Living Silver

October 11th, 7:32 pm.

The one event that made me completely change my attitude toward Dalton was on a Tuesday night.

I was dragged out of my house by my mom and dad, even though I had set the night aside so I could watch television. It was the first time in a long time that I didn’t have homework, so I had planned to take advantage of it by catching up on my favourite show, but when they announced we were going out as a family to catch up with Nick and Marcy, my plans were just thrown through the dirt. Besides, I saw Nick every day of my life now; I didn’t need to catch up with him about anything.

We were crammed into a tiny corner of Nick’s favourite restaurant because he hadn’t bothered to make reservations for something he had apparently planned for, for a week now. And yet, I was the last one to find out about it, ten minutes before we actually left the house. My family couldn’t plan for crap. The restaurant was packed, so seating was limited but we managed to get a table at the last minute. I sat beside my mom, who was crammed in the corner with Nick and Marcy on the other side, and my dad on the end. I could barely pay attention to anything anyone was saying because I refused to. Nick and I spent most of the night kicking each other’s shins under the table or casually stabbing each other in the hand or the arm with our forks and spoons, but neither of our parents bothered to say anything. They were used to it.

And halfway through dinner, I spotted Dalton. He was sitting with his sister and parents, all four of them arguing with each other. Then he stood up, lifted his hands to show he had given up and went to the bathroom. I didn’t really like him all that much—I tolerated him—but Karlee obviously did. And it was an unwritten rule that if your friend likes someone, you have to at least make the attempt to as well. Aimee was also hassling me to get used to having him around, so managing a full conversation was a start. I waited until he came back out, and then excused myself from the table to go talk to him.

He spotted me walking over and stopped where he was. He put his hands in his back pockets and slouched over, looking bored.

“Hey,” he said first.

“Family argument?” I asked, nodding to the table he had been sitting at.

He shrugged. “It’s no surprise. Fighting with each other is what we’re good at. It never changes.”

I nodded understandably. “That sucks.”

“Yeah, well what are you going to do?” he asked rhetorically, and pushed his bangs back. “So what’re you doing here? Just a night out with the fam’?”

“Pretty much. My parents want the lowdown on how my brother is doing and his plans for the future.” I crossed my arms and shuddered. “Unfortunately babies are the highlight of this conversation.”

He laughed. “They ruin it for everyone.”

“They really do.”

“So what’s going on here?” he asked, pointing a finger back and forth between the two of us. “You usually don’t talk to me. It’s almost like you avoid me or something.”

I was a little surprised, to say the least. I hadn’t expected him to be so forward about it. “I guess I just don’t know you that well,” I replied.

He tilted his head to the side and took a step toward me. Out of impulse and feeling a little anti-territorial, I took a step back. “Would you like to?” he asked. My back hit the wall in an instant. I hadn’t even realized I was that close until they collided. A smirk snuck onto Dalton’s face.

I stuttered my response. “I . . . you, uhm—”

“Lost for words already?” Dalton snickered, lifting a hand and grabbing a lock of my hair. I gawked at him, shocked and staggered into complete silence. “I knew I had that effect on Karlee but I wouldn’t have figured someone as . . .” He looked me up and down quickly, then returned his eyes to mine after a painfully long couple of seconds. He was checking me out. “Someone as bold as you would be so quick to leave breathless.”

What the hell.

“Maybe sometime we can get to know each other a little better.” He winked. “See you around.” He turned briskly and walked back to his table but I was still pressed up against the wall, playing everything over in my head.

This was an unexpected change of events, and I really didn’t know what to do about it.



I felt the need to talk to someone about what had happened at the restaurant, because I had been uneasy and filled with guilt ever since it had happened. I couldn’t tell Karlee, because it would be like penetrating my hand right through her skin, grabbing her heart with greedy hands, pulling it back out of her chest, then throwing it on the ground and stomping on it repeatedly until it was just a bloody, goopy mess. I went to Pax instead, and rapped on the front door with shaking fists. I really couldn’t be completely sure if Dalton was just kidding around to make himself feel better about what was going on with his family at his table, or if he was being serious, but I needed to get it off my chest because it was just killing me to hold it in for that long. Of course, it had only been about eighteen hours, but for me, it was eighteen hours too long.

I spent the entire school day avoiding Karlee because most of the time, she was with Dalton. Luckily though, it wasn’t all that hard because she had gone from soccer practice after school to hanging out with him. Lunch was the only problem, and I was still with her but I just kept my head down for most of it.

