Page 5 of The Silence Between
5
brEAKING APART
LEO
T he digital clock on my nightstand read 3:27 AM, January 1st. Outside my bedroom window, The Hollows had finally gone quiet after the scattered celebrations of midnight. No more distant firecrackers or drunken shouting. Just stillness, snowflakes, and stars.
“Think we'll see the northern lights?” Ethan asked beside me, his voice barely above a whisper. We sat huddled on the sloped roof outside my window, a blanket wrapped around our shoulders against the winter cold. His presence felt simultaneously impossible and inevitable.
“In Riverton? No fucking way,” I replied, bumping my shoulder against his. “Too much light pollution.”
“My dad says they were visible here once, when he was a kid. Before the paper mill expanded.” Ethan tilted his head back, studying the sky. “Before the town split in two.”
I watched his profile in the moonlight. Sometimes I still couldn't believe this was real. Ethan Webb, West Riverton golden boy, choosing to spend New Year's with me rather than at some country club party with his parents' friends.
Inside our apartment, my siblings slept—Mari on the pull-out couch, Diego and Sophie sharing the bedroom with me. Mom was here too, for once, passed out in the living room after mixing wine with her meds despite my warnings. Dad remained a ghost, two months gone now with no word.
But in this moment, with Ethan's warmth against my side and the whole sleeping town below us, I allowed myself to feel something dangerously close to happiness—a pocket of peace I'd learned to recognize and treasure precisely because I knew how quickly security could vanish.
“I heard back from UW,” Ethan said softly. “Early admission.”
I turned to him, genuine joy pushing through my fatigue. “That's amazing. Congratulations.”
“Thanks.” His smile flickered with something complicated. “It's their creative writing program.”
“Not Princeton? Your dad's going to have a stroke.”
“I haven't told them yet.” He picked at a loose thread on the blanket. “I'm thinking about doing it in the spring. Coming clean about everything.”
Everything. The word hung between us, carrying the weight of multiple revelations—his choice of major, his rejection of the family legacy, and us. Especially us.
“They might surprise you,” I offered, though neither of us really believed it.
“Maybe.” He didn't sound convinced. “What about you? Any word from State yet?”
I shook my head. “Should hear by March.” If I could even go, a caveat I left unspoken.
“We could end up at schools just hours apart,” he said, enthusiasm warming his voice. “I mapped it out. If you go to State and I'm at UW, it's just a three-hour drive. We could see each other most weekends.”
I let him talk, painting this future of dorm rooms and weekend visits, of leaving Riverton behind. I allowed myself to imagine it momentarily: freedom from constant responsibility, focusing on my own education, building something real with Ethan beyond stolen moments and secret meetups.
But reality waited just behind the window. Three children who depended on me, a mother who couldn't stay sober, bills that wouldn't pay themselves. Ethan could plan steps toward an open future. I remained trapped in the quicksand of present necessities.
Still, I didn't voice my doubts. Not tonight. Not while his eyes held that light, his hand warm in mine.
“What's your New Year's resolution?” he asked, breath visible in the cold air.
“I don't make those,” I said. “Setting yourself up for failure.”
“Oh, come on. One thing. One promise for the new year.”
I considered for a moment, careful to commit only to what I knew I could fulfill. “I'll always be honest with you,” I said finally. “Even when it's hard.”
Something in my tone must have revealed more than I intended, because he turned fully toward me, eyes searching mine. “That sounds ominous.”
“Not ominous. Just... real.” I squeezed his hand. “What's yours?”
“To work toward a future where we don't need to hide,” he said, no hesitation. “Where I can hold your hand walking down Main Street and nobody bats an eye.”
The conviction in his voice made my chest hurt. How could I explain that secrecy was the least of our obstacles? That my fear wasn't about being seen together but about the fundamental incompatibility of our lives?
The first gray light of dawn broke over Riverton as we kissed, sealing promises neither of us could guarantee. Below us, the river dividing East from West caught the pale morning sun, its surface momentarily unified before the day would once again reveal its separate currents.
* * *
February arrived with wet snow and bitter winds that cut through my secondhand jacket as I walked to the diner for my night shift. School, siblings, work, repeat—the rhythm of my days had narrowed to survival basics, leaving little room for anything else. Even Ethan had become both comfort and complication, his constant support a light I gravitated toward while knowing it illuminated all the ways our lives refused to align.
I poured coffee for the late-night regulars—truckers, hospital staff working graveyard shifts, insomniacs seeking human contact. My movements were automatic, my mind elsewhere. At home, Mari was handling bedtime for Diego and Sophie. Mom had been unusually coherent lately, following her prescribed medication schedule instead of doubling doses, even talking about applying for jobs. Small improvements that I tried not to invest too much hope in, having seen this pattern before.
