Page 10

With another hour of driving to go, I’m growing weary of the silence in the car. Other than a few frustrated groans and the shuffling of pages, Daphne hasn’t made a peep. The old texts might not be as helpful as she thought they would be, and that worries me.

“Still no luck?” I ask, desperate for a break from my boredom.

She slaps her hands down on the pile of papers in her lap and grunts. “I thought this would be easier.”

Nothing is ever easy. “Why don’t you take a break from all of that for now. I can help you scour the pages later.”

“If I could just find something,” she says, thrusting her hands up in frustration, “I would take a break. But I haven’t even found a single word about the crossroads yet. What if there’s nothing in here? What if we can’t find a way out of this?”

Her concern surprises me. It’s a relief to know she does care and that her offer to help me wasn’t just to get the help she needed. “There is no point wasting your energy on it anymore right now. You seem so frustrated, which in my experience means you are likely to miss a fine detail anyway.”

I can feel her eyes burning into the side of my head. She neatens the stack of papers and reaches into the back, and places them on the seat.

“How the hell did you get so smart anyway?” she mumbles and blows out a long sigh.

“Don’t let me fool you,” I reply with a chuckle. “I’ve learned the hard way when to keep going and when to walk away.”

“What do you mean?”

I squirm, unsure of how much to share with her. “Growing up in the Sliver was hard. And my parents made things harder than they had to be.”

“I still don’t get it,” she says, turning toward me. “What does having shitty parents have to do with learning when to walk away.”

Gripping the steering wheel tighter, a fire builds in my guts.

This is something I don’t like to talk about.

“My dad was a drunk. He was always coming in and out of our lives, at his convenience. Like if he needed money or a place to stay. And my mother always let him. Every single time. And being the stupid kid that I was, every time he showed back up, I thought I could convince him to stay. I thought if I showed him my good grades, did well in sports, helped mom around the house, whatever, it would be enough to make him want to hang around. Again and again, he disappointed me. I took it as my failure. I wasn’t a good enough son for him to want to stay. ”

“I don’t know much about humans, but it seems like he was the problem, not you,” she says, placing her fingertips on my shoulder, which sends a wave of unexpected emotion through me. I ignore it as best as I can.

“Anyway,” I say, shrugging my shoulders in an attempt to appear nonchalant, “I eventually concluded that there was no point in trying anymore. I learned to walk away. I haven’t seen the sonofabitch since I was fourteen.

He’s most likely dead. He wasn’t one to let a case of beer stop him from getting in a car. ”

She nods and sits back. I’m grateful she doesn’t press.

Staring at the road ahead, the fire burns hotter in my stomach. It happens every time I return to the Sliver. I look forward to the day I don’t have to go back.

“What about your mom?” Daphne's question snaps me out of my wandering mind. “What happened to her?”

“She died when I was seventeen,” I say flatly, hopeful to end this conversation. “Cancer.”

“Oh,” Daphne whispers. “I’m sorry.”

I don’t reply; my capacity for past drama is at its limit. Thankfully, she picks up on this and stays quiet. But after twenty minutes or so of nothing but road noises, she drops another question.

“What can you tell me about Garett’s mother? I’m a little nervous going in there blind.”

“She is quite the character, you will see. I promise there is absolutely nothing intimidating about her, though, so don’t worry.”

“But is she nice?”

“She’s too nice,” I tease. “But you’re just going to have to see for yourself.”

“You are no help,” she snaps, playfully slapping my arm. “The suspense is making me crazy.”

Glancing over at her, I can’t help but laugh at how frazzled she looks. She is clenching her jaw, and her eyes are wide. “Don’t worry, Daph. It’s not much longer until we are there, and you will see you are worried for no reason.”

If anything, I know she will find the Sliver depressing and unexciting, like I always have. Garrett’s mother, Lulu, however, will be the highlight of her experience there.

It’s never dull at Lulu’s.