Truest (16 page)

“Back in January, I think?” I prompted. “There was an episode about a philosopher and some dream-argument thing.”

“Ahhh,” said Gordon, finally recalling. “René Descartes.”

Silas looked interested.

Gordon summarized, “If dreams and reality share common features, then how do I know I'm not dreaming now?” He chuckled a little. “A massive existential topic folded into a compact statement like origami.”

“I'm not much of a philosopher,” I admitted, glancing at Silas and catching his eye. “I never understood why he thought it was so important to go there—you know, to take it that far.”

“Well,” said Gordon, now in his professorial element, “he was trying to establish doubt. Universal doubt. You know his famous statement, ‘I think, therefore I am'?”

“Heard of it.”

“It was all
en route
to arriving at that point, which we call the ‘cogito': to doubt absolutely everything except that if you can think, then you must exist. If you strip things down and start at square one with the cogito, then your philosophy—however you rebuild it—isn't connected to tradition.”

“But is that a good thing?” I asked doubtfully. “I'm not so sure.”

Gordon grinned with pride. “And you say you're not a philosopher.”

Gordon insisted we stay for dinner. The three of us made hamburgers and salad, and Silas ran out to the car to bring in what was left of our strawberries. It was fascinating to cook with a blind person—Gordon definitely had his own system. All his spices had Braille labels on them, and he used oven mitts when he was anywhere near the stove top. Silas and I were instructed to describe things in the iron frying pan and on the plates according to the face of a clock—“There's a burger at two o'clock, six o'clock, and ten o'clock” or the like. When Gordon got out a knife to slice a tomato, Silas offered to help, but Gordon grinned and said, “Watch me,” then sliced it perfectly.

“You learn tricks,” he said. “It's actually easier for me to cook alone than with someone, since sometimes they forget to tell me if they've opened a drawer or something.” Silas, looking guilty, used his hip to push in the silverware drawer he'd left open. “I heard that,” said Gordon, grinning.

Gordon had a can of whipped cream that we ate with the strawberries for dessert. “Mavis used to make homemade whipped cream,” he said. “It was perfect. I've tried to make it, but if you whip for just a little too long, it starts to turn into butter. It's one of the few things I have never quite managed to conquer without my sight.” Gordon smiled at us. “So where are you off to next?”

Silas looked at me. “I'm afraid that's classified information,” I said.

Silas complained, “I tell ya, Gordon. The girl is crazy.”

“But didn't you know?” Gordon responded. “That's the best kind.”

Back in the car, Silas said, “You never told me.”

“Never told you what?” I asked, waiting for him to buckle his seat belt.

“That you have your own personal Dumbledore.”

We both laughed, then rolled the windows down as we drove. Silas stuck his hand out the window, letting it surf on the wind.

I didn't mention the tiny slipups I'd seen lately from Gordon: calling me the wrong name, misplacing his poetry book, forgetting an
August Arms
episode from just six months ago. I told myself it wasn't a big deal. My mom
always
called me “Shea-Libby-Westlin-whichever-one-you-are.” Junior year, Trudy lost her chemistry book every other day. And Dad was so preoccupied with the church congregation that he forgot about things all the time.

I just wasn't accustomed to the confused one being
Gordon.

Beside me, Silas shifted in his seat as he realized the trajectory of my car. “Your house? We're done?” He sounded disappointed.

“No,” I answered, even as I pulled into my driveway and parked, “and no.” I reached in front of him and took the book
out of the glove compartment. “Come with me.”

Without a word, we snuck across the parking lot and into the church. My heart was pounding as I made last-minute arguments with myself over sharing my bell-tower secret, but my feet marched straight to the unmarked door and unlocked it.

Silas was in awe the entire four-flight climb. I went first, and he followed close behind. He was so much taller than I was that our heads were level even when I was two steps above his. “No one else has a key?” he asked.

Stopping, I turned around and found myself looking right into his excited, dark eyes. “I have one, and I think maybe Joe, our maintenance guy, might have one too. But no one comes up here. Listen, you can't tell anyone I have that key, okay? I've never even taken Trudy up here.”

“How about Elliot?” he asked.

“Nope.”

At the top, Silas walked to the nearest open belfry window and gazed out over the town. The sun was low in the west, flirting with the idea of setting as Jody Perkins rode by on his lawn mower, waving to our neighbors.

Lights from the street below made it so we could just barely see one another inside the tower, but it was dark enough to feel dangerous, mysterious. I turned on the camping lantern in the middle of the small area, and warm amber light spread softly from it. Then, sitting backward on the ledge of the barred window, I opened the book. “Over there,” I said, indicating the
air mattress that lined the adjacent wall. “I'll read.”

“This one,” Silas requested, marking a page with his finger, then sat down and leaned his head back against the stone wall. “Please.”