Pax’s mom let me in and told me that Trey had gone out with Ruby, so that left Pax alone in his room. I slipped off my shoes and walked up the stairs, a little nervous. I didn’t know why, but I was worried about what he would say; would he be angry? He really had no reason to be but at the same time, he would probably want to kick Dalton’s ass for touching my hair and getting that close to me.

“Pax?” I asked, knocking lightly. I didn’t get an answer, but I heard music playing quietly from his computer so I stepped in anyway and found him at his desk. He was leaning back in his chair, one hand over his mouth and the other on the mouse as he contemplated what he was doing. “Hey, what’re you up to?” I asked.

“Ryan wants me to edit this video for him. It’s kind of hard to do that when the filming is such crappy quality though,” he said, lifting his hands and pushing them through his hair. “I need to take a break. This thing is pissing me off and it isn’t even my project. Anyway, what’s up?” He turned his chair toward me and leaned over his knees. His eyes narrowed suddenly as he appeared to be scanning my expression to see what was off. “Are you okay?”

“Not really,” I admitted.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, taking my hand and pulling me onto his lap.

I took a deep breath. “I think Dalton hit on me.”

He looked surprised. “What?”

“I ran into him last night when I went out for dinner with my family and I just went over to say hello. You know how it’s like a basic law of friendship that if your friend likes them, you have to at least try to?” I began. Pax nodded, urging me to continue. “Well yeah, that’s why I went to him but . . . I don’t know, I guess he took it the wrong way or was having fun with it or something. It just really made me uncomfortable.”

“What did he say?” he asked, rubbing his hand up and down my thigh for some emotional comfort.

“Well he had asked me why I was talking to him, because apparently I avoid him at school and I only said that it was because I don’t know him all that well and he said ‘would you like to?’. And after that, it just got ridiculous,” I explained, shaking my head. “Do you think it means anything?”

“Uhm. yes,” he said obviously. “Did he touch you?”

“Yeah.”

Pax frowned. “Where?”

“It was just my hair. But he like, backed me up into a corner almost. I was trying to get away from him when I noticed he was getting closer,” I said.

The arm Pax had wrapped around my waist suddenly stiffened. “All right, that’s it. I’m killing him,” he said, lifting me off him and heading for the door.

“Pax,” I said, grabbing his hand. “Don’t be silly. I’m sure he was just kidding.”

“Laughing it off is kidding. Touching your hair is hitting on you. Sorry, but I’m not going to just sit around and act like it’s nothing,” he said, taking another step for the stairs but I used me other hand now to take hold of his wrist and pull against him.

“What are you going to do, punch him? What will that solve?” I asked.

“Nothing, but it’ll make me feel a hell of a lot better.”

“Breaking his nose will only end in a restraining order.”

“Can I get one for you too?”

“Come on.” I reached past him and closed the door. Then I pulled him to the bed with minimal effort because he just didn’t seem to be going for the exit anymore. “I need to figure out what I’m going to do and I came to you because you’re the only person I could trust with this. Promise me that you won’t say anything to Karlee or Trey.”

“I won’t, but what about you?”

“I don’t know,” I said, bringing my legs up on the bed and wrapping my arms around my knees. “Should I tell her?”

“I don’t think that’s the best idea. It would just upset her and you know what she's like; she doesn't want her relationships to be based on what other people tell her,” he said. “As long as it ends here and you just avoid him, it’ll go away.”

“I doubt it,” I mumbled, but I knew I had to try.



“I already told you what bioaccumulation is,” my biology teacher, Mr. Rush said, rubbing his forehead.

“And I’m looking for an example,” Darren Woodrow returned, mocking him.

“Okay, fine. Say a fish takes in a harmful toxin and is then eaten by an even larger fish. That toxin is passed onto the secondary consumer. So what happens when a human eats that fish?” he asked, leaning back on the edge of his desk and putting his hands in his pockets.

“The person is taking in that toxin as well as the fish,” Trey said, finally lifting his pencil from the paper for the first time in, at least, fourty minutes.

“I have a question,” Dylan Dowers said, sticking his hand up in the air. “If a girl has an STD, like gonorrhea or some shit like that, does that mean that every time she has sex with someone, they get the G tenfold?”

Trey and I looked at each other, holding in our laughs but we couldn’t say the same for the rest of the class; they were already in hysterics.

