Page 81 of Sharing Silence

She smiles. “You’ll help me regroup even if you’re not the one hurting me?”

“I’ll help you regroup until you tell me not to.”

As we’re drying ourselves, she suddenly pauses, her back to me. The air is thick with steam and words she’s clearly debating. Eventually, she faces me, her towel wrapped around her.

“My dad thought people were coming for us, so he trained me to defend myself. But … he took it too far. Forgot I was a kid sometimes.” She drops her chin and curls her toes, as if reminding herself she’s not in the past. “He broke me.”

A few sentences, and I suddenly know all I need to know about Silence Silver. I’m glad she finally said it, but even if she hadn’t, I’d learn to live with the secret. I don’t care if she’s in pieces, as long as those pieces are mine.

I pull her to me, dropping a kiss on her shoulder. “He tried to. Women like you don’t break, Silence. You bend, and you come back stronger. Never let them know they got to you. Never let them think they got even close to fracturing your soul.” She searches my face, eyes wide. “You hit back, or you let us do the hitting for you. But you don’t give up. Okay?”

She nods.

When we’re dressed, we head downstairs. Yale is cooking, and Zayden is watching him and talking animatedly. They’re both grinning, and when Silence and I appear, Zayden holds his arm out. She presses herself into his side, and he kisses her temple.

“Yale was just saying if we’re gonna be here longer, we’ll need to get a Christmas tree,” Zayden says.

I steal some chopped peppers from a plate and shove them in my mouth quickly before Yale can stop me. “And presents.”

“We can’t decorate this whole place, though,” Silence says. “It’d take forever.”

“Just the living room, then. But we have to have Christmas,” Yale says, shaking a spoon at me.

We eat. We talk. We go to the living room, where Yale has set up a livestream on the TV of Times Square, so Silence can people-watch to her hearts content. With her head on Yale’s lap and her feet on mine, we watch thousands of people marching their way through a snowy New York, shopping bags and coffee cups in hand. Silence makes up stories about them, and I rub her feet, trying to come up with stories of my own and failing.

Through it all, Zayden watches us, a small smile on his lips.

Chapter 25

Silence

After two hours of story-making, with Xavier getting into it way more than I thought he would, sleep becomes too tempting. I stand, and I’m already yawning as I lean down and kiss Yale good night.

I freeze.

The kiss is casual, a quick peck before leaving the room, something I’ve done a thousand times with Zayden. Now I’m doing it with Yale, and my instinct was to go to Xavier next, then Zayden. A kiss for each of them, a reminder I’m going, but I’ll think of them.

It’s been twenty-four hours, and I’m already treating them as more. I’ve stepped into the role of girlfriend, when I can never be that.

Zayden watches me. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, I … I’m just tired.” I hurry away, the memory of the kiss on my heels.

When I reach the bedroom, I pause, my breathing fast, my mind spinning.

This was supposed to be sex. A way to explore a side of ourselves safely. It isn’t a relationship. It can’t be.

Can it?

Is that what I want? A relationship with them?

I felt a shift when I was on my knees for Xavier. The intensity in his stare had me holding my breath, and I didn’t want it to end. I thought about him ever looking at someone else like that, and the jealousy that curled around my gut made me want to scream.

And Yale, too. Setting up that CCTV of Times Square for me. The way he stroked my hair as we watched it, making up silly backgrounds for people we’ll never meet.

What if he finds that with someone else?

What if he leaves me?