begins to pour into the mug. It’s only halfway done when I hear the rumble of an engine approaching the cabin. Instantly alert, instantly aware that I’m half fucking naked, I peer out of the kitchen window, straining to see who’d be coming up here at this hour in the morning.
I don’t need to wait long. A silver van breaks through the tree line, careening toward the cabin, and a sinking feeling hits me square in the gut. Shiiit. I recognize the van. I last saw it parked in the Parisi’s driveway as I pulled away from their house. It’s the vehicle Silver was driving when she took her brother to soccer practice.
“SILVER!” I yell.
A woman scrambles out of the van. Her hair's the same color as Silver's, and her features bear a marked resemblance, too. She's young. Younger than I expected, but she's obviously Silver's mom. I'm about to bolt out of the kitchen and up the stairs in search of my clothes, already trying to figure out how I'm going to explain why the fuck I'm here, alone with her daughter, and why the hell I thought I'd get away with defiling her, when I watch the woman go down. She collapses into the mud, sinking to her knees, then landing on her ass, and she's…she's fucking crying.
Fuck. Fuckfuckfuck.
I’m out of the door and running towards her before I can assess the situation or decide if it’s even a smart thing to do. The woman looks up, but I can tell she doesn’t really see me. A loud, harrowing sob echoes through the trees. Her face is a rictus of pain. “Mrs. Parisi? Shit, Mrs. Parisi, are you okay? Are you hurt?”
I pat down her shoulders and arms, trying to see if she's injured or something, but she jerks away from me, tucking herself into a ball. Uhhhh…shit. I'm at a loss. I do the only thing I can think of and scoop her into my arms, picking her up out of the mud. She doesn't even question the fact that a strange, half-naked guy is carrying her inside her own cabin. She wraps her arms around my neck and clings to me as I take her up the steps, kicking open the door that almost closed behind me when I rushed outside.
“SILVER!”
In the living room, I gently lay the woman down on the sofa, and she curls up into a ball again, sobbing in a gut-wrenching, horrible way that makes me want to rip my own ears off.
Momma, why are you crying? It’s all right. Everything’s going to be okay. Momma. Momma!
Footsteps thunder down the stairs. Silver arrives in a whirlwind panic, her hair all over the place, wearing nothing but a vest and a tiny pair of shorts. We pose a pretty fucking damning picture, but it doesn’t look like her mom’s paying any attention. Her eyes are screwed tightly shut, her mouth drawn down in a mask of misery. Silver shoots me a bewildered, scared look, and I just stand there, numb, not knowing what the fuck to say.
She rushes to her mom, dropping to her knees with a loud thud, eyes still on me. “What the hell happened?”
“I don’t know. She was doing seventy when she pulled up. When she got out, she was like this.”
“Fuck, Mom. Mom, what’s going on?” Silver tries to take the woman’s hands in hers, but she’s too hysterical to allow it.
“She’s…gone…” she pants. “She’s fucking…gone. She’s dead, Silver. She’s fucking dead.”
A brief flash of confusion pulls at Silver’s features, then her mom’s statement must make sense all of a sudden, because I watch as realization dawns on her. “Gail? Gail died?”
“Yes!” Her mom sounds like she’s dying when she pushes the word out. “It’s…it’s my fault.”
“No.” Silver shakes her head, running her hands over her mom’s hair, trying to soothe her. “No. Mom, it’s not your fault. How can it be your fault?”
“She was angry with me,” she keens. “I was chasing after her. I needed to explain. I just needed to make her stop, but…” She chokes. Barely even gives herself time to recover before she continues. “She drove straight out. Straight into the intersection. She didn’t even look.”
“Mom. Mom, it’s okay. You’re not making any sense. Tell me what happened.”
“She saw me, Silver. She saw me with Dan, in his office. She wouldn’t wait for me to get dressed. She…just left, and I went after her. It is my fault. I killed her.”
23
SILVER
Mom has been acting