Page 152 of Wayfarers

“Hey.” Sylvie wriggles from my grasp, eyes ardent. “What’s going on?”

“Yeah, that girl seemed pretty nuts.”

“Don’t gaslight me, Knox. I know who she was. And she acted like she knew you. Why? How does she know to call you ’Munk?”

I’m still searching for some explanation while the blood drains from Sylvie’s face. “Sylvie,” I say quietly. My face burns as shoppers rubberneck, surreptitiously raising phones, probably to film what looks like a lover’s spat by the stink bait. “Can we talk about it outside?”

“Where she is?”

“Where all these people aren’t.”

Sylvie exhales angrily and speedwalks toward the store’s entrance, and I struggle to keep pace. She stops short at the doors. “Go out and make sure she’s gone. I’m not leaving if she’s out there.”

I obey and report back. “No sign of Dawn.”

“‘Dawn’ is her name?”

“It’s how I knew her. It probably isn’t her real name.”

“Very cool, that company you kept. All using bogus names.” Sylvie shakes her head and makes for the van, eyes fixed to the ground. She climbs in and slams the door. “I’m surprised she didn’t steal my whole van and Winslow too while we were in the store. The windows were down.”

I get in and sit beside her. “I haven’t been completely honest with you.”

“Oh you don’t say.”

“You’re right to be angry. I deserve it.”

“Well, thank you for that permission.”

“Can I explain?”

“I don’t know, ’Munk, can you? And I’m not saying that like how your English teacher says ‘I don’t know, can you use the bathroom?’ I legitimately cannot imagine any explanation for why you would sit there and listen to me relate what was pretty obviously a traumatic experience and keep totally silent about your very close connection to said experience. And then you let me find out like that?”

“I’m—”

“What is your name, even? Knox? ’Munk? None of the above?”

“It’s Knox. That’s my real name.”

Sylvie laughs a cold and bitter laugh. “See, how can I even believe that? How can I believe anything you tell me ever from now on?”

Sylvie

“Sylvie,” he says, frustrated, “is that really something you feel like you can say to me?”

“That’s a low blow.”

“Is it?” he asks. “Because I feel like, I don’t know, nine hours ago I was finally getting the truth of your situation with Cal. And I don’t remember treating you like you’re treating me now.”

I want to murder him. “Forgive me, I forgot I was talking to an actual saint, shiny halo screwed on, aw shucks, who me?, just innocent babe in the woods! Me, ’Munk? I’m a guy who’s happy to equate my not wanting to talk about my dead boyfriend that you never met with your knowing the girl who stole from me and shoved me to the ground.”

My God, I think. Do I hate him for forgiving me?

“Wow,” he’s saying, “okay, Sylvie,” dismissive, and he’s clearly just ramping up, and there’s something in it, in the jut of his chin and the way his good hand comes up just a hair, and I’m back in last year, Cal patting my knee after I cracked a joke about the stupid movie he made me watch, not laughing and patting my knee to reassure me that it’s okay he’s not laughing, it’s okay that he thinks I’m not funny, he in fact knows funny, he’s the judge, jury, and executioner of funny, and—

Outside a dog is barking, barking, barking. “Shut up,” I say, and I don’t know if I’m talking to Cal or the dog. “Shut up! Fine, we both suck! I get it!”

“What?”