Page 126 of The Story of You

All was a go, but we’d have to wait for Silas’s next set of days off. It was the week from hell. Silas couldn’t get over the incident. The first day, he called in sick, which risked his job altogether. The second, Mrs. Sharma dropped by with the curry, and I got the grand idea to invite her over. She already knew about us, and she seemed to stay up late.

Of course, Silas didn’t like it. We didn’t know her. Silas had a list of paranoias. I pointed out that she was somewhere near eighty and that if she wanted to steal our shitty mattress and even shitter thrift store goods, she was welcome to it all. Logic won Silas over and he liked the idea of her keeping me awake and reminding me to lock the door.

Wednesday and Thursday, we went back to our usual, but Silas insisted he lock the door behind him, and then I would tell him when the new inside locking devices he’d added to the door were in place, and then I wasn’t to leave or open the door unless there was an emergency.

Silas barely slept all week. He couldn’t shake what happened.

Friday he was just as bad as Monday like the rest of the week hadn’t happened.

Our routine was we’d sleep huddled together on the mattress from eight am—when Silas got home from work—until noon when I had to get up so I could be at my shift at the grocery store by one pm. When I woke up, he was already awake, whisking up a batch of pancakes. Just the boxed mix. Real ingredients were out of our budget.

Oliver slept. I stared at him—jealous of his sleeping—before slipping on my work clothes. Thank fuck we could afford coffee. Silas already had it brewing.

“Why are you awake, Silas?”

Usually, I took care of my own breakfast (which was eaten at noon) before I ran out the door so he could sleep longer. Then I slept when I got home until he had to leave.

“I’m not going to work tonight.”

“Because of my fuck up.” It wasn’t a question.

“Yes. And since I’m not, I’m going to take care of you. You’re still a growing boy.”

I was a child, but I didn’t feel like one. I’d already been doing too many adult things. “That’s the lot of orphans, Silas.”

“It doesn’t need to be for you. I can make you breakfast.”

“You need the sleep. We have a system.”

“The system stopped working.”

I scrubbed my hand over my face. “It was one time, Silas.”

“One time in which we were very lucky.”

“You can’t keep taking days off work.”

“I agree.”

“What’s your big plan then?”

“I don’t know. I hope I’ll feel better about it when we have your friends with us. It has nothing to do with you.”

I knew that even then. It’s always been clear that his priority was Oliver. If his protective instincts decided Oliver was in danger that consumed him.

It’s why when Oliver was assaulted when he was twenty, I didn’t say a word about Silas’s freakishly paranoid measures. There was no point. Nothing was going to stop him.

I let him serve me breakfast. I felt guilty about it, but the four hours of sleep I’d gotten did little to revive me. There’s a reason why teenagers sleep in ten-hour stretches. I was still growing. I couldn’t do more than yawn while I drank coffee. If I had “made” breakfast for myself, it would have been some sugary cereal that would have lasted an hour in my bloodstream before I was crashing and sneaking bites of my lunch without my boss seeing. Silas’s pancakes and eggs would get me through until my meal break.

Walking to work half asleep, I dreaded the day ahead. They were long days. Stock grocery shelves. Carry old people’s bags to their car. Smile at everyone even if they don’t deserve it—the most exhausting thing of all. The usual after that would be me eating a quick dinner when I got home and then sleeping for another four hours—if I could with Oliver banging around—and then get up so Silas could get ready for work, only to have it repeat the next day. It fucking sucked.

At least that night, we could all get some sleep.

It was worse for Silas though. I knew he was struggling with whatever happened with Dad. I didn’t know all of the details, just that when he was awake, he processed the demons. When he slept, it was often restlessly.

All I had to do was not fall asleep on top of the eggplants in the produce section and keep Oliver from escaping the apartment.

My boss was in a real bitchy mood that day. He was pissed that the deliveries had arrived late. Guess who was going to unload them? I didn’t have the energy for it, but I didn’t want to lose my shitty-ass job so I smiled—fakely—and grabbed the largest box I could carry. Tomatoes. Cans and cans of fucking tomatoes. I set myself up in the aisle and began arranging them Sleeping with the Enemy style—all labels facing forward—yawning, the floor looking like as good a place as any to crash for seventy hours.