So I read:

“
since feeling is first

who pays any attention

to the syntax of things

will never wholly kiss you;

“
wholly to be a fool

while Spring is in the world

“
my blood approves
,

and kisses are a better fate

than wisdom

lady i swear by all flowers. Don't cry

—the best gesture of my brain is less than

your eyelids' flutter which says

“
we are for each other: then

laugh, leaning back in my arms

for life's not a paragraph

“
And death i think is no parenthesis
”

Silence for a moment. My head felt a little foggy. What was I thinking? What was I doing—here, in the bell tower, with Silas Hart?

Then, “Thank you,” he said, his voice low, husky, on the edge of breaking. He was quiet again, and I heard his breathing. “I feel spoiled.”

Still in the window ledge, I said, “Nah. It was, you know,
okay
to spend the day with you.” I shrugged, teasing him with over-the-top nonchalance. “I mean, you'll do.”

“Oh, is that right?” he said, and he rose to his feet and joined me on my side of the tower. Silas stood smiling before me, at my eye level even though I was perched in the window, my legs dangling on either side of him. Then he put his hands, warm and soft, on the bare skin above my knees. The light from the lantern outlined his features, and his eyelashes cast tiny shadows across his cheek. “I'll do?” His voice was playful and gentle and low.

There was a frenetic bass drum inside me, in my neck, in my ears. I swallowed. “Mmm, yes, actually I think you'll do quite nicely,” I rambled, thinking how small my voice sounded in the dim tower. He was so close, and he smelled like clean straw and fresh air. I had this vague idea that I should be protesting, that I should not be fanning the tiny flame in me.

But when Silas cupped my face in his hands, his thumbs along my jawline, and leaned in so close that our breath mingled, that flickering flame blazed into a full-on fire. “You're
incredible, Westlin Beck. Do you know that?” he whispered, then quoted the poem, “‘Kisses are a better fate than wisdom.'”

From somewhere inside me, I whispered back a challenge: “Prove it.”

And then he kissed me—soft, sweet, seeking—and there was only room in my thoughts for one boy,
this
boy: Silas Hart, whose kiss was exploding my heart from a bud into a blossom with such alacrity that I marveled I could be so full without bursting. His mouth was asking questions without words, and I hoped I was answering them, even though I didn't know the answers.

Silas leaned his forehead against mine and looked into my eyes. “
That
,” he whispered, “is how you should be kissed.”

And I had to agree.

I drove Silas home after the bell-tower kiss, noticing as I drove that he was scribbling something on a piece of paper, after which he slid the paper into the E. E. Cummings book and asked, “Can I take this? I'll return it myself.”

“Sure,” I said. “What'd you just put in there?”

“Not much,” he said. “Sometimes when I really like a book, I put a note to the next reader in it before it goes back on the shelf.”

“Can I read it?” I asked, reaching for the book.

“No, you may not,” he said, grinning and holding it out of my reach. I kept my eyes on the road while I grinned back and leaned as far as I could into his space.

He kissed my cheek, refusing to relinquish the book, and even though the kiss was tiny and quick compared to earlier
that evening, it still made my stomach flip. “What are you doing on Saturday night?” he asked. “I want to hang out with you.”

I gave up on the book. “That sounds great.”

But no. We had family night on Saturday evening—and it had been my idea.

I tried to be present with my family—instead of thinking continuously of Silas, his face leaning toward mine in the bell tower, his breath sweet like strawberries and cream—as Mom mixed and rolled out the dough for two huge, cookie-pan-sized pizzas. Or of Elliot, my
boyfriend
, whom I hadn't seen since he'd accused me of something that was turning out to be true.

My stomach roiled, and it had nothing to do with hunger, even as we all added our toppings to various parts of the dough, extra cheese for me, a mountain of pepperoni for Shea, pineapple on Dad's and Libby's. The radio was playing Frankie Valli, and Mom and Libby replaced Dad's name for “Sherry.” They howled, “Ker-er-rry, can you come out tonight?” Dad rolled his eyes, and Shea giggled, and I looked around at my happy family and thought about how long it had been since we'd done anything like this. I cared less about seeming cool after spending the summer with a goof like Silas.

Oh, Silas.

Oh, Elliot.

Oh,
Silas.

When the pizzas were done, we sat around the table—such a rare occurrence that we'd had to clear Mom's scrapbook supplies off the table to make room for us all—and Dad, at the head of the table, held out a hand to me on his left and Libs on his right, and said grace. He prayed for the food, and for Tim and Lolly Spencer, whose first baby was due any day now, and for the Hart family to know peace and feel God's presence while Mr. Hart was gone this summer.

At the “amen,” Dad squeezed my hand, and when my siblings practically dove into the pizza, he leaned over to me and said, “I asked everyone to pray at the local clergy meeting yesterday. Reverend Wright said he'd ask his elders to join him, and Father Ziebarth told me after dinner that he'd ask St. Hugh of Lincoln to intercede. Apparently, he is the patron saint of sick children.” He laughed a little and added, “I've never quite understood sainthood.”