Dad remained gone, his longest absence yet. The eviction threat loomed closer with each passing week as our partial rent payments barely kept the landlord at bay. And Sophie's cough, the one I couldn't afford to have properly treated, had gotten worse despite the over-the-counter medicine I'd been giving her.
“You're a million miles away, kid,” observed Hank, a regular who drove the overnight route to Portland. “Refill when you have a second.”
“Sorry,” I mumbled, reaching for the coffee pot.
My phone vibrated in my pocket—unusual for this hour. My stomach tightened as I pulled it out, checking the screen: Mari.
Mari
Mom fell. Need you home NOW.
My blood went cold. I showed the message to Diane, the night manager who'd known our family situation even before I started working here. She nodded grimly. “Go. I'll cover.”
I ran the entire seventeen blocks home, lungs burning in the frozen air, scenarios playing through my head in brutal succession. Did she fall, or “fall”? Was it an accident or another overdose? Were the kids okay? Did they see?
Flashing lights greeted me at our apartment building. I took the stairs two at a time, finding our door open, voices spilling out into the hallway.
Inside, paramedics knelt beside my mother's unconscious form on the living room floor. Empty pill bottles lay scattered near her outstretched hand. The scene was horribly familiar—three previous overdoses had taught me the choreography of crisis.
“Leo!” Mari's voice drew my attention to the kitchen, where she stood with Diego and Sophie, trying to shield them from the scene. Sophie's face was tear-streaked, Diego pale with shock.
“What happened?” I asked, pulling them all into a quick hug while keeping my voice steady.
“She seemed fine at dinner,” Mari said, voice small despite her effort to stay composed. “Then she got a call. I don't know who. After that, she took her pills. A lot of them. When she started slurring her words, I put the little kids in the bedroom and called 911.”
Diego looked up at me, eyes huge in his small face. “Is Mama going to heaven like Mrs. García's cat?”
“No, buddy,” I answered automatically. “The doctors are helping her.” I turned to the nearest paramedic, a woman checking my mother's vital signs. “How is she?”
“Responsive to pain stimuli. Breathing on her own. We're taking her in now.” She glanced at the children, then at me, lowering her voice. “This address is in our system. Third call this year?”
The observation carried judgment I had no energy to challenge. I nodded, focusing on immediate necessities.
“I need to go with her. Can you give me a minute to arrange care for my siblings?”
Mrs. Hernandez from next door agreed to watch the kids, her sad eyes telling me she understood exactly what had happened. As the paramedics loaded Mom into the ambulance, I knelt before my siblings.
“I'll call as soon as I know anything,” I promised, trying to project a confidence I didn't feel. “Listen to Mrs. Hernandez, okay? Try to get some sleep.”
“It's my fault,” Sophie whispered, her small face crumpling. “I kept coughing and Mama couldn't sleep.”
“No, baby.” I pulled her close, my heart breaking. “This isn't about you. Mama is sick, but not like your cough. It's a different kind of sick.”
I rode in the ambulance, watching the paramedics work, the familiar route to Riverton Memorial tracking beneath us. I texted Ethan three times during the journey, each message more urgent than the last. No response.
The hospital waiting room hadn't changed since our last visit—same harsh fluorescent lighting, same uncomfortable plastic chairs, same antiseptic smell barely masking human distress. I sat alone for two hours, filling out insurance forms I knew would cover almost nothing, answering the same questions from different hospital staff, my texts to Ethan remaining unanswered.
When the doctor finally emerged, his expression held that particular blend of clinical detachment and practiced sympathy I'd come to recognize from previous crises.
“Your mother is stable,” he began, the words bringing momentary relief before the inevitable follow-up. “But this overdose appears deliberate rather than accidental. The number of pills ingested, combined with her previous history...” He paused. “We're recommending a 72-hour psychiatric hold followed by inpatient rehabilitation.”
I nodded mechanically, already calculating what this meant—the cost our insurance would barely touch, the additional work hours I'd need, the Social Services visit that would inevitably follow.
“Can I see her?”
“She's sedated now, but yes, briefly.”
Mom looked small in the hospital bed, her skin gray against white sheets, an IV trailing from her arm. I sat beside her, taking her limp hand in mine. Her fingernails were bitten to the quick, a nervous habit from childhood that had resurfaced with her addiction.
“You have to fight this,” I whispered, uncertain if she could hear me. “The kids need you. I need you.”