Mr. Rush cleared his throat. “I’d assume that’s how it works, yes. But to be politically correct, it’s STI, not STD. Now, does anyone have a question about biology?”

“No one ever has a question about biology,” I mumbled.

“Yeah, and I’m one of them,” Liam said from beside me, turning in his chair. “Would you like to go on a date with me this Friday?”

I dropped my pencil and looked at him, taken aback. He looked adorable with his wry little smile and the pink tint sneaking onto his freckled cheeks. And I should have been ecstatic to be asked out on a date for the first time in months, especially by Liam. So many girls thought he was cute, and it wasn’t as if he didn’t have dating experience. But I didn’t want to date him. I didn’t like him that way, and there was no way I was going to be able to bring myself to say yes. He talked too much, and I would not be able to go on a date with him if he was the exact same as he was in class.

I could see, out of the corner of my eye, Trey leaning forward to watch the scene unravel so innocently in front of him.

“I know we know next to nothing about each other,” Liam continued, “but I was thinking I could get to know you a bit better if—”

“I’m sorry, I’m already seeing someone,” I responded fluently without faltering or even the slightest of hesitation.

Liam blinked, surprised. “You are?”

“Yes.”

Trey snorted and I jabbed my recently sharpened pencil into his hand. He immediately retracted it with a yelp.

“Oh.” Liam scratched behind his head. “Okay, no big deal.”

He turned back to face the front of the classroom and I bit my lip, suddenly feeling very embarrassed. I really just wanted to bury my head in the sand with fire ants.

“Well, this is awkward,” Trey said a little too obviously. “So . . . what are everyone’s plans for the weekend?” When neither of us answered him, he used his elbow to knock my pencil case off the table. It hit the ground and everything spilled out of it, drawing the attention of everyone in the classroom. “Oh, I’m so sorry!” Trey exclaimed. I closed my eyes and gritted my teeth. “Here, I’ll help you clean this up.”

“You better,” I muttered.

“Do we have control over the situation?” Mr. Rush asked impatiently.

“Yeah, we’ve got it covered,” Trey answered, getting off his chair and onto his hands and knees on the floor. I looked down at him and he moved his eyes to the pencil case repeatedly. I cocked a brow, taking the hint and got down with him. “Okay, uhm . . . what the hell was that?” he asked quietly, slowly gathering some of the pencils together.

“I could ask you the same thing,” I hissed. “Why did you do that?”

“I need to talk to you,” he replied. Mr. Rush was sending us multiple miniature glares beneath the desk every time we caught his eye because our shuffling, scrambling and whispering about was only distracting his lesson. Admittedly, I felt a little bad about that, even though I couldn’t stand him.

“And it couldn’t have waited until after class?” I asked Trey.

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because.”

“Because why?”

“Because.”

“That answer does not suffice.”

“Because I felt like doing it now.”

I stared at him for a minute, then shook my head. “You’re ridiculous,” I said, stuffing some pens into the pencil case again.

He grabbed my hand and I looked up. “Why did you say you’re seeing someone? Pax isn’t your boyfriend.”

I was confused. “What?”

“You turned Liam down because you’re ‘seeing someone’. You can’t count what you and my brother have as anything more than hooking up,” he said.

I paused. “Did I really say that?” He nodded and I groaned. “I didn’t mean it. It was a reflex response. I really just don’t want to go on a date with him.”

“What are you going to do?” Trey asked.

“What do you mean?”

He rolled his eyes. “You just don’t get it, do you? By saying you were seeing someone, you insinuated that you have a boyfriend. And in your current situation, that means you want one.”

“So?”

He hit me lightly across the face and my eyes went wide in surprise. “Wake up, Andy! You want Pax to be your boyfriend.”

I blinked. “So you’re saying—”

“Yes.”

“I like him?” I whispered.

“You like him,” he nodded. “You like him, you crazy girl.” He gave my hand a light squeeze, then put the rest of my pencil crayons back in the case and gave it to me. Trey got up again and sat in his chair, leaving me on the ground to think about what I had just done.

And as I reached out to grab the last black pen under his seat with shaky hands, something small and shiny fell back out of the pencil case.

Rolling across the floor . . . was a single silver pearl.

Thirteen, I thought. But at the moment, I really couldn’t have cared less about the pearls, or what number I was on, or why I was even still bothering to keep track.

What was I doing?