I scraped some leftover glue off the table with my thumbnail. “Thanks,” I said, and I hoped he knew how many other things I meant by that one word.

After dinner, we set up Sorry! on the living room floor; Shea, sprawled eagerly across the floor, partnered up with Dad for yellow, I was red, Libby blue, Mom green. We had just started to draw cards and move our pawns when the telephone rang.
My dad got up to answer the phone, even though Mom said, “Oh, Kerry, let it ring tonight.”

All of us in the living room had gone completely silent as we heard Dad's voice change. “When? Just then, really? Do they know any details yet? Yeah, I can be there in half an hour.” He rejoined us. “Bad news, crew,” he said. “Tim and Lolly's baby was born an hour ago, but there's something wrong with the baby. That was Tim; he wants me to come up to the hospital. I'll be gone till late. Shea?”

“Yeah?” my brother asked, looking up from his space on the floor.

“It's up to you to win it for our team.”

Shea smiled at him, but it was weak, disappointed.

“Wait, hold on,” I said, feeling anger bubbling under my skin like an illness. “You can't just leave! We had plans.”

“West, this is an emergency.”

But having Dad leave family night felt like our own emergency.

“Just stay,” I said. “Have Ed go instead.” But he was sliding on his shoes. “You're leaving us—
again.
”

Shea looked down at the board and said, “I don't want to play anymore.”

“Yeah, this game is boring,” said Libby, who had been excited to play only minutes earlier.

“No, you two,” Mom said. “Come on, let's finish this game.”

“Dad?” I asked. My siblings and I all looked at him.

He hesitated for a moment, and I honestly thought the look of our forlorn faces would be enough to make him stop, take off his shoes, call the associate pastor, and ask him to go instead. But he said, “Tim and Lolly are waiting for me. Sorry, guys.” Then he left, pulling the door closed behind him. We stared after him in silence.

Shea grabbed the board and scattered the pieces. “I hate this game!” he shouted. He stormed away while Libby stared after him, wide-eyed.

“Libby, can you go check on your brother?” Mom asked. “West, help me pick up this mess.”

But my anger had gone nowhere; if anything, it had flared when I saw how upset my brother was. I erupted when Mom said, “West, honey? Don't be upset; your dad's a good man.”

“I don't understand you!” I hissed at her. “Of all of us,
you
should be the most upset! Dad is never here, and when he is, he has a headache. You're practically a single parent. You're his wife, not his servant, have you ever realized that?”

“Westlin Beck,” she scolded, her eyes wide and flashing, “don't you dare say those things about your father.”

“Say what?” I sassed back. “The truth? It's true that he's never around. It's true that he has
shitty
priorities.”

“Do not use that language in this house, young lady,” she said, her voice harsh and dangerous, not like her usual throwaway comments on pseudo-profanity. I noticed that she hadn't
disagreed with me though; and yet, she would still defend him.

“Fine,” I said. “Then I'll leave.”

I started walking toward the thumb of Heaton Ridge, calling Silas on the way, realizing only after he'd picked up that I was probably supposed to have called Elliot. “Hey!” Silas said, his voice eager. “Family night over already?”

“Um, I guess you could say that, yeah,” I said. “Can you pick me up?”

“Sure,” he said. “I've got Papa's pickup. Your house?”

“I'm walking toward yours. You'll see me on the way.”

I had almost gotten to the bridge into Heaton Ridge when I saw the familiar Mayhew pickup, the headlights briefly blinding me. The truck shook a little as Silas braked, rolled down his window, and said, “Hey, pretty lady, want a lift?”

Normally I'd have laughed, but I was still so pissed at my dad that I only managed a weak smile.

“Uh-oh, what's wrong?” he asked as I climbed into the passenger's seat. “Where to?” he asked. “The lake?”

“No. Let's go out to the wind farm in Shaw. Remember how to get to Berry Acres? It's near there.”

We took skinny little back roads and then these terribly spooky paths through the cornfields until we were in the middle of the wind farm, this giant ridge outside Shaw that had about two hundred wind turbines on it. We couldn't see the monstrous turbines turning their slow cartwheels in the dark,
but we could see—all around us—one red light atop each one, all blinking in synchrony. Black—then red lights for miles—then back to black.

“Totally creepy,” said Silas, rolling down the windows before turning the truck off and killing the lights. “Like we're in the middle of an alien invasion.”

“I kind of love it.” The
whoosh-whoosh-whoosh
of a nearby turbine was pressing cool night air through the vehicle.

“Me too,” he said. “C'mon.” He opened his door, and I opened mine. In the bed of the truck, he spread out several blankets, and we sat on them, our backs against the cab of the truck, looking out on the wind farm. “Now are you going to tell me what's wrong?”

