Page 88 of Reckless At Raleigh High
“A lot,” she whispers. “Almost as much as I love you.”
My smile hurts, it feels so sweet. “And do you know how dark and utterly shitty my life would be without you in it?”
“Pitch black?” she guesses. “Charcoal black? Obsidian black?”
“Obsidian black, probably.”
She nods wisely, as though this choice makes the most sense. “I’m glad your life isn’t obsidian black. I’m glad I lighten it up just a little.”
I sit up straight, shifting so that I can take her face in my hands. Her eyes skip over my features one by one, and her irises look like mercury, like shifting lightning trapped inside a glass bottle. “You don’t just light me up a little. You are the goddamn sun,Argento,” I tell her. “You give off so much heat, and life, and joy that it’s fucking spilling out of me. I have more light than I know what to do with. It’s just that losing him…losingBen…that pain was a black hole that just kept getting bigger and bigger for a second there. I thought it was gonna swallow me whole. You kept me going, though. You gave me what I needed to cling on. And I was a shit, and I’m so sorry for the way—”
She cups her hand over my mouth, slowly shaking her head. “Despite the rumor mill at Raleigh High, you’re human, Alessandro. And people break open and fall apart when people they love die. It’s a brutal truth. Never try and apologize to me again, or I’ll revoke your backrub privileges”
“I don’t seem to recall there being backrub privileges.” The words come out muffled, since she’s still covering my mouth with her hand. She laughs, winking at me suggestively, lowering her hand.
“If you play your cards right, there might be backrub privileges down the line. In the meantime, I have a question for you.”
“Oh?”
She looks very serious indeed. “On a scale of one to ten, how weird is it to eat a birthday breakfast in a cemetery?”
“I’m gonna say that would be a seven, but I’m also will say that I’m ravenous and I don’t care how weird it is. Whatever you’ve got in those containers smells fucking delicious, and I think we should devour all of it right now before it gets cold.”
I’m not really hungry. I just want to make her smile, which she does as she unwraps the dishes, unveiling her birthday breakfast masterpieces: chicken and waffles in one dish, pancakes and freshly cut strawberries in another, and, last but not least, bacon and cheesy eggs in the third. So much food we’ll never come close to finishing it all. We give it a good goddamn try, though. The second I fork some of the chicken and waffles into my mouth, I realize I just how hungry I actuallyam, and I get to work.
Ben wouldn’t mind us eating at his grave. He’d wholeheartedly approve, I think to myself, as I drain my second cup of coffee from the Thermos Silver brought to our macabre early morning picnic. He would have gorged himself on Silver’s pancakes until he made himself sick. Pancakes were his favorite.
Once we’ve finished stuffing our faces and we’re so full we’re groaning, Silver grabs the picnic basket, dragging it toward her. I begin to stack the dishes, thinking it’s time to clean up, but Silver stops me. “Not yet. If we’re breaking cemetery etiquette, we might as well do it properly. You need to open your presents,” she says.
I just stare at her, a little dumbstruck.
Her smile begins to fade. “Oh, fuck. Presents are a little much. I shouldn’t have gauged that a little better. Sorry.”
“No, no. I just, uh…it’s just that I don’t think anyone’s bought me a birthday present in…” I wrack my memory, trying to do the math. And then it hits me:I haven’t received a birthday present since my mother died.That is just too fucking depressing to admit out loud, though, so I simply laugh and shrug, like it’s no big deal.
Silver hesitates, as if she knows exactly how long it’s been since someone was kind to me on my birthday, but mercifully she doesn’t say anything about it. She reaches inside the basket, producing a small box, wrapped in blue and white stripy wrapping paper. I accept the box with trepidation. How the fuck do normal people receive gifts? How do they fucking react? What the hell do they say? Most importantly, why does this feel so fucking awkward right now?
“Uhh…thanks.” God, I’m such a fucking moron. “I…the paper’s cool.”
Silver looks heavenward, groaning. “The paper was ninety-nine cents from the general store. It was all they had left after Christmas. Just open it up already, Moretti. I’m gonna break out in hives if you make me wait much longer.”
She grumbles as I open her gift with care, peeling back the tape and unfolding it at either end instead of ripping through the stripy paper. At one point, she almost snatches the present from my hands and tears into it herself. I manage to get into the box before she has chance, though.
Underneath the wrapping paper is a small jewelry box. Amused, I hold it up, arching an eyebrow. “Bling, Parisi?”
“Argh! Open the damn box, Alex!”
“Okay, okay! Little Miss Impatient.” I snap the box open, curious as to what I’ll find inside. And there, on the blue velvet cushion inside, is a gold medallion. It’s small—the same size as the St. Christopher I wear around my neck—but there’s no saint engraved on this medallion’s surface. It’s a crest. One I’m unfamiliar with. I take it out of the box, inspecting it closely. Along the bottom, around the outer edge of the coin’s surface, is the word ‘Parisi.’
“It’s kind of stupid, I know. But that side bears my family’s crest. And on the other side—”
I’ve already flipped it over, to find the Moretti family crest on the other side.
“I know how you feel. I know that, with your mom gone, and…now Ben too,” Silver says, struggling with the words. “I know it might feel like you’re alone. But you’re not, Alex.Iam your family, andyouare mine. Parisi. Moretti. They’re just words, really. Ideas. I had both our names engraved on this to show that those ideas are one and the same. We’re bound together forever, Alex. Always. Two sides of the same coin.”
I hold the medallion in the palm of my hand, turning it one way and then the other, battling with my emotions. I try to string a sentence together in my head, but every time I think I’m almost there, whatever sentiment I’ve cobbled together doesn’t do justice to what I’m feeling.
I put the medallion back on its cushion briefly, so I can reach up and unfasten the clasp on the chain around my neck. Silver watches intently as I thread her gift onto the chain so that it hangs right next to St. Christopher.
