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“I don’t know your life,” he says.
“Just go move your car,” I tell him, and he does. A minute later I’m idling on the street outside my parents’ house, and he gets in, a wad of napkins in his hand.
“I grabbed these out of my glove box in case you needed them,” he says, and I nearly laugh. I nearly say yeah, because you’re a normal person who keeps fast food napkins in their car, but I don’t. I’ve already been enough of an asshole to Levi this week, I don’t also need to out him to Silas.
“Thanks,” I say, grab one, and blow my nose.
“Let me text Clara and tell her I’m not coming,” he says.
Right. That’s why he was here, to pick me up for Loveless Sunday Dinner, an event that I one hundred percent absolutely for sure cannot handle right now.
“You text Clara?” I ask.
“Yeah, I’m an insider,” he deadpans. “I’ve got her email address, too. You impressed?”
“Shut up,” I say, and start driving.
I leave my parents’ neighborhood, then leave Sprucevale and drive north, away from Levi’s house, and I just drive without thinking.
“So,” Silas says as we pass cows, cows, horses, and more cows. “What happened?”
I clear my throat and grip the wheel a little harder.
“I was seeing someone, and it ended because I’m probably moving to South Dakota,” I say. Technically, it’s the truth.
“I didn’t know you were seeing anyone,” Silas says, and from the corner of my eye, I can see the shift in his body language.
“Don’t,” I tell him.
“What?”
“Just don’t, okay? With the patriarchal bullshit? Not now.”
He looks out the window for a moment, then sighs.
“Fine,” he says. “Did this someone you were seeing have a name?”
I hesitate, because I obviously can’t tell him the truth.
“Logan,” I say, the first L-name that comes to mind.
I’m just gonna wing this and hope it works.
“We met on Tinder,” I lie. “He lives in… Oakton, so you probably don’t know him.”
Oakton’s an hour away to the east, and I can’t think of any earthly reason that Silas would ever go there.
“I don’t think I do,” he says slowly, like he’s thinking through the names of every man he’s ever met. “How long had you been seeing him?”
Breathe in, breathe out.
“A month or so,” I say. “But you know, it was pretty casual. Why get too serious when I was leaving?”
That last word has a slight hysterical edge to it, and I make myself breathe.
“Is that why you’ve been so weird?” he asks, giving me a puzzled look.
“Yes,” I say quickly. Probably too quickly.
“I’m sorry, Bug,” he says, and for once, my brother is utterly sincere.
“Thanks,” I say, and I’m crying again.
Silas hands me a napkin, and I drive, and I cry, and Silas is just there.
“I think I really liked him,” I finally admit. “God, Silas, what if I’m really fucking up by doing this? What if L… Logan is, I don’t know, the love of my life and I’ll never find anyone else? What if after this I just become a dusty plains spinster with a whole bunch of buffalo or something?”
“Well, that would be very South Dakota of you,” he says.
I let out a sigh that’s half-sob.
“But that’s not going to happen, Bug,” he says. “You’re smart and interesting and talented and pretty, I guess, and the men in South Dakota will be lining up to date you, and wow I hate that sentence.”
“I’m gonna host an orgy,” I threaten between sniffles.
“I’m being nice to you right now.”
“Orgies are nice?”
“And also, Logan sucks for breaking up with you and not even trying to work things out,” he says.
He doesn’t have to say, Logan is probably a douchebag like the rest of your boyfriends, because I know he’s thinking it. If only he knew.
I feel a little bad for not quite telling Silas the whole truth, but the truth is just too much right now.
“I can’t even blame him,” I say, miserably. “He’s right. I mean, even if I don’t get this job, it’s not like I’m sticking around here, you know? There are zero journalism jobs, all the ones that exist are in the butthole of nowhere so I can’t stay, and Logan’s not going to leave. His family’s here, his job’s here, he’s got a house here. Here meaning Oakton, obviously.”
“Obviously.”
I shoot Silas a quick look, but his face betrays nothing.
“I just wish it weren’t happening,” I say. “There have been so many shitty dudes, Silas.”
“Very true.”
I ignore this.
“Why’d the good one have to be here?” I ask, rhetorically. “Why couldn’t he live in Bluff City or something?”
“I wish I could tell you, Bug. I really do.”
I sigh.
“You want me to beat him up for you?”
“For fuck’s sake, Silas.”
“I’m just offering,” he teases.
I nearly tell him that I know about Jake Echols, but then I’d have to explain how I know about Jake Echols and that road leads back to Levi, so I drop it.
