Page 20 of Stupid Dirty

Has my compulsive caretaker complex gotten so bad that I made this whole thing up? Maybe the quarry thing was an isolated incident, and he’s really a normal, quiet guy who doesn’t need my help. Meanwhile, I’ve fabricated this little scenario where I befriend him out of kindness so I can feel good about myself and absolve my guilt about being kind of an asshole to him in high school.

Ever since that night at the quarry, I’ve been turning over my old memories of Silas. Before, they were always fogged by all my irrational jealousy and resentment, but now that I have some perspective, I feel like an idiot for not noticing sooner that something was wrong.

Sure, I was just a kid. But if there’s anything I knew about, it was what it looks like to cover up a shitty home life. All the things I saw as pretentiousness, I now see as him being awkward and trying to reach out, but with the shadow of his dad always lurking. Instead of noticing, I made fun of him behind his back. And to his face once or twice, if my very fuzzy memory serves.

It’s all too clouded with anger to remember clearly. There were a few years where everything at home seemed so violent and hopeless; I remember carrying around this rage with me every day like a second skin. I would try to laugh it off and pretend it wasn’t there, but it always was. I’m mind-numbingly grateful that I’ve gotten a lot more control of it since then, but that doesn’t undo whatever collateral damage I must have done along the way.

All I can do is try to make up for it now. And tonight is going better than I expected. I even see him have what looks like a serious conversation with Wish and walk away unscathed.

Maybe he doesn’t need me at all. Maybe this is all in my head.

Then I see the cracks start to show.

He’s having a conversation with Matteo, who is enthusiastically talking about one of the things he loves, whichmeans it’s some kind of team sport. Which Silas knows nothing about. I know from experience that Matteo can talk for hours when he really gets going. Silas’ responses get fewer and farther between, and every time Matteo asks him something, Silas seems to slow-blink at him for a while before any words come out. He looks like a computer that has too many windows open and its processing speed is for shit.

I know I’m not imagining it when I see relief all over his face as I walk over. The smile he gives me is small and genuine, unlike the stiff, plastic one he’s been flashing all night.

“Can I steal my mortal enemy away from you for a minute?”

Matteo laughs, and I take advantage of the opening to put my arm around Silas’ shoulders and walk him away to an empty corner of the room.

He sags into me as soon as we’re out of earshot.

“Thank you. I was trying to be nice, but he would not stop talking about college lacrosse. I can pretend to be interested in a lot of stuff for at least a couple minutes, but I don’t know anyone who can pretend to care about fucking lacrosse.”

“But you did so gooooooood.” I ruffle his hair until he jerks back and scowls at me. It makes him look a little like an angry teddy bear. “You almost looked like a real boy, talking to people and shit. Are you sure you’re not making up this whole social anxiety thing to get my attention? Because throwing me off my bike into a dirt wall already did the trick. You had my attention.”

“You know I’m sorry about-”

“Yeah, yeah, that’s not what I meant,” I cut him off. He’s apologized way too much already. Really, I was out of line for getting so mad. It’s all part of the race.

Sighing, Silas stares into space with a vacant expression. It reminds me too much of how he looked out at the water that first night, and anxiety churns in my gut. But my arm is still aroundhim, and he’s not pulling away. If anything, he’s softening enough that I can pull him closer.

Every inch of me is screaming that whatever I do in my life, I cannot let him go. Like as soon as I do, all the broken pieces of him will fly apart.

Maybe that’s arrogant of me, but I’m not taking the risk. I know how it feels to be raised by parents who can barely keep themselves alive, let alone someone else. Having my sisters to take care of has been the only thing that helps me keep my shit together most days. Without them, I don’t know where I’d be. Silas’ rootlessness hits a little too close to home for me to just ignore it. I’m invested now, whether he likes it or not.

“It just takes so much work,” he says in the end. “Dad always drilled into me to act ‘normal’, whatever that means. Shit like this is supposed to be fun. But it’s like everyone’s speaking a different language, and I’m the only one without the dictionary. Every time someone says something, I have to go through my brain like a Rolodex to figure out what to say back. It’s like…” There’s a pause while he searches for his words, and it takes all my self-control not to fill the silence. “It’s like algebra. Yeah. I can do it if you ask me. But it’s not my idea of a good time.”

Silas blows out a big breath, turning to shoot me a wary look. I think he’s trying to gauge how weird what he just said was based on my reaction.

“Wait, you can do algebra?”

From his expression, that’s not the reaction he was expecting. I can only hold a straight face for a few seconds before a grin takes over, and I light up inside when he finally laughs.

Everyone else might be tiring for him, but somehow, I know how to make him laugh. It’s like I was born with the cheat codes. Power like that can’t go to waste.

“Come on, robot boy.” I ruffle his hair again, which he pretends to hate, but doesn’t duck away from this time. “Let’s go home so you can plug your social battery back in to charge.”

I spend the whole walk out and drive home pestering him about his math skills. Maddi is thirteen and about to lap me in academics, so this could come in handy. I need somebody on deck to help with homework shit soon. So, I poke and prod and make more robot jokes, and Silas keeps that small smile on his face all the way.

When I pull up in front of Silas’ house to drop him off, the lights are all off, even though it’s still pretty early.

“Your old man asleep?”

He sighs and looks at his lap.

“Nah, he’ll be out for a while. We got some bad news today.”

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