Page 120 of The Story of You

His was being with us.

When I parked the car, he got out first and attempted to retrieve Oliver. “C’mon bud. I’m way cooler than Silas. I’m the one who’s gonna bootleg for you when you want to go to fun parties.”

“You’d better be joking,” I said.

“We’ll see.” He winked and unbuckled Oliver, holding his arms out.

Oliver’s eyes searched for me. “Darry?” he asked.

“That’s Darry. You can go with Darry.”

Uncertain, he allowed Darius to lift him out and settled against him wearily. His eyes never left me.

Once we were settled in the room, Darius sat at the small table near the kitchenette with Oliver in his lap. I brought out the food, mostly for Oliver. Darius and I agreed that we’d be the ones rationing our resources. We had to get enough, but with things so uncertain, it was best to be conservative. We split a sandwich we’d bought from the gas station.

“You sit there, Baba?” Oliver said, pointing to the seat across from him and Darius.

“Yes, Eaglet. Let me get you a drink first.” I poured water into his sippy cup and sat with them, doing my best to stay awake.

“Should we dye our hair? What’s next, Sye?” Darius said.

I was the eldest. That made me leader by default. I wanted to take the mantle, but in those first days, I was such a fucking mess. I lived in survival mode. I vacillated between my broken heart and making sure we all stayed alive.

“I’m definitely cutting mine,” I said.

“Let’s get a pair of scissors and give each other haircuts—save money on hairdressers.”

I nodded. “Let’s hold off on the hair dye until we absolutely need it.” We needed money for food.

“We can both get jobs, Silas. We have enough for a security deposit on an apartment—I was reading the paper every morning at the Taylors’. Someone will hire us. We’ll switch off.”

“When will we sleep?” Sleep. An unfortunate necessity of being a human.

“Haven’t figured that part out yet … well, unless you’re ready to talk about Simon and Shane.”

I scrubbed a hand over my face. The idea terrified me. I wasn’t going to say that though. “Let’s see what we can do on our own first.”

“Okay.”

He didn’t fight me on that one like he did so many other things. He knew something of my state of mind. He waited patiently for me to get to where he was on the matter.

“How far is far enough?” I asked him. From Dad I meant.

“Nowhere, Silas. We won’t be safe until he’s dead.”

“We can’t murder him.”

“I wasn’t suggesting it. It doesn’t make what I said any less true.”

“We’ll always be on the run,” I realized out loud.

“Always, Silas. So, we’d better get fucking good at some things fast.”

Things like hiding, stealing, lying, smooth-talking, deception, and secret-keeping just to name a few. All the things you’re taught are “bad”. For us they were survival.

“I’ve been looking at the map. The next town—while not huge—has lots of stuff. Could be good for jobs. We’ll pick up a newspaper, okay?”

I was uneasy about settling yet, but at the same time eager to. Oliver needed some stability.