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Silas stares at his plate for a while “A long tio, before you were born, Jack broke intovery special from me”

“What did he take?”

“A rifle It was ift to me before he died” He scrubs a hand down his face “Jack sold it to buy drugs”

“Oh” My heart aches for Silas, but also for my dad In a few rare s in his youth that he wasn’t proud of He wouldn’t go into detail, but it was obvious the awful things he’d done still haunted hi toward my own fuckups

“It’s not just that he stole i

t,” Silas adds “It’s that, when I confronted him about it, he lied to my face Beforeaway ale But Jack apparently thought nothing of throwing it all away over a bag of coke, so” Silas shrugs

Guilt winds tighter and tighter around my throat, like vines For days, I’ve wanted to tell hi, the whole messed-up story But I'm scared once he learns the truth about what I’ve done, the things I allowed to happen, he'll hate me

My dad lied to hiain If I tell him I’m the reason irl The day we met, he looked me in the eye and toldto differentiate between a lie of omission and a half truth

I bring our dishes to the sink, rinse the to take a shower In the bedroom, I decide it’s finally time to turn on my phone As I suspected, there are over twenty es Some from my mom, a few from my friends, but most of them from Brody

“What’s wrong?” Silas asks fro my anxiety on my face

“Nothing,” I say, turning my phone back off “Just some stupid texts”

Honestly, I wish they were just stupid Stupid, I can take Rude, insulting, even disgusting ht But the threats Brody’s been sendingNot least of all because I know he’s capable of following through

“Fro me on the bed I nod He folds his arirl No one is ever going to hurt you again”

If only I could believe him

Chapter Nine