I told him about Dad bailing on family night to go to the hospital, about Shea messing up the board game, about the look on Libby's face, about what I'd said to my mom. And Silas just listened, his eyes fixed on me while I stared at the field.

“Dads suck,” he surmised. “When mine left, I kinda felt like I had the shittier deal because yours was still here, but now I'm not so sure. Mine will come back, but your dad is here and gone at the same time.”

“I think I'm gonna pierce my nose,” I said, looking up at the blinking monster above us. “To piss him off.”

“You should pierce your nose if you really
want
to pierce your nose,” he said, the voice of reason, “but not just to piss him off.”

I pursed my lips, thinking about tonight and about what I'd look like with a tiny diamond stud in my nose. “Yeah, maybe,” I said. “Or get a trampy new swimsuit.”

“That,
yes
,” Silas said. “I'm in wholehearted agreement. Definitely. Please do.”

“Pervert,” I said as we both laughed.

“Is there another kind of seventeen-year-old male?” he asked.

“Gosh, I'm glad you're here this summer,” I told him. “I'd be going crazy without you.”

“Same,” he said. “At least soon you'll have Trudy back too. But you're all I've got.”

“And Laurel,” I said.

“I suppose. And Laurel,” he conceded.

“I hope I still have Trudy in the fall,” I said. “On the Fourth, she seemed like a different person. Talking about going away for college and all about her new camp friends. It was like she'd forgotten about me. And she only stayed for like twenty-four hours. What's with that? It was our one chance to see each other till the summer is over.”

“Things with Trudy will be fine,” he said. “Everything will be fine. You'll see. The crux of the matter is that you two have history.”

“History,” I repeated softly, thinking how Elliot and I had history too—and yet I was sitting in the bed of a pickup truck with Silas tonight.

There was a long pause, silent except for the rushing air being pressed by the windmills, then Silas announced, “I love the word ‘crux.' How could anyone not love that word?”

I giggled.

He continued, “The word even looks like what it is, like this important little block, this core.”

“Mmm,” I said in agreement. “How about ‘cavalier'? Rolls right off your tongue.”

“Applause,” he said.

“Callous.”

“Archaic.”

“Valor,” I said. “Doesn't it just make you want to
storm a castle
?” I pushed up my sleeve. “Look, I have goose bumps!”

“Tell Elliot it's over,” he said, his voice calm, steady.

“
What?
” I said, my voice the opposite of his.

“Tell him it's over. It is, isn't it?”

Ahhh, so these were the answers I was giving him as I had kissed him back two nights ago; I was grateful for the upload.

“What about Beth?”

“I broke up with her last week; that's why I went back to Fairbanks.”

“You broke up with Beth,” I repeated, letting it sink in. My head was unspooling; my heart, an uncaged bird.

“It wasn't fun,” he admitted. “And even though I had
no clue
if anything would ever happen between you and me, I knew I had to do it.”

Silas smirked as he added, “I gotta admit: when you went ballistic after I left, that was a shot in the arm for what I needed to do. I kept reading that text where you called me a bastard like it was a love letter begging me to hurry home.”

We both laughed, silent laughter, the kind that is more in the eyes than the throat.

“Why?”
I asked.

Silas, still smiling softly, reached out and touched my face. His finger traced a line down my cheek and rested on my jaw, and it felt like fireworks going off in my head. He whispered, “I've belonged to you since the second you showed up on my doorstep.”

I pulled his hand away and looked at him. “You
hated
me when we first met! You looked like I'd just stolen your birthday.”

“I mean it.” He had that wild, goofy grin on his face again.

“You're crazy.”

“West.” He took my face in his hands, and this time I let him. “It's true. I saw you, and I was yours.”

“I don't—”

“The thing is,
I didn't want to be.
I knew Dad was probably headed back to Fairbanks soon, and I had a ticket too. I wanted to be with Beth and Josh and the rest of my friends. Get as far away from Green Lake as I could. Convince my parents I should stay for senior year. Shhh . . . let me talk. But I was finished when I saw you. At first, I thought maybe I could
just ignore it all and push you away.” He smiled, remembering. “And then you went for the bookcase, and I about lost it. Do you remember I left the room?”

“When you came back, your hair was wet.”

“I went and splashed frickin' cold water on my face.”

I laughed. “No way.”

“Way. I had all these plans—Beth, Alaska, senior year—but you ruined them all. You destroyed my old plans and
became
my new plan.”

Whoa.

I thought of the night we had listened to
August Arms
on the lifeguard stand, when he'd talked so cryptically about Alaska.
Unceremonious, ignoble, risky, necessary.
It all made sense now.

“I'm an idiot,” I said, laughing under my breath as all the puzzle pieces came together.

“And I'm in love with you,” he said.