dad didn't mean it,” she whispered, rolling her sleeve back down. “He was having a bad dream. He thought I was someone else.”

The rage came sudden and hot, a flash flood through my veins. I took three deep breaths, willing my voice to stay steady. “When?”

“Last night. You were working.”

Of course I was. Weekend inventory at the corner store, trying to save up for the graphing calculator I needed for Algebra II. I'd started working there three months ago when Dad's sporadic construction gigs had dried up completely and Mom's factory checks barely covered rent. Someone had to buy groceries, school supplies, the medicine Sophie needed for her constant ear infections. The sixty bucks I made each weekend wasn't much, but it meant the difference between eating and not some weeks. What I hadn't calculated was the true cost—I hadn't been home to protect them.

“Has it happened before?” I asked, though I already knew the answer from the way she avoided my eyes.

Before Mari could respond, the door opened. Mom shuffled in, her factory uniform stained with ink and sweat, her limp more pronounced than ever. The hunch of her shoulders told the story of another ten-hour shift standing at the packaging line. She'd aged a decade in the year we'd been in Riverton, deep lines etched around her mouth, dark circles like bruises beneath her eyes.

I slipped back inside, Mari following silently.

“Mamá,” I said, moving to take her lunch bag. “Let me start dinner.”

“No, mijo.” She waved me away, summoning a tired smile. “You study. You don't end up like me.”

The familiar refrain. Don't end up like me. As if her sacrifice was some kind of failure rather than the most enduring love I'd ever witnessed.

I watched as she moved to the kitchen, mechanically removing ingredients for dinner. From her purse, she extracted an orange prescription bottle, shaking a pill into her palm and swallowing it dry. Her shoulders relaxed incrementally as she tucked the bottle back into her purse, glancing around to make sure the kids hadn't seen.

But I had seen. And the knot in my stomach pulled tighter.

* * *

“So Gatsby reinventshimself to pursue an idealized version of success, but that pursuit ultimately destroys him,” Ms. Abernathy said, pacing in front of the whiteboard covered in her flowing script. “What does Fitzgerald want us to understand about the American Dream?”

The sophomore literature classroom fell into that peculiar silence of students avoiding eye contact with the teacher. I sat in my usual spot near the back corner, half-hidden behind Tyler Hansen's football-player bulk. A year at Riverton High had taught me to navigate its social ecosystem with minimal damage.

The silence stretched too long. Ms. Abernathy's gaze swept across the room, landing on me with a hopeful raise of her eyebrows.

Fuck it. I raised my hand.

“Leo,” she nodded, relief evident in her voice.

“Maybe it's not just about Gatsby failing,” I said, the words coming slowly as I pieced together thoughts that had been swirling since I'd finished the book. “Maybe it's about how the American Dream itself is a kind of lie. Like, we're told anyone can make it if they work hard enough, but Gatsby did everything right—reinvented himself, made money, played by their rules—and still wasn't accepted. Because some walls can't be climbed, no matter how hard you try.”

The classroom fell into a different kind of silence—the uncomfortable kind that happens when someone says something too real. I immediately regretted speaking.

“That's...” Ms. Abernathy paused, her eyes lighting up. “That's an excellent point, Leo. Fitzgerald is indeed suggesting that the American Dream might be fundamentally flawed, accessible only to those born into certain circumstances.” She turned to the class. “What do others think about Leo's interpretation?”

As the discussion reluctantly sputtered to life, I noticed Ethan watching me from across the room. His expression wasn't the surprised disbelief I sometimes got when I spoke in class. Our eyes met briefly before I looked away, uncomfortable with the scrutiny.

I'd run into Ethan exactly twelve times over the past year, not that I was counting. The first was after that English class freshman year, when he'd spoken up for me about the textbook. We'd found ourselves alone in the library a week later, both reaching for the same copy of “The Odyssey.” He'd smiled, actually smiled, and said, “You take it. I've already read it once for fun anyway.” The kind of thing only a West Riverton kid would say—reading classics “for fun” like that was normal.

Then there was the time in the cafeteria when his friend had knocked my tray, sending my sad excuse for a lunch skidding across the floor. While his friends snickered, Ethan had silently handed me his untouched apple and walked away before I could refuse it. Or thank him. Or figure out why he'd done it.

In January, during midterms, I'd been studying in the back corner of the library at a table I thought nobody knew about. Ethan had appeared with a stack of books, hesitated when he saw me, then stood awkwardly for a moment.

“Hi,” he'd said, like we'd never met before. “My name is Ethan.” As if I could have forgotten. As if we hadn't had that lunch conversation, as if he hadn't handed me that apple, as if I hadn't seen him every day in English class for months.

“I know,” I'd replied, not looking up from my notes.

A half-smile had pulled at his mouth. “Mind if I sit here? Everywhere else is full.” It wasn't, but I nodded anyway. We'd sat in silence for two hours, occasionally glancing up to find the other looking away quickly. He'd left a half-full pack of highlighters on the table when he went home. When I tried to return them the next day, he just shook his head. “Keep them. I have more.”

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