Page 35 of Silent Damage

She looks at Gabe.

Then me.

Then at the mess.

And her head falls into her hands.

“Boys, why?” she asks.

Because we’re idiots.

That's the only answer, but instead, we just look at the floor like we’re twelve.

Linda takes a deep breath. “If you don’t clean this up soon, the milk will spoil and stink up the whole trailer. So clean it up!”

I swear, even though she’s in the trailer, her voice made a wolf howl in the distance.

“Okay,” I reply.

She pinches the bridge of her nose. “You two need to figure this out. You need to get past your bullshit and figure out how to be friends again. Got it?”

Gabe and I slowly turn our heads to look at each other.

There’s cereal caked to his face.

Milk drips from his hair.

I try to stop it—I bite my lip, trying my damnedest to stop it, but I can’t.

I start laughing.

“It’s not funny,” Linda bellows.

But then Gabe starts snickering. Gabe. The guy who refuses to speak!

And soon we’ve both got our hands over our mouths, doing everything we can not to bust a gut in front of Linda.

“Jesus Christ,” she sighs. “Well, since you’re having such a blast, I want to try having another family dinner tonight. No fighting! Not with food, not with fists, nothing. Got it?”

Gabe and I look at each other, finally starting to calm down.

“Okay,” I reply.

“Good.” Linda slowly turns, but before she exits, she turns around once more. “We’re a family now. I want family dinners to be a regular thing. By hell or high water, we’re going to be a family.” She exits the trailer.

I stare at Gabe again, and my chest squeezes like it used to—before everything happened.

His eyes soften, like he wants this moment between us to last.

And part of me wants it to as well until the memories come back.

The hurt.

The betrayal.

To hell with that.

“Have fun cleaning, weirdo.”