The room's silence swallowed my words. Outside in the hallway, hospital life continued—monitors beeping, nurses exchanging information, wheels squeaking on linoleum floors. The mundane soundtrack to our personal catastrophe.
“Leo!”
Ethan's voice startled me as he appeared in the doorway, breathless and disheveled. “I just saw your texts. I'm so sorry—family dinner, my phone was off.” His eyes moved from me to my mother, widening slightly at the scene. “Is she?—“
“She'll live,” I said, the words coming out flatter than intended.
He crossed to stand beside me, hand resting on my shoulder. “What can I do?”
The question, kind and genuine, somehow made everything worse. The contrast between our evenings—his normal family dinner versus my medical crisis—created a chasm between us that felt suddenly unbridgeable.
“Nothing,” I said, pulling away from his touch. “You should go home. It's late.”
“I'm not leaving you here alone.”
“I'm used to it.”
The words hung between us, unintentionally cruel. I saw hurt flash across his face but couldn't summon the energy to soften the blow. In that moment, I needed the practiced isolation of someone accustomed to handling crises alone—it was familiar territory, unlike the vulnerability Ethan's presence demanded.
“Leo,” he tried again, voice gentle. “Let me help.”
“You can't,” I said, the truth of it settling heavily between us. “No one can.”
“Bullshit,” Ethan replied, his voice sharper than I'd ever heard it. “That's bullshit and you know it. You don't have to do this alone.”
I looked up at him, exhaustion making my words come out harder than intended. “Do what exactly? Fix my mother? Find my father? Make sure my siblings don't end up in separate foster homes? Please, tell me which part you think you can help with.”
“All of it. Any of it.” He pulled a chair closer, sitting so we were eye to eye. “I can drive the kids to school. I can help with groceries. I can?—“
“Can you make my mom stop trying to kill herself?” I interrupted, my voice cracking. “Can you bring my dad back? Can you make Social Services stop breathing down my neck?”
“No, but?—“
“Then what's the point?” I stood up, needing distance. “You get to swoop in, play hero for a few hours, then go back to your normal life with your normal family in your normal house where the heat always works and no one's wondering if dinner exists tonight.”
Hurt flashed across his face. “That's not fair.”
“None of this is fair,” I gestured toward my mother's unconscious form. “This is my reality, Ethan. All of it. The hospital visits, the Social Services appointments, the three jobs, the constant fear. You can visit this world, but I live here.”
“You think I don't know that?” he shot back, standing too. “You think I don't see the differences? I'm not blind, Leo.”
“Seeing isn't the same as understanding.”
“Then help me understand! Stop pushing me away every time things get hard.”
“This isn't 'things getting hard,'” I said, lowering my voice as a nurse glanced our way. “This is my life falling apart for the fourth time this year. And each time it happens, I have to be the one to pick up the pieces because there's no one else.”
Ethan reached for my hand. I let him take it, too tired to pull away. “Let me be someone else,” he said quietly. “Let me be here.”
I looked at our joined hands, at the gulf between our lives that no amount of good intentions could bridge.
“I don't know how,” I admitted, the fight draining out of me. “I don't know how to let anyone help.”
“You could start by not telling me to go home,” he suggested, the smallest hint of a smile touching his lips.
I sighed, suddenly too exhausted to maintain the walls I'd built. “Fine. Stay if you want. But I'm terrible company right now.”
“I'll risk it,” he said, squeezing my hand.
We sat together in silence as the hospital continued its midnight rhythms around us, the distance between our worlds momentarily bridged but still yawning beneath the surface.
* * *
March brought pale sunshine that failed to warm the classroom where I sat after school, staring at two envelopes on the desk before me. State University and Riverside College—both acceptances, both offering partial scholarships that still left impossible financial gaps.
What should have been cause for celebration felt hollow against the reality of my circumstances. Mom was now in court-mandated rehabilitation after her suicide attempt, Dad still absent without a word, and Social Services had increased their scrutiny of our living situation. The caseworker's last visit had included thinly veiled warnings about the need for “stable adult supervision” for my siblings.
I understood the subtext: pursuing my education likely meant losing custody of Mari, Diego, and Sophie to foster care. The acceptance letters represented not opportunity but impossible choice between my future and my family.
The classroom door opened, and Ethan entered, face alight with his own news. “I got into UW's writing program! And they're offering a partial—“ He stopped short, reading my expression. “What's wrong? Didn't you hear back yet?”
I pushed the envelopes toward him wordlessly.
