Page 87 of Stupid Dirty

Chapter Thirty-Six

We’ve barely driven past Mishicot, and the weight of everything that’s happened already feels like it’s crushing me into the passenger seat.

I thought we’d at least make it out of the county, if not the state, before I totally crumbled. But I can practically feel the will to live draining out of me like dirty bathwater. Looking out of the window, I stare at the remains of the high school that used to serve this district. They closed it because of a population drop in the nineties, I think, when they were saving money by merging some of the school districts together.

Which happened around the same time everyone and their mom started batch-cooking meth for a living. It doesn’t take a high school diploma to figure out why the empty structure partially burned down soon after it was boarded up.

I guess the money it would take to clean it up is better spent elsewhere, because it’s been sitting here on the edge of town for as long as I can remember. An old building, gutted by lootersand half-charred, left to crumble slowly over the years until it falls back into the dirt. Like everything else around here.

The sound of Dad’s voice droning on and on about Canada is an obnoxious buzz in my ear. I’m trying to shut it out, but it’s persistent. I think going cold turkey is getting to him, because he’s been sweaty and anxious for the last hour and will not shut the fuck up. My tongue feels thick, like my mouth is full of cotton, and my eyelids are heavy. Even the act of moving my eyeballs to look at the school seems to take a herculean effort, and by the time it’s out of sight, I’m even more exhausted than before.

There’s a more insistent buzz layered over Dad’s voice, and the accompanying vibration draws my attention downwards. My phone’s in my hand, the screen glowing with a notification.

CADE: New Message

My thumb shakes too hard for me to swipe properly, so it takes me a few tries. I don’t know why.

Silas. Don’t let that asshole convince you that you’re a burden. You’re not. I know I joke around about saving you at the quarry, but you’re the one that saved me. You’re the strong one. My life was never better than it was with you in it. You’re my hero, and I love you. Never forget it.

A complicated knot of emotions wraps itself around my heart, squeezing until there’s no more space for it to beat. Time stands still, while the words sink into my numb brain. I’ve shut myself down to keep out all the memories of Mom and Dad andeverything else I want to forget, but it’s also kept out thoughts of Cade, and now they’re worming their way back in.

I already miss the way he laughs at his own jokes, or gets way too excited about an idea that we’ll never be able to actually do. I miss the quiet, knowing looks that Maddi and I sometimes share when Cade and Sky are egging each other on in their ridiculousness. I miss the way everything in me settles when he falls asleep with his head on my chest.

Maybe this is a mistake.

“See, this is my point. Snap out of it.” Dad’s voice breaks through my thoughts, only because he also reaches across the center console to grab my shoulder and shake it. I snap my head to the side to see what he wants. “This is why you need to be on the road. All this lying around moping is no good; you’re already halfway-catatonic. You’re too much goddamn like her. That’s why you need to win. It keeps you focused. If that fucking official I paid off had kept his word and not tested you, none of this would have happened. I’m not pulling you out of a bathtub full of blood, Silas. I fucking refuse.”

The words spill out of his mouth like an oil slick, heavy and toxic. There’s too much buried within them for me to pull out any one thing, so I settle for gawking at him, hoping he’ll explain.

He doesn’t, though. Instead, he pats my cheek in some rough approximation of parental affection. His eyes are red-rimmed, although I can’t tell if it’s from emotion, detox, or both.

“Everything’s going to be just fine.” I don’t know who he’s trying to convince, me or himself.

I turn it all over in my mind, one sentence at a time, until I figure out the question I want to ask.

“What do you mean, you paid someone off?”

Dad sighs, making the same face he does whenever he thinks I’m being childish or naïve. I’ve always hated it, and right now I feel like I might puke.

“It’s fine. Everyone does it. You were having a bad run and I could see how down you were getting. I thought you needed a little boost, is all. If he hadn’t tested your fucking fuel tank like he promised, none of this would have happened. You’re a winner, like me. You just need a nudge once in a while to help you get out of your own head.”

Cade was right. It really was all his fault, and I’m the idiot who gave him the benefit of the doubt. Closing my eyes, I try to ward off the throbbing in my temples, but it doesn’t work. He just dumped too much information into my lap and my head feels like it’s going to explode.

“You’re telling me you actually cheated, because you think it was losing races that was making me depressed?”

His eyes dart between me and the road, then he shrugs, like it’s no big deal. “It’s not cheating! It was just a nudge. I told you I’d always take care of you, didn’t I? I won’t let you end up like her. I promised.”

The throbbing intensifies. His logic is so twisted I have to fight the urge to choke him with it.

“So you cheated, because I needed to win, because if I didn’t win I would get depressed and ultimately kill myself? Because I’m just like her. It’s in my blood. And you’re just the good man in the storm, holding back the tide of all that crazy with your bare hands, trying to save your family.”

He blinks, looking confused. “We shouldn’t talk about this. It’s all in the past.”

Ignoring him, I keep going. “And it had nothing to do with you wanting money or fame or a repeat of your own shitty career?”

“Silas,” he growls a warning, clearly out of patience for the topic. I’m on a roll, though. He’s shocked the numbness rightout of me, and now I’m fucking pissed. I haven’t felt this angry in a long time, and it feels fantastic. I can see why Cade is so intoxicated by this.

“Did you ever consider that I could be depressedbecauseI was on the road all the time? I think most people would tell you that having no friends and no family and nothing but work is pretty fucking depressing. Probably more of a determining factor than whatever broken brain chemistry I inherited from Mom.”

---