“Leo, that's fantastic!” he exclaimed, scanning the letters. “Both of them! We need to celebrate. I told you they'd recognize how brilliant you are.”
His genuine happiness for me made what I had to say next even harder. “I can't go.”
“What do you mean?”
“Social Services made it clear. If I leave, the kids go into the system.” I kept my voice level, reciting facts rather than revealing the turmoil beneath. “Mom's rehab lasts ninety days, minimum. Dad's been gone almost four months now. There's no one else.”
Ethan processed this, his expression shifting from confusion to determination. “There have to be options. Defer for a year. Or maybe you could get an apartment near campus big enough for all of you.”
“With what money? The scholarships barely cover tuition, let alone living expenses for four people.”
“There are other scholarships, emergency grants. Or maybe my parents?—“
“Stop.” I cut him off, frustration boiling over. “This isn't a problem you can solve with Webb family connections or resources. This is my reality.”
“I'm just trying to help!”
“I know. But you don't understand. Your worst-case scenario is disappointing your parents. Mine is my brother and sisters being separated in foster care.”
The harsh truth created a silence neither of us knew how to bridge. The Social Services appointment card burned in my pocket. A meeting that would determine whether I could maintain guardianship of my siblings once I turned eighteen next month.
“I've made my decision,” I said finally. “I'm going to decline the college acceptances and pursue full legal guardianship instead.”
Ethan stared at me, shock evident in his expression. “Leo, you can't just give up on college. We've worked so hard—the applications, the essays, the scholarships?—“
“It's not giving up. It's choosing what matters most.”
“But what about your future?”
“This is my future,” I said, gesturing to the guardianship application I'd pulled from my backpack. “Mari, Diego, Sophie. Keeping our family together.”
Ethan paced the small classroom, processing. “There has to be another way. What if you did online classes? Or community college part-time? Or?—“
“I've considered every option,” I interrupted gently. “For months. This is the only one that works.”
He stopped pacing, turning to face me. “And what about us? Where do I fit in this plan of yours?”
The question I'd been dreading. The one I'd lain awake at night trying to answer differently than the truth demanded.
“Ethan...” I began, then faltered.
Understanding dawned in his eyes, followed quickly by denial. “No. Don't say it.”
“We need to stop pretending this works,” I forced myself to continue. “Our lives are going in different directions.”
“So you're just giving up? On college, on us, on everything?”
“I'm making the only choice I can live with.” I stood, gathering my papers. “You need to go to UW. Study writing. Build the life you want. I need to be here for them. There's no compromise that doesn't hurt everyone more in the end.”
He reached for me, eyes bright with unshed tears. “Leo, please. We can figure this out.”
I stepped back, maintaining distance I needed to keep my resolve. “I've already figured it out. This is the answer.”
As I walked away, each step felt like moving through water, resistance growing with every inch of separation. Behind me, Ethan called my name once more, the sound carrying all the hurt I'd tried and failed to prevent.
* * *
April's rain washed the courthouse steps as I emerged, legal guardianship papers for my siblings tucked into my backpack. The weight of official responsibility now matched what I'd carried unofficially for years. My eighteenth birthday had come and gone two weeks earlier, marked by a small celebration at home and the submission of these very guardianship papers.
In the weeks since ending things with Ethan, I'd moved through my days with singular focus—the guardianship process, additional work hours, arranging for Mom's outpatient treatment upon her upcoming release. I'd successfully compartmentalized the pain of losing him until this moment of brief stillness, when memories flooded back with brutal clarity.
Ethan atop the railroad bridge, starlight in his hair. Ethan reading poetry aloud in his car, voice soft with meaning. Ethan with Sophie on his lap, patiently explaining math concepts. Ethan's lips on mine, a connection that felt both dangerous and inevitable.
As if conjured by thought, he appeared at the end of the courthouse hallway, clearly having learned about the court date from Mari, with whom he'd maintained contact despite my distance. Seeing him—thinner, shadows beneath his eyes matching my own—cracked the careful wall I'd built.
“How did it go?” he asked, approaching cautiously.
“Approved,” I said, my voice sounding strange to my own ears. “I'm officially their guardian.”
“Congratulations. Or condolences. I'm not sure which applies.”
The attempt at humor fell flat, grief making us formal strangers. We stood awkwardly, the bustling courthouse continuing around us—lawyers conferring, clerks rushing past, other lives in their own moments of legal definition.
“Mari told me it was today,” he said unnecessarily. “I thought... I don't know what I thought.”
“How are you?” I asked, the ordinary question absurd under the circumstances.
“Terrible,” he answered with unexpected honesty. “I miss you.”
Three words that threatened to unravel weeks of careful emotional containment. I looked away, focusing on a water stain on the opposite wall.
“Is this really it, Leo?” he asked quietly. “Both the guardianship and... us? Is this final?”
I couldn't offer the false hope that would be crueler than clean breaking. “You need to go to college, build your life. I need to be here for them. There's no middle ground where everyone gets what they need.”
“I still don't believe that.”
“I know,” I said, the simple acknowledgment containing multitudes. Belief was a luxury my circumstances didn't allow.
Before we parted, Ethan pressed something into my hand—a book of poetry we'd once shared, passages marked with sticky notes bearing his handwriting. Even without opening it, I knew what they would say—words about separation without ending, about stories continuing on different paths.
“I still believe there could have been another way,” he said, fingers lingering against mine during the transfer.
I didn't answer, the lump in my throat making speech impossible. We separated without formal goodbye—Ethan toward the courthouse exit and the future waiting beyond Riverton, me toward the apartment where my siblings waited, my responsibility, my choice.
At the door, I allowed myself one final glance back, memorizing the straight line of his shoulders, the way sunlight caught his hair, the familiar gait I could recognize from a hundred yards away. Then I turned and walked in the opposite direction, each step an exercise in endurance.
* * *
May sunshine beat down on the graduation ceremony, turning the polyester gowns into personal saunas as we sat in neat alphabetical rows on the football field. From my position in the R section, I could just see the back of Ethan's head in the W's, his tassel occasionally catching the light when he moved.
The ceremony felt surreal, disconnected from my daily reality of night shifts, guardianship responsibilities, and adjusted expectations. When my name was called, I walked across the stage mechanically, accepted the diploma, moved the tassel as instructed. The formal acknowledgment of completion felt hollow against the education I'd received outside classroom walls—in hospital waiting rooms, Social Services offices, and late-night negotiations with bill collectors.
From the stage, I spotted my siblings in the audience—Mari holding my graduation cap that I'd passed to her while lining up, Diego clutching the program, Sophie perched on a neighbor's lap, waving frantically when she saw me. Mom was noticeably absent, having checked herself out of rehab against medical advice three days earlier. Her whereabouts remained unknown, though I'd filed the requisite missing persons report, familiar with the procedure from previous disappearances.
After the ceremony, families spilled onto the field in celebration. I navigated through the crowd with my siblings in tow, dodging well-meaning teachers offering congratulations and avoiding the photographer selling commemorative photos we couldn't afford.
“We need to go,” I reminded Mari, checking my watch. “My shift starts at five.”
She nodded, already understanding the practical concerns that outweighed celebration—the evening shift I needed to work, a school form requiring signature for Diego, the rent increase notice waiting at home.
Before we reached the parking lot, I felt it—the weight of someone's gaze on my back. I turned to find Ethan looking at me across the dispersing crowd. He stood with his parents, their expressions proud if somewhat reserved after his decision to pursue creative writing instead of political science.
Our eyes met and held for three heartbeats—acknowledgment, regret, unspoken farewell. Then I deliberately broke the connection, turning away toward my siblings, my responsibilities, my chosen path.
As we walked to the car, Mari slipped her hand into mine in a rare demonstration of affection. “You did it,” she said simply.
I squeezed her hand, reflecting that “it” was both less and more than anyone else understood—graduation accomplished against odds, family preserved through sacrifice, heart broken but surviving.
The Toyota we were walking toward wasn't much to look at, a decade-old Corolla with rusty wheel wells and a dented rear bumper, but it represented almost two years of grinding work. I had saved every dollar possible from my after-school janitorial shifts at the community center, weekend landscaping jobs for neighbors, and the occasional house painting gig when school breaks allowed. The down payment had emptied my savings account completely.
I had gotten my license just two months ago. The driving lessons had come from a community program for low-income students that my guidance counselor had found for me. The car itself belonged to the uncle of one of my landscaping clients, who had agreed to a monthly payment plan when he heard about my situation with my siblings. Each time I turned the temperamental ignition, I reminded myself that this battered vehicle meant independence, meant one less thing to worry about, meant I could get my siblings where they needed to go without relying on unreliable public transportation schedules.
As we drove away from Riverton High for the last time, I glanced in the rearview mirror. The school grew smaller in the distance, along with the life I might have had, the person I might have become, the love that arrived at exactly the wrong moment in the story.
But ahead of us—in the apartment that wasn't much but was ours, in the future we would build from whatever fragments life had given us—possibility remained. Different than I'd once imagined, but real nonetheless.
The road stretched before us